| Sentinel Helps Park District Provide Better Service to the Community |
| Sentinel Helps Park District Provide Better Service to the Community Customer A well-known municipal park district in the northern suburbs of Chicago is part of a diverse and mature city with many newly upgraded modern community facilities most of which were upgraded in the last 8 years. In addition to parks, they have 9 separate facilities which include: an extensive sporting complex with indoor ice skating rinks, track and fitness facilities, multiple outdoor pool complexes, golf and rowing sports complexes, cultural arts center, recreation centers, and maintenance facilities. Environment The client environment mainly consisted of a Microsoft network with a variety of desktops computers and servers running a combination of Windows NT 4.0 and Unix servers. The network consisted of a slow speed point-to-point connection to each of the 8 outlying facilities. It was apparent that this system was being challenged by the increasing user demands for growth of services. The phone system in place was an older Lucent phone system which was resident at each of the locations. Challenge This Park District wanted to provide better service and support the community in further growth. They wanted to introduce Web registration for their classes and other events, as well as increase Internet availability to patrons. An effort to reduce or eliminate separate phone and data infrastructures is imperative because it ultimately reduces maintenance costs. In addition, the need to improve the speed of data networking and backup solutions to the eight remote facilities along with expanding E-911 services while containing costs would also be included in the overall solution. Solution The Sentinel team proposed to introduce fiber concentrators in three of the existing underground cable vaults. These vaults connect each of the 9 facilities in the village municipal area and the village recently introduced Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). Using the same bandwidth and connectivity, to all locations, the Sentinel team installed a Cisco Telephony solution with two Call Managers to create a high-speed unified phone system and data network. In addition, the Sentinel team deployed T1 connectivity to the ICN (Illinois Century Network) for all facilities. In the unlikely event of the primary fiber solution becoming interrupted, Sentinel deployed a high-speed Internet connection along with a backup solution for data and telephony VPN routing. This solution reduces the need for multiple phone and data infrastructures, lowers overall maintenance costs and vastly improves service and capacity for future growth. Sentinel is bringing together a community by providing technology and services that increase access to the Park District’s programs. This leads to individual enrichment and satisfied community members. The Park District realizes that offering state-of-the-art technology is not a gamble on the future but rather a sound investment that generates a significant return-on-investment. |