Case Study: Steele County achieves fast, secure government network provisioning with Extreme Networks' Fabric Connect

Steele County Secures Government Connectivity with Extreme Fabric

Steele County, Minnesota, a rural county of about 37,406 residents with a four-person IT team supporting roughly 470 users and the regional MNPrairie association, faced a complex networking challenge. A mix of state-managed and locally controlled fiber made provisioning VLANs slow and cumbersome, required coordination with the state ISP, and created security and regulatory concerns for criminal justice systems. To address this, Steele County turned to Extreme Networks and its Fabric solution (Extreme Fabric Connect), along with Extreme Wireless and ExtremeCloud IQ.

Extreme Networks implemented Extreme Fabric Connect, Extreme Wireless and ExtremeCloud IQ to automate routing, encrypt traffic, and eliminate dependence on the state ISP for VLAN provisioning. The result: VLANs that once required a week of coordination can now be provisioned in minutes (zero wait for VLANs), wireless access points deployed in about 10 minutes, improved CJIS-compliant security, and greater resiliency and redundancy across critical services such as the Sheriff’s Office and jail systems. Extreme Networks’ solution delivered significant time savings and operational agility for Steele County’s small IT team.

Steele County

Dave Purscell

Director of Information Technology