Case Study: Savannah College of Art and Design achieves a scalable, reliable campus network and reduced overhead with Brocade

College Extends Campus Network, Saves on Overhead with Brocade

The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) needed a reliable, LAN‑like network to connect a growing matrix of campuses—more than 60 facilities in Savannah with 100+ miles of fiber and links to a new Atlanta media center—while supporting heavy media, video editing, replication, and a rising number of mobile devices. Existing city links were nearing saturation and SCAD required greater performance, PoE+ support, wireless (802.11n) and 802.1x security, and a scalable, low‑overhead architecture.

SCAD implemented Brocade networking (FastIron CX, FastIron GS, FastIron SuperX, BigIron and IronView) to deliver PoE+, wire‑speed edge performance, stacking for redundancy and centralized management. The result was a flexible, scalable campus network with reduced downtime and administrative overhead: the network grew fivefold since 2000 with the same staff, 1,600 IP phones are supported by a single administrator, and operational costs and maintenance demands were significantly lowered.

Savannah College of Art and Design

Brad Grant

Director of Network Services & Advanced Technologies