Delivering next-generation learning in Hurst-Euless-Bedford,TX
HEB ISD knew that education was moving to a cloud-based design. They were at the forefront pushing all of their resources and applications to the new environment pre-COVID.
Profile
Hurst Euless Bedford Independent School District serves 23,000 students across 30 campuses using a 10 Gbps Dark Fiber backbone. The Ethernet Point to Point system provides a 10Gbps mirroring redundancy to 2 Data Centers. Funding is covered under the FCC’s Category 1 E-rate program with 85% of the expenses matched and subsidized by the Texas State Legislature.
HEB ISD
Solutions: 2019 Upgrade
- 10 Gbps dark fiber backbone with ethernet point-to-point connected to 30 campuses
- Lit services
- Two data centers w/20 Gbps going to each data center & mirroring for redundancy/backup
Who is HEB ISD?
Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District (HEB ISD), based in Bedford, Texas, is a district spanning nearly 40 square miles and serving the city of Bedford, most of the cities of Euless and Hurst, and small parts of North Richland Hills, Colleyville, Fort Worth, and Arlington. First established in 1958, HEB ISD’s rich history of excellence is demonstrated by its 99.5% graduation rate and success in preparing students to compete in a global economy. HEB ISD serves 23,000 Kindergarten through 12th grade students across 30 campuses.
We always knew that a move to cloud-based education was coming, and we were at the forefront of pushing all of our resources to the cloud. We were already down that road of looking at a new wireless infrastructure, and leveraging the right technology to upgrade to wireless. We always knew it was coming, but the pandemic pushed us up by a couple years.
Director of Technology for HEB-ISD
20 Year Contract Extension
A Win-Win for Hurst-Euless-Bedford,TX and FiberLight
99.9%
Uptime
80%
E-rate Reimbursement
The Challenge
Intuitively, HEB ISD knew that education was moving to a cloud-based design. They were at the forefront pushing all of their resources and applications to the new environment pre-COVID.
In 2019, HEB ISD sought to transition to a Google District and enable cloud-based learning. Their intuition and forward-thinking positioned them to seamlessly transition to a virtual classroom environment as soon as the pandemic arrived. HEB ISD’s focus on technology enabled them to stay a step ahead of a change that left other districts scrambling to catch up.
To become a Google District, HEB ISD required several upgrades to their network infrastructure and backbone. They needed to scale up bandwidth between schools and increase capacity to the datacenters. In the new environment, all the learning applications would reside in the cloud with 100% accessibility any time, any where, from any device.
FiberLight was tasked with establishing a powerful network to reliably deliver the bandwidth capacity and heightened speed that would support these cloud-based applications, and required that campuses be redundantly connected to a trusted data center.
FiberLight provided a 10 gig backbone with an ethernet point-to-point connecting HEB ISD’s 30 campuses, and linking two data centers with 10 gigs going to each site and mirroring for redundancy to deliver enhanced security and uptime.
Beyond The Classroom
In addition to the benefits HEB ISD’s forward-thinking infrastructure provides to its school community, there have been numerous advantages that extend beyond the classroom. Their network has made it possible to livestream sporting events, club gatherings, and extracurricular activities. This has given flexibility to students, faculty, and communities. HEB ISD can now live stream sporting events, group meetings, clubs, and students can participate in eGaming/ eSports programs.
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