Case Study: Hills Educational Foundation achieves campus-wide high-performance Wi-Fi and simplified IT management with Cisco Meraki

Ease of management lowers ongoing support costs and reduces time spent managing network

Hills Educational Foundation, a semi‑rural P–12 campus near Brisbane with 650 students, needed a modern, centrally managed network to support a planned 1:1 iPad rollout within 12 months. Facing poor coverage and performance across a geographically dispersed site and no remote access for IT, the school selected Cisco Meraki for its unified dashboard and portfolio — including Meraki MR access points, MS switches, MX security appliances and Systems Manager MDM — to simplify management and secure student devices.

Cisco Meraki, deployed by partner Cloudifi, replaced the legacy multi‑vendor network with 75 MR access points, 26 MS220 and 4 MS320 switches and an MX400 security appliance preconfigured in the dashboard and installed in just seven days. The MX400 was integrated with Active Directory (RADIUS/LDAP), Sourcefire intrusion scanning and Meraki’s remote troubleshooting tools (packet capture, cable testing) give real‑time client and application visibility, strengthen content/security controls, and materially reduce ongoing support time and costs while enabling the school’s 1:1 iPad program.

Hills Educational Foundation

Craig Montgomery

IT Manager