Case Studies

The Challenge As a rela vely small educa onal ins tu on with limited resources, Mount Mercy University had an aging network infrastructure that could no longer support 2,000 users across two separate campuses. The campus joke used to be that it was a good day when the network didn't go down. Only one on-staff IT professional was familiar with the network infrastructure, which made maintenance challenging. It also posed a risk; if that one employee le , no one would be available who understood the network systems. Once the interim university president understood the scope of the problem and the poten al risks, the administra on decided to ini ate a network upgrade, including hardware, so ware and overall infrastructure. They also determined they needed to outsource network services and OneNeck® IT Solu ons had the right creden als and offered the breadth of services and capabili es to assume responsibility for the campus network refresh. The OneNeck IT Solutions Answer The upgrade project was broken down into basic components to assess the requirements for the university's network, iden fy components that needed to be outsourced and review so ware assets to ensure that all licenses were up to date. Scope of Infrastructure Upgrade The university IT professionals understood that a network upgrade wasn't a small undertaking and they would need a long-term partnership with a vendor that could address their immediate requirements and be available for support once the systems upgrade was complete. A er interviewing a number of area vendors, they chose OneNeck. From the beginning, OneNeck's team assessed the current infrastructure to iden fy weaknesses and where and how to upgrade the exis ng network. While many of the pieces were already in place, the university needed help understanding the end-to-end network infrastructure, how to connect specific parts of the network and where to upgrade and op mize systems as needed. The OneNeck team helped with upgrading data storage capacity, so ware, cabling and the wireless network infrastructure. The Organization Mount Mercy was founded in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1928 by the Sisters of Mercy as a two-year college for women. Mount Mercy became a four-year ins tu on in 1957. The University has always been commi ed to professional development and instruc on in business and educa on, and has expanded with curricula in nursing and social work. The university has almost 1,800 students and maintains a 13:1 student-to-faculty ra o. Customer Case Study Mount Mercy Upgrades Network Infrastructure For better performance and greater reliability

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