IBM Powers the Digital Campus Platform for Pathways World School

IBM India confirmed that it has been selected by Pathways World School, New Delhi, to enhance the IT infrastructure in their campus by creating a hi-tech environment through the deployment of Wireless on campus. IBM bagged the contract for design and implementation of Networking infrastructure for client's two new school facilities, shortly to be opened in Noida and Gurgaon and provide security solution for secure Internet access for students. This is the biggest wireless deployment in education sector in NCR by IBM India.

Pathways World School is one of the leading educational institutes in North India and it's planning to expand their network by opening two new facilities in Gurgaon and Noida. The school seeks to blend the cultural fundamentals of the Gurukul heritage and other traditional systems with advanced modern learning tools to provide the best of both worlds to its students. Both Gurgaon & Noida facilities are being built for approximately 2,000 students each from pre-nursery to grade 12. As a result, the school needed a total network infrastructure set-up for both the facilities, including wireless on campus, hardware systems and security solutions.

In 2002 IBM had provided similar infrastructure solution to Pathways School for its first Aravali branch. The solution provided by IBM includes multi-tier switching architecture and high availability of LAN switching infrastructure design at core layer with wireless set-up for both facilities with simplified management to network.  IBM secured this latest contract basis the success of past relationship with client and after demonstrating the value proposition on total cost of operation, clear strategy, technical capabilities, and an assured roadmap for scalability.

“This is one of the prominent wireless deployments and networking deals in the education space for IBM India. IBM's network solution would provide Pathways the highest levels of reliability, scalability for any future enhancement and security for its users accessing WLAN on campus.” said Vivek Malhotra, Vice President North and East region - General Business, IBM India/South Asia.

The security solution will also control unwanted P2P traffic and block various chat applications as and when required. By deploying this Pathways school will gain greater control over their IT environment and operations while implementing innovative ways to teach the students. Besides, the security solution in the School will also help filter the Internet traffic based on destination URL & malicious content which makes it most suitable for a school environment.

It is understood that India's Education sector will step up its IT spending from an estimated USD 356 million in 2008 to USD 704 million in 2012, reflecting in a CAGR of 19 percent during 2007-2012. According to Springboard's report 'Inside the Campus: IT in India's Education Sector,' Wireless LAN (WLAN), Storage Area Network (SAN) and ERP are the three most popular IT solutions adopted by education institutes in India. With a strong focus on education in India and on a worldwide level, IBM has for many years been a strong supporter of the education sector, working closely with private and public sector institutions to advance the use of technology in education. (Source Springboard Research).