St Columba College
President Avenue, Andrews Farm SA 5114
08 8254 0600
http://stcolumba.sa.edu.au
Case Study – St Columba College
Caznet worked with St Columba College to implement a new ICT strategy aimed at improving the on-campus network, providing reliable business internet connectivity and introducing cloud computing to enable a modern approach to learning while reducing costs.
Solution Overview
- Managed on-campus network
- Secure and scalable wireless network to support BYOD and mobile devices
- Dark Fibre to the Caznet Network
- 1 Gbps Internet Service
- Caznet VoIP and an IP PBX to replace the aging ISDN PBX
- Migration of the on-premises servers to the Caznet Private Cloud
- Office 365 to replace the on-premises mail server and introduce SharePoint, OneDrive, Classroom Notebook and other technologies for use in the classroom and College administration
About St Columba College
St Columba College, located in the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide, is the first joint venture, coeducational school in Australia. It was established in 1996 as an ecumenical initiative of Archbishops, Ian George and Leonard Faulkner, at that time the Anglican and Catholic Archbishops of Adelaide. Today the College has an enrolment of over 1400 students.
The Challenge
Since establishment, St Columba College has grown significantly from an R-7 primary school to a College of over 1400 students in Reception to Year 12 and 180 staff across three campuses. The College’s ICT infrastructure supporting student learning, staff and the administration had become challenging to manage and scale leading to performance, reliability and security concerns.
St Columba College was operating a fleet of physical servers and storage systems, an insufficient 40 Mbps internet service and an aging phone system running exclusively on-premises applications over a flat and unmanaged network.
The College identified a need to develop a long-term ICT strategy which would guide future infrastructure investment, aid in the transition to BYOD, improve communications and connectivity, enable the uptake of emerging technologies within the classroom and reduce overall cost.
The Solution
Starting with the on-campus network, a new network stack (switches, routers and wireless access points) was deployed across the College over a privately-owned fibre optic network established between the three closely situated campuses. Wi-Fi providing complete coverage across the College was deployed enabling the transition away from fixed desktops to laptops and mobile devices.
Reliable connectivity would be crucial to supporting emerging technologies and modern teaching methodologies. A private dark fibre connection was established from the College to our network providing 10 Gbps access to the Caznet Private Cloud suite and 1 Gbps of high speed, reliable internet access.
The College’s aging and unreliable ISDN PBX servicing more than 100 handsets was replaced with a cloud hosted PBX and VoIP SIP Trunks. Caznet SIP Trunks provide unmetered local, mobile and national calls reducing overall cost and an IP PBX provides simpler management and more control over calls and handsets.
The on-premises server and storage infrastructure was due for replacement at a significant cost. The College leveraged their dedicated 10 Gbps connectivity over the dark fibre connection to move the on-premises virtual servers to the Caznet Private Cloud removing the need to invest in, and maintain, costly equipment and a server room. A cloud first approach was adopted focussing on Office 365 to replace applications previously hosted on-premises.
The Outcome
St Columba College was able to leverage a well-designed and maintained on-campus network and reliable connectivity to take a cloud first approach to its ICT strategy. Staff and students now have access to modern cloud-based services such as Office 365 and rich internet-based content over high-speed connectivity enabling a modern approach to learning.
Removing the need to invest in, and maintain, on-premises infrastructure combined with a lower cost IP PBX telephony system has reduced the College’s ICT operating costs without losing control over critical information systems.
Not only have Caznet met our expectations, they constantly exceed them. They are always looking at ways to improve the way we operate and at the same time reduce our costs. Caznet always listens to our needs and provides reliable solutions that work.
– Simon Flaherty, ICT Manager, St Columba College