case study

EDUCATION Downlands College Comprehensive, cost-effective Network Solution from D-Link, providing remarkable wireless performance

Background The Outcome Organisation: Downlands College is an The backward and forward compatibility of independent Catholic coeducational day and the Access Points and controllers has reduced for students from years 7 to Downlands’ capital expenditure as they have 12, based in Toowoomba, . Today been able to continue using the DWC-2000 they it accommodates 530 day and 200 boarding have had for some years. Downlands was also students from all parts of Queensland, particularly pleased with what they referred to as, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and “the excellent pre-sales and after-sales support beyond. from D-Link and their local resellers, including site Challenge: Downlands College were seeking visits from D-Link engineers at state and national a wireless solution to cover the entire campus. levels.” Not only have issues been sorted promptly, This was no mean feat as Downlands has a huge but the service has increased Downlands’ own “The improvement in campus with many classroom buildings and five knowledge of the “good and bad” of networking and Wi-Fi. performance of D-Link boarding houses. Director of IT, Downlands College Lance McKewen products through the Overview said, “If we had our time again, we would purchase generations has been Downlands’ involvement with D-Link began in a higher proportion of PoE switches to power the remarkable, with the 2009 when they were seeking a wireless solution many APs and VOIP phones. The new DGS-1510-28P to cover the entire campus. A D-Link engineer and the tiny DGS-1210-10P can be installed in tight current DWL-8610AP conducted a site survey prior to designing the cabinets and operate almost silently.” providing high levels of wireless solution and tendering for the business. The next project is to replace Downlands’ long-lived After consulting other schools in our area stability and speed for and much-loved TMG software UTM firewalls Downlands found that the D-Link solution was as this product is end of life. Downlands has our AC WiFi-equipped comprehensive and cost-effective, which meant purchased the small and quiet DFL-860E and also fleet of 900 laptops. We they could complete the whole project with the the larger DFL-1660 firewall for heavy Internet funding available, rather than a partial solution look forward to working traffic. At this early stage the firewalls appear to be with competitive products. with D-Link on upcoming easy to configure and provide extensive optional refurbishment projects and The Solution UTM capabilities for a fraction of the price of leading firewall competitors. I expect they will be more Since starting in 2009 with two DWS-3024 than competitive.” controllers and a DWL-3500AP, Downlands have Products integrated in this solution include: incrementally upgraded through three generations — Lance McKewen, Director of IT, of D-Link wireless products, including 1 x D-Link DWC-2000 Downlands College Toowoomba DWC-2000 controllers, DWL-8600AP, DWL-6600AP Unified Wireless Controller and DWL-8610AP. Downlands commented that, “The improvement in performance of these 60 x D-Link DWL-6600AP products through the generations has been Unified Wireless N600 Dual Band remarkable, with the current DWL-8610AP Concurrent Access Points providing high levels of stability and speed for our AC WiFi-equipped fleet of 900 laptops.” 3 x D-Link DWL-8610AP Unified Wireless AC Dual Band The Downlands wired network, spanning around Concurrent Access Points 30 separate buildings using fibre links, has been replaced entirely with D-Link Layer 2 and Layer 3 8 x D-Link DGS-1510-28P switches. Recently the College’s legacy telephone 28-Port Gigabit SmartPro PoE system, with nearly 200 extensions, was replaced Switches Contact us for more information with a modern VOIP system and after a few 1 x D-Link DFL-1660 on D-Link Network Solutions for firmware upgrades, the D-Link switches are coping your business. easily with the voice traffic. NetDefend™ Security UTM Firewall

1300 700 100 2 x D-Link DGS-3620-52T www.dlinkbusiness.com.au 52-Port Gigabit xStack Layer 3+ [email protected] Managed Stackable Switches

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