Tài liệu ADC Pases the Test for Measured Progres TrueNet® Category 6 End-to-End Solution Supports Peer Gigabit Network doc

CASE STUDY
ADC PASSES THE TEST FOR MEASURED PROGRESS
TrueNet
®
Category 6 End-to-End Solution
Supports Peer Gigabit Network
CHALLENGE
• Enormous data traffic from millions of scanned test booklets
• Steep seasonal spikes in number of network users scoring tests
• Maintain rapid turn around of test results despite company growth
• Reduce time and cost of reconfiguring processing areas
STRATEGY
• End-to-end TrueNet
®
Category 6 Structured Cabling Solution
• AirES
®
conductor insulation for superior cable performance
• Angled patch panels and LSA-PLUS
®
silver plated IDC contact tags
for secure cable terminations and improved reliability
• All ports lit for gigabit Ethernet with multiple consolidation points
RESULTS
• Network supports gigabit Ethernet with zero bit-error performance
• Infrastructure operates error free, enabling quick return of scoring
results to schools and districts
• Change equipment line-ups and support influx of part time scorers
without recabling
CASE STUDY
BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Measured Progress is a not-for-profit organization
that designs and administers customized, large-
scale student assessments. The Dover, New
Hampshire-based company develops assessments
that help states and school districts meet federal
mandates to evaluate the effectiveness of
classroom instruction through assessment, rather
than merely ranking students. Of course, the
primary goal for both Measured Progress and

its clients is improving teaching and learning

for children.
From a process viewpoint, the bulk of Measured
Progress work starts with creation of test booklets
for individual states and districts. These booklets
must be collated into classroom packs and district
level packages and shipped to schools. Once
students take the tests, booklets are returned to
Measured Progress for scoring. Upon receipt,

each booklet is scanned, assigned a barcode and
then made available to scorers who score each
booklet. In the end, results are reported to schools
and districts.
While this seems like a logical and routine
process, it all happens in a compressed time
frame; most schools want to test children in the
spring and receive results back in the summer
of the same year. As a result, the population of

part-time scorers and other employees can vary
dramatically from week to week. During scoring,
the number of people working in the Measured
Progress system grows exponentially — and
many of them need access to the network. The
scanning of millions of documents and providing
scorers with electronic access to each document
for scoring creates an enormous amount of high-
bandwidth data traffic over the network.
FACING THE CHALLENGE OF GROWTH
Over the past two decades, Measured Progress
has earned a reputation for creating innovative,
high-quality educational assessment instruments.
With passage of the No Child Left Behind Act
of 2001, the company’s workload has grown
significantly. The increased volume of work placed
pressure on the staff to ensure that logistical,
scoring and reporting systems support the
business so that schools and districts continue to
receive rapid turnaround of results.
As expansion plans were discussed for a
new processing building and headquarters
complex, planners determined that the network
infrastructure needed to be flexible enough to
handle temporary spikes in user access as well
as allow the network to grow and change with
the business. Given the volume of documents
handled electronically, the network was to be
designed as a peer gigabit environment — both
between and within buildings — that would

support applications in the future, such as VoIP
and conferencing. More important, the network
needed to be highly reliable so Measured Progress
could continue to quickly process and return
scoring results to schools and districts.
Dynamic Angle Right/Angle Left Panels combined with 45 degree silver-plated IDCs help improve
reliability of the Measured Progress local area network.
CASE STUDY
For Measured Progress, partnerships are
important. Management considers its clients to
be partners rather than just paying customers,
working collaboratively to deliver assessment
solutions that ultimately improve the learning of
children. In choosing Howard Systems to design
and implement the network infrastructure,
Measured Progress chose a partner with

similar goals.
By listening to and understanding the Measured
Progress business and technology needs, Howard
Systems was able to recommend a design
for the technology infrastructure and set of
structured cabling products that would be flexible,
manageable and easily adaptable to the changing
user and technology environment. Integral to the
design was ADC’s TrueNet
®
structured cabling
solutions, which provides Measured Progress

with an end-to-end Category 6 compliant

channel solution that is guaranteed for 25

years to support gigabit Ethernet with zero bit-
error performance.
FLEXIBILITY REQUIRED FOR
CHANGING CONDITIONS
The process assembly lines in the warehouse are
a constant work in progress because Measured
Progress continually searches for efficiencies in the
process of shipping and receiving millions of test
booklets each year. Howard Systems established a
communication grid in the warehouse that would
allow Measured Progress to experiment with
different line assemblies, and relocate equipment
without having to recable the building.
“In the processing area, we rarely do anything
twice the same way because we continually search
for equipment and processes to improve our
efficiency and productivity,” said John Woodman,
facilities manager for Measured Progress. Even
the normal reconfiguration of the warehouse
— in the spring for shipping and then back into a
receiving mode in the fall — was made easier with
the distributed design of the warehouse network.
“We are always aware that there could be a
better way to do things. We now have the ability
to experiment with different line assemblies and
relocate equipment without putting a guy on a lift

