Why Legacy Networks Struggle To Keep Up
According to Dave Savage, vice president of state, local and education sales at Extreme Networks, the most common issue that districts encounter is network congestion due to fragmented, legacy infrastructure. Older networks without the capacity to carry so much in-classroom technology can get quickly overwhelmed, presenting a complicated, time-consuming challenge for smaller district IT teams.
One example: A district with multiple buildings may seek to roll out a new AI application for staff, but an older network likely lacks the bandwidth to support the rollout, or data may be so fragmented across the network that the new tool doesn’t work as intended. Aside from these issues, the network would also have to provide different levels of security and access as more connected devices are added.
“IT teams need networks that are easy to manage and scale. Traditional capacity planning is still important, but IT teams need to go a step further and understand what devices, applications and users are on the network, what access they need and how critical they are. Any added complexity in network management means that when there is an issue, IT teams will struggle to identify what’s happening and resolve it before learning is interrupted,” says Savage.
Shifting to Experience-Driven Performance Measures
That makes a broader view of network performance increasingly important. Instead of looking at individual devices or capacity in isolation, IT teams can use centralized management to check for performance, reliability, security and specific classroom needs. Savage says that experience-driven networking lets IT teams know if users can do everything they need to do successfully. But a shift to experience-driven networking also involves changing what IT teams measure. Uptime and raw performance statistics can indicate if the network is functioning — but this won’t necessarily show if the technology is actually working for teaching and learning.
“Ultimately, IT teams need to be able to positively answer one question: Is the network consistently delivering the experience our teachers and students need?” says Savage. He explains that while a latency spike or packet loss reading may not mean much to a principal or teacher, translating that to “the students in Room 203 may have trouble joining video calls for the next 20 minutes” will get the message across clearly and quickly.
Target Network Upgrades Where They Matter Most
For districts with limited resources, having that kind of visibility can help determine where an investment will have the greatest impact. IT teams can identify classrooms with persistent problems, regular periods of congestion, and applications that lag. Centralized management can be especially helpful when connectivity issues aren’t solved simply by bolstering bandwidth, Savage points out. If the issue turns out to be outdated equipment, poorly placed access points or a configuration issue, IT teams can more easily identify the gaps, prioritize critical locations and applications, and make specific upgrades instead of replacing the entire network.
“An upgrade doesn’t have to mean a complete rip-and-replace, but can focus on making the existing infrastructure more intelligent so it can be strategically upgraded over time,” says Savage.
READ MORE: Find funding for your network upgrade.
Be Proactive With Monitoring and Automation
Network monitoring offers this kind of centralized visibility, which Savage says is the first step IT teams should take to go from reactive to proactive operations. If an access point serving a classroom begins to show signs of congestion or interference during a lesson, monitoring can flag the issue before it leads to dropped connections or failed logins. IT can then adjust the configuration before students or teachers ever notice any slowdown.
The inevitable adoption of more cloud services, connected devices and AI-enabled tools will continue to strain older networks. For small IT teams that cannot hire additional specialized staff, automation extends the capacity of the team and helps them manage this complexity by continuously analyzing network behavior and surfacing issues before they become disruptions.
As digital learning evolves, districts will need to adjust the way they think about network modernization and “prioritize building network infrastructure that is unified, easy to manage and easy to scale,” says Savage. “If IT teams have an environment where they can see what's happening, adapt to changing demands, support strong security and automate routine operations, the district is in a much better position to support whatever comes next.”
