New Network for Marseille’s School of Management by NextiraOne and Cisco

The EMD School of Management, a non-profit organisation, is committed to training tomorrow's decision-makers in management skills and the practice of business ethics, based on human values. Established in 1964 it welcomes school-leavers (post-baccalaureat) and professionals in initial or continuing training.

In order to meet its growth and be able to welcome new students, the EMD School of Management decided to construct a new building in Marseille on the Euroméditerrannée campus. These new premises will open in October 2012 and will accommodate 500 students, around 20 administrative staff and a number of teachers.

On the recommendation of a number of higher education institutions in France and abroad, the EMD School of Management chose equipment manufacturer Cisco and NextiraOne, Europe’s leading communications services expert, as the system integrator to build the school’s IT and telecoms network, including a range of connected devices. The project began in March 2012 and will be fully completed in September 2012, in time for the start of the new school year.

"With the rapid growth in the EMD School of Management, our premises were quickly becoming cramped and we could no longer accommodate new students, so the construction of a new building was an imperative," said Xavier Palou, CEO of the EMD School of Management. "We have many partnerships with universities and schools abroad with whom we work very closely, so we needed to develop an IT infrastructure that would be stable, secure, efficient and scalable enough to allow the school to continue to develop and for students to study effectively.”

The new building included in all a 450 square meter auditorium, 30 classrooms, four 70-seat lecture halls and a learning centre of 600 square meters that all had to be equipped and connected to the network. With Internet access a critical factor for the school and all its students, the EMD School of Management built its new site on the first optical fibre node in Marseille, thereby enabling very high quality communications.

NextiraOne used a Cisco LAN infrastructure and WiFi system to develop and integrate the new and complemented it with a disaster recovery system in case of failure. The implementation included 58 WiFi hubs, and a Business Edition 6000 Communication Server for IP telephony integrating Cisco Jabber Mobile which in particular will allow the 50 users to use iPhones over the school network. A redundant infrastructure firewall has also been installed and a server to manage student enrolment and other applications is being hosted in the SFR cloud (national telecoms operator with recently launched own cloud services).

A system of wireless telephony is also being deployed that will allow school employees to follow the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, as they will be able to connect their own tablets, smartphones and other devices to the network.

Video is also a significant part of the project: to provide security for the new building, 16 surveillance cameras have been integrated into the network, based on a video security infrastructure from Axis and Milestone. Classrooms are equipped with IP cameras that will send video to any desk and any room in the school and around the world (as part of the partnership activities of EMD with other schools and universities). This will allow the school to extend its strategy of collaboration with other higher education establishments in France and abroad.

Finally, the EMD School of Management had a keen desire to include a research dimension. The school's network has therefore been designed to interface, share and interact with other centres and major research networks throughout the world.

"We are delighted with our partnership with NextiraOne and Cisco, who, from the outset, created an atmosphere of trust and efficiency that entirely matched our own values, an important factor for us. Throughout the project we have found ourselves working with professionals who understood our needs and problems and provided us with relevant advice and day to day presence. We will not hesitate to call on NextiraOne and Cisco again for our future projects," added Xavier Palou.

The new premises of the EMD School of Management will be ready for the 2012 school year, accommodating up to 1,300 new students in a powerful, high performance networking environment.

Marie-Noëlle Cheisson, Sales Engineer in charge of the project at NextiraOne France, concludes: "We have been worked closely with Cisco and the EMD School of Management to put the school at the leading edge of technology and enable its students to work in an ultra-collaborative environment. We are sure this will allow the school to grow in the coming years and to welcome more and more students, who in turn will be able to enjoy these benefits. This is due to the scalable infrastructure we have implemented which will be able to adapt to the growth of the school. We are very proud of this project, and the strong relationship we have created with EMD School of Management."

About the EMD School of Management: The EMD School of Management, a non-profit organisation, is committed to training tomorrow's decision-makers in management skills and the practice of business ethics, based on human and Christian values. Established in 1964 it welcomes school-leavers (post-baccalaureat) and professionals in initial or continuing training. With a pedagogical approach concerned for the overall development of the person, the EMD contributes to the growth of its employees and the development of its business. The professions of commerce, management, marketing and business management are taught through courses that from the Bac to the Bac +5, place people at the heart of the training programme.

About NextiraOne: NextiraOne is a European multinational company that designs, installs, maintains and supports business solutions and communications services for over 60,000 private and Public Sector customers. Using its expertise in leading-edge communications, including data centres, contact centres, unified communications, secure network infrastructures and managed services, NextiraOne helps its customers to transform their organisations, making the complex simple. Headquartered in Paris, NextiraOne has a direct sales and service presence in 16 countries with more than 4,300 employees across Europe, including 2,500 qualified service experts, and an annual revenue totalling around one billion euros in 2010.

About Cisco: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the world leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate, this year celebrates 25 years of technology innovation, operational excellence and social responsibility.