Case Study: The Pennington School achieves rapid troubleshooting and reliable cloud-based learning with Riverbed SteelCentral NetExpress

Steelcentral Netexpress Helps Private School Use Cloud-Based Learning as Competitive Advantage to Increase Enrollment

The Pennington School is a historic independent day and boarding school serving grades 6–12 where every student and faculty member uses iPads and cloud-based apps for learning and administration. That heavy reliance on online services made network performance critical to the classroom experience, while a hybrid mix of on‑premises and cloud systems and the need to monitor student Internet use created visibility and troubleshooting challenges for the IT team.

Working with ITsavvy, Pennington deployed Riverbed SteelCentral NetExpress, an all‑in‑one network monitoring appliance that provides packet capture, flow analytics, dependency mapping, and reporting. The tool uncovered issues such as students bypassing the firewall, cut mean-time-to-resolve from hours or days to minutes (about 15 minutes in one case), stopped network‑first blame, and let IT be proactive—freeing the team to focus on higher‑value projects and protecting cloud-based learning as a competitive advantage.

The Pennington School

Kenneth Coakley

Director of Technology