Wireless Network Design/Surveys
Edu Tek engineers perform preliminary wireless surveys off of architectural drawings. They survey proposed building materials and utilize industry leading software tools to simulate wireless conditions. They then perform a needs assessment with the customer to determine the type of usage that the system will have to support. All of this information is compiled and an initial design is developed.
Once a structure is available for an onsite survey, engineers will test the survey by actually walking the facility with an access point and laptop utilizing specialized surveying software. A design is then completed and all necessary documentation provided to the customer.
Infrastructure Certification
Many facilities are running on infrastructure that was installed many years ago. In order to ensure the proper operation of their networks and components they must first confirm that their infrastructure can support such technologies. Edu Tek reviews in place infrastructures and provides a comprehensive analysis. This often includes testing and certifying copper and fiber cables, mapping cable runs, relabeling distribution closets, as well as providing recommendations for corrective actions. Often this analysis pinpoints problem areas that may be responsible for other network issues such as slowness, dropped connections and errors.
Asset Management
It is critical for a facility to properly manage their technology assets. These include but are not limited to workstations, laptops, network hardware, racks, UPSs, servers and even software. With the addition of audio video components such as projectors and interactive whiteboards a facility may be having difficulty tracking all of their assets. Edu Tek provides a comprehensive inventory service which includes labeling equipment logging it in a database as well as asset recovery tracking when equipment is retired. Edu Tek also designs wireless systems for tracking the actual location of equipment using Radio Frequency tags. This allows a facility to locate equipment in order to audit their inventory database.
Disaster Recovery Hosting
As data becomes more critical, Disaster Recovery options become a necessity. Edu Tek provides hosting services for facilities needing offsite access to their applications in the event of a disaster. Edu Tek provides bandwidth on demand as well as pre-loaded servers. These servers remain in an idling state until a disaster or simulation occurs. At that moment the servers are brought online and the needed bandwidth unlocked. Data is loaded upon the owners request from either a third party data backup service or from the customer directly. The customer is then able to get access to their data and applications via any internet connection. The facility can setup temporary offices anywhere an internet connection exists. This service is significantly less expensive than traditional co-location services since those are designed for access 24/7/365. Whereas most facilities need more of an insurance style hosing service since it is only needed in the case of an emergency. Edu Tek can even automate much of the recovery process using virtualization and iSCSI SAN technologies.
Smart Classroom Installation
Just putting technology in a classroom does not ensure that it will be used properly or to its fullest extent. A proper design and deployment is needed to maximize the potential of the technology installed. Edu Tek can design a classroom environment that includes a variety of display types, interactive boards and tablets, audio amplification, various video sources as well as a comprehensive control system. The control systems Edu Tek utilize provide network access to the equipment lowering the overall support burden that classroom technology may add. Edu Tek makes use of standard cabling like Cat5/6 UTP to provide the medium for sending all of the audio and video signaling. This lowers the cost of installation and allows for flexibility as newer signaling protocols emerge (i.e. HDMI 1.3). Edu Tek has installed thousands of classrooms and has extensive experience in managing large deployments of hundreds of classrooms as a single project. Staff walk through spaces and provide drawings to be signed off on by the customer. This ensures that installations are performed to the customer’s specification.
IP Security and Safety
Safety and Security have become a critical aspect of facility technology. Edu Tek can design and install intelligent IP based security and safety systems. These systems take a proactive approach by leveraging the processing power of today’s servers. The systems actively analyze the video captured from IP cameras and look for certain events as dictated by the customer’s needs. In a school environment the system may employ face recognition features to determine whether or not a person belongs on school property. In a healthcare environment behavior tracking may be used to monitor hallways to watch for incapacitated individuals who may need assistance. License plate tracking can be used in parking facilities to monitor access. The systems Edu Tek employs allow for extensive scripting so that they may be customized to a customer’s specific needs.
Data Archiving
Edu Tek works with third party partners who provide industry standard hosted backup solutions. These services leverage a facilities bandwidth to allow for offsite backups over the internet. All of the data flow is encrypted using the latest security measures. Data may be held in mirrored sites throughout the nation depending on the customer’s needs. Using this service eliminates much of the overhead usually involved in offsite backups (i.e. managing tapes, finding a secure place to house tapes, arranging staff to manually take the data offsite…).
Digital Signage and Content Delivery
As technology centers more and more on collecting and housing information, the need for delivering such content arises. Edu Tek provides design and implementation solutions for delivering information in many forms. Content can be displayed on flat panel displays or output to facility workstations in the form of alerts or screensavers. Content can be delivered right to websites, rss feeds, and even mobile devices in the form of text messages. Content delivery has become almost a necessity when it comes to safety and emergency alerts. With Edu Tek’s comprehensive solution an organization can quickly get information out to all of their personnel quickly, even across geographically separated campuses.
iSCSI SAN Integration
iSCSI SANs (Storage Area Network) leverage the benefits of consolidated storage systems with high speed Ethernet networks. SANs in general allow for consolidating storage needs into one large more robust system. This provides a more sophisticated system in comparison to just buying servers with local storage. It is more cost effective to buy redundant SAN storage units that can service many servers rather than try to get the same sophistication within each server. Unlike traditional SCSI or Fibre Channel SANs, iSCSI SANs make use of Ethernet connections to provide the transport for all of the reads and writes from the servers to the storage units. This means that storage units can be positioned anywhere on the network. Clustered units may even be positioned at different site if the connection is fast enough. Edu Tek is certified with Lefthand Networks, a leading manufacturer of iSCSI SAN equipment and software. Edu Tek engineers can design and implement an effective system. They can also provide an end to end solution by developing a data migration plan and assisting in the migrating the actual data to the SAN.