Cass County Boosts Network Efficiency With Fabric Connect

Cass County, North Dakota, is the most populous county in the state, home to approximately 25% of the state’s population. The county's IT department supports a wide range of services from law enforcement to tax assessment, operating across a number of facilities. When the current IT team took over, they inherited an outdated, multi-vendor network. This led to frequent downtime and labor-intensive maintenance. The team was also facing the task of selecting a networking partner capable of supporting, managing, and provisioning across an extensive network of IP security cameras.

The new IT team knew they needed to make a change – they needed a network that could automate tedious manual tasks without sacrificing the security that is critical to a government network. By implementing solutions from Extreme, including Fabric Connect, the county significantly improved network management, reduced downtime, and enhanced overall service delivery. Additionally, selecting a networking solution capable of speeding deployments and scaling across a large IP security camera network was imperative for the team. Creating enhanced security and elasticity would require a flexible solution with simple provisioning.

The shift to Fabric Connect streamlined day-to-day operations, simplified the provisioning of network services, and significantly improved the county’s ability to respond to the needs of government agencies. The new network infrastructure was both secure and resilient – disruptions used to lead to extensive downtime, as was the case when a fiber cut left one of the County’s law enforcement facilities offline for 17 hours. With Fabric, the network could be rerouted in seconds to ensure zero impact on IT operations. Finally, Fabric was able to seamlessly support the data generated by PoE camera systems and support the full network of Axis Communications cloud physical security cameras across Cass County.