to run new data cable,” said Woodman.
Flexibility was also designed into the network for
the grading areas where hundreds of part-time
scorers converge in a cyber café environment,
accessing and scoring individual tests electron-
ically from the network. Howard Systems
recommended consolidation points in the ceiling
so Measured Progress cannot only accommodate
the influx of part-time employees, but also
experiment with different configurations in the
grading areas to continually improve the process.
“This is the first building I have worked in
where every port is lit up gigabit and live all of
the time,” said Paul Fiscarelli, IT manager for
Measured Progress. The flexibility of having a
plug-and-play environment to move users from
space to space costs a little more in terms of
switches and patch panels, yet has been worth
the investment, according to Fiscarelli. “Before (in
the old building), there were always issues with
people trying to get access to the network. We
had to run around trying to scavenge a port and
there were always delays getting people on line,”
he said. “Since moving into the new space, we
have live ports everywhere so people can do their
jobs and we can meet our clients’ deadlines,”

said Fiscarelli.
ADC’s patented AirES
®

(Air Enhanced System)
conductor insulation system for copper cabling
improves data throughput and saves space in cable
pathways for Measured Progress.
CASE STUDY
RELIABILITY STARTS WITH HIGH-
QUALITY COMPONENTS
Whether meeting client deadlines or providing
scorers with virtually uninterrupted access to the
network through its Tier 2 data center, Measured
Progress has earned a reputation for being highly
reliable. For example, when a state receives its tests,
there are naturally questions directed to Measured
Progress customer service. “We ordered 17 tests
but we have two more children in the class — what
do I do?” Because most calls come in during the
school day, customer service demand is highest
within a compressed period of time. Reliable access
to data, as well as incoming phone service, is crucial
given teachers’ limited time to make a call for help.
One way that reliability was designed into the
network was Howard System’s recommendation

of ADC’s TrueNet cable, patch panels, patch cords
and connectors – a certified system that reduces
noise and increases throughput in the network.
“Quality of the (ADC) products was apparent,”
said Bob Hayes, network engineer for Measured
Progress. Hayes cited the reliably solid punch down
connections that grab more surface area of the

copper conductor and the reinforcement binding
on patch cords as the engineering extras from ADC
that translate into more reliable connections. “There
is just no way that a patch cord or terminated cable
is going to pull from the connections. When we do
have network issues, there is nothing in the middle
we have to worry about, just the equipment on the
ends,” he said. “We have made our own network
so reliable that the cabling infrastructure is never

a source for downtime.”
In fact, now that both Hayes and Fiscarelli have
been managing the network for some time now,
they are at a loss to describe any network issues
attributable to the passive cabling infrastructure.
“By placing quality products behind the walls and in
the ceilings, we have one less thing to worry about,
one less headache to deal with,” said Fiscarelli.
Because Howard Systems proposed a design/
build solution with a complete set of construction
bid documents and defined performance
specifications — rather than just a layout showing
drop locations — Measured Progress was able to
solicit competitive scrutiny of the recommendation
from both a design and product perspective. The
ADC TrueNet solution easily met the analysis,
showing to be not just a reliable set of products,
but also a cost-effective and proven solution.
“What really pushed us away from other vendors
and in the direction of ADC was Howard

Systems,” said Fiscarelli, who sought a partnership
rather than a vendor relationship for designing and
implementing the network. “Their understanding
of our requirements, experience in the field, and
commitment to be with us for years to come
convinced us that ADC was the correct solution for
us,” said Fiscarelli.
CONCLUSION
Since its inception over 20 years ago, Measured
Progress has continually sought out new
technologies to improve operations and
productivity. Today, that puts the pressure on
facilities and IT managers to ensure that all users
and clients experience instant gratification as
they access the network or make inquiries from
customer service. When it comes to throughput
and availability, the solidly reliable peer gigabit
network is working admirably.
In addition, the new network has enabled
operations to more easily experiment with set-
up of workstations and processing lines to find
additional improvements in the sending and
receiving of millions of test booklets each year.
Along with sure network reliability, the built-
in flexibility of the network enables Measured
Progress to sustain its reputation for accurate,

on-time performance with its clients.
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