Networking & Wireless | News

Florida District Deploys Wireless Solution To Support BYOD

• By Leila Meyer
• 12/10/13

St. Lucie School District in Florida has implemented a wireless solution designed for education to support its bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiative for students, teachers and guests at all 44 of its schools.

The district selected an "education-grade" wireless solution from Meru Networks with Meru Identity Manager "because of their ease of management and the way that they make it easier for users to move seamlessly from point to point," said David Jasa, IT program manager for the district, in a prepared statement. According to the company, the district also selected the Meru Networks solution for its high-density device support, ease of deployment, and Meru's MobileFLEX architecture.

According to information on the company's site, MobileFLEX is a unified wireless network architecture for BYOD. It's designed to make it easier for IT staff to secure the network and manage capacity and bandwidth when large numbers of users are connecting with personal mobile devices.

The district also implemented Meru's Identity Manager software, which is designed to simplify secure BYOD provisioning, reduce IT workload, and improve the user experience, according to information from the company. Its Smart Connect module enables self-provisioning of client devices with a single click, and its Guest Connect module lets internal "sponsors" create guest accounts or lets guests securely self-register.

According to Terence O'Leary, assistant superintendent of instruction for the district, Meru Identity Manager "keeps our IT staff from having to travel throughout the district to help people get access to the network and allows teachers to focus on teaching instead of providing IT support services.

St. Lucie School District is located on the east coast of Florida. The district serves more than 40,000 students and employs nearly 2,800 teachers.