Asante Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet Switches Enable Affordable and Easy Upgrade for Rural School District; Washington Schools Save 75% When Choosing Asante Switches.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The opportunity to jump from a T1 to 100 Mbps Ethernet connection for just a few dollars more doesn't come around often, so when it did, the IT staff at North Kitsap School District (NKSD) in Washington leaped at the chance. But an upgrade of this magnitude presented a financial challenge to this rural school district, until they were introduced to Asante's IntraCore(R) IC35516 family of Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches, which saved them 75% over competing products while providing them with even more product features.

"We were able to go from a 1.5 Mbps network to a 100 Mbps network at very minimal cost," said Dave Groce, Network Server Analyst/Coordinator for NKSD. "The IntraCore family price was great, the feature set was great, and the support seemed really good too," he added.

Groce explained that recently, the local public utility district had begun deploying single-mode fiber on a county-wide basis, and was seeking buy-in from large public entities like the School District. "We jumped all over their offer, but then we had to come up with a way to route all that traffic, because what we had in place before were very dated routers that only had a single 10 Mbps Ethernet port to plug into," he stated.

IT staff needed to devise a new network infrastructure that could easily and successfully handle the increased traffic while meeting the School District's budgetary constraints. Soon thereafter they were introduced to Asante's IntraCore IC35516 family of Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches.

Big Feature Set, Low Cost of Ownership

The IntraCore IC35516 family of Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches is Asante's high-performance, flexible range of backbone router switches. They feature 16 non-blocking Gigabit Ethernet ports, wire-speed routing, the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) router protocol, multicast routing, 8 hardware level priority queues, 4000 Virtual LANs (VLANs), double 802.1q VLAN tagging, 2000 multicast groups, and 16,000 routing tables.

With 16 ports of Gigabit Ethernet offered in a single flexible design, the cost of ownership is reduced considerably over other vendors' switches by using built-in copper ports and industry-standard GBIC modules.

IntraCore IC35516 Layer 3 Family: Seeing is Believing 

When an Asante VAR partner in Groce's area held a seminar spotlighting Asante's IntraCore IC35516 Layer 3 switches, Groce and the IT staff quickly discovered how to experience toll-quality VoIP and DVD-Quality video over IP -- pass the data using Asante's IntraCore Layer 2 switches, then route it between subnets using their IntraCore IC35516 Layer 3 switches. Watching the ease in which the switches can handle these demanding real-time applications convinced the team that Asante's products would more than meet their needs. "It sounded like everything we needed and a whole lot more," Groce commented. When the move to Asante gear was complete, the School District paid about 75% less than competing switches, and they were also able to acquire 6 additional 1000BaseT ports and 2 more GBIC module slots per switch.

Making the Switch

In the summer of 2004, Groce and his colleagues removed approximately twenty 24-port 10 Mbps hubs and replaced them with Asante 48-port 10/100 switches. An IntraCore IC35516-T was installed in each building, allowing the IT crew to create the long-awaited Gigabit backbone for the buildings. To date they have deployed twelve Asante IC3548-2GT, 48-port 10/100 switches with Gigabit uplinks. It took about 2 months to roll out all the Asante devices, but "We're now all 100% on the fiber, and everything seems to be working great. People have been excited about the increased speed," he added.

Service

With an ever-growing network, the IT staff at NKSD always has challenges to overcome, but Groce explained how Asante's personal touch makes their job a bit easier. Whether it's specifying a new network diagram or troubleshooting an error, Asante's tech support engineers and sales team are always available to assist.

"We definitely spend most of our time just trying to keep up," with day-to-day network maintenance, Groce said. "We don't have a lot of time to think about new things to put in place and better ways of doing things," he added. His team receives regular calls from the Asante sales team to ensure everything is running smoothly. "It's nice to have a face to go with who you're talking to on the phone, and somebody who truly knows what you're doing and what your network looks like," said Groce.

About Asante

Asante Technologies, Inc. (OTC:ASNT) is a leading provider of networking solutions for the small-medium business (SMB) market. Asante designs, markets, and sells a full line of networking solutions that provides its customers with high-performance, reliable, and value-based solutions. The company's FriendlyNET(R) and IntraCore product families offer companies a full breadth of products -- from the edge to the core of their networks. For additional information, visit www.asante.com or call 800-662-9686.

Asante, FriendlyNET, and IntraCore are registered trademarks of Asante Technologies, Inc. All other names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.