| decided that it would utilize WPA2- | To be successful, Shelton felt the BYOD |
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| Enterprise to provide a safe wireless | network needed to be easy to use and “Technology is now woven into |
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| network for educational use. WPA2- | reliable. The fact that the network was every student’s life. If we didn’t |
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| Enterprise provides user authentication, | secure could not be an excuse for it |
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| over-the-air encryption, and network | being difficult or time consuming to embrace BYOD, we would be |
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| authentication. For FCPS, it most | access. According to Shelton, “Wireless ignoring huge educational |
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| importantly protects the student and | network configurations that take 20 opportunities.” |
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| faculty community by encrypting their | minutes to set up and troubleshoot Neal Shelton |
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| over-the-air communications and | for 10,000 students quickly leads to Network Engineering Supervisor |
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| preventing man-in-the-middle attacks, | 200 days worth of productivity loss for Fairfax County Public Schools |
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| which are commonly administered by | IT and, more importantly, 200 days of |
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| launching an imitation wireless network. | learning lost by students.” In evaluating options to make BYOD easier, FCPS sought a solution that would onboard devices in a light- handed, self-service manner. They desired a solution that would provide simplified network access without requiring heavyweight management |
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| Facing the challenges of | like Microsoft Group Policy (GPO) and |
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| deployment | Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. |
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| to WPA2-Enterprise was that it was | Cloudpath Enrollment System |
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| originally designed for environments | Bridges the Gap FCPS turned to Cloudpath® Enrollment System to make the new BYOD network a reality for 180,000 students and 23,000 staff members, with 120,000 concurrent Wi-Fi users daily. CommScope® RUCKUS met the daunting |
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| challenge faced by Fairfax County Public | According to Shelton, “Technology is |
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| Schools by enabling students and | now woven into every student’s life. If |
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| faculty members to quickly access the | we didn’t embrace BYOD, we would be |
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| BYOD network with nearly any device. | ignoring huge educational opportunities. |
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| The automated, self-service model of | As a district, we have chosen to take |
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| Cloudpath ensures the device is properly | advantage of the situation and to extend |
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| configured and connected to the secure | the learning environment in new ways. |
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| network without IT involvement. | This means our BYOD network is mission critical. The ability for us to act upon this opportunity is based on our wireless infrastructure and Cloudpath’s ability to easily connect users.” |
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