Aurora Nonprofit Group Helps District 204 with Data Needs

By Marie Wilson, Daily Herald

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With grading systems, student information systems, learning applications and library checkout systems all running simultaneously, large school districts like Indian Prairie Unit District 204 are constantly dealing with expanding data needs. The district has found a new way to address its need for more data center space by partnering with OnLight Aurora, a nonprofit organization that leases bandwidth on the city of Aurora's fiber Internet network. For five years, District 204 will rent a 10 GB connection to the network, allowing two physically remote data centers to function as one.

"By connecting our current data center with space that's allocated at Metea Valley High School, we're able to meet our growing needs," said Stan Gorbatkin, assistant superintendent for technology services. "This is a prerequisite to additional work to meet the district's needs in terms of technology."

A fiber connection will be installed between Metea at 1801 N. Eola Road and the Crouse Education Center at 780 Shoreline Drive, both in Aurora. Much of the cabling already exists on Aurora's 50-mile fiber network, but new lines will need to be installed near the high school and from Aurora fire station 8 at McCoy Drive and Gregory Street to the education center, Gorbatkin said.

OnLight is using a portion of a $1 million "Gigabit Challenge" grant it received from the state last month to pay the $109,000 cost of building the connection District 204 needs, said Rick Mervine, an Aurora alderman and volunteer with OnLight Aurora.

"Our objective is to be able to connect education, medical centers, arts and entertainment, social services and businesses — both economic development and existing businesses," to high-speed Internet at a low cost, Mervine said. "This is just the first step with 204."

The district will pay $197,820 over the life of the five-year agreement, but board members who unanimously approved the contract Monday night said OnLight offered savings over other possible vendors.

"The partnership is of tremendous value," Gorbatkin said. "The big positive is with the availability of the grant funds and the willingness of OnLight to aggressively price their services, it made this a win-win."

West Aurora schools, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and Aurora Christian School already are using OnLight connections, and Mervine said more partnerships are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Construction on the connection between Metea Valley High School and the Crouse Education Center will begin later this summer, with the service set to be live by February.

Summer 2013 Network Construction Projects Underway

The first phase of an aggressive summer fiber network construction schedule has begun. This phase will include new core network expansion through the northern end of the network to provide better access to developing business parks and medical center growth. Of greater importance, this new fiber opens new opportunities for redundant Internet connections for this highly available network and the ability to better control access costs.

Included in this and the next phases of construction in 2013 are more new lateral connections to all user categories served by OnLight Aurora including healthcare, business and education. One of the more important of these laterals will enable the use of wireless point-to-point connections, a lower cost alternative available for lower bandwidth users. New technology has opened this connection method to the market with the highly available profile required of this network along with the ability to carry high throughput. Users will be able to commence activity by mid summer.

OnLight Aurora is Gigabit Challenge Grant Recipient

Illinois Governor Quinn and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity have granted OnLight Aurora and Aurora Illinois a $1 Million grant to further develop the City of Aurora fiber optic network. One of the most robust networks in the state, this fiber optic network currently spans 50 miles of the city and will add an additional 15 miles through the grant process. OnLight Aurora will use these funds to connect the community anchor institutions of Aurora to the fiber to provide access to high speed broadband and the ability to collaborate with other organizations on the network.

These community anchor institutions include area schools, both K-12 and higher education as well as public and private, medical centers, social service agencies, arts & entertainment and businesses. In today’s economy, these connections are the fourth utility, an essential component to properly function and grow. Connection to this growing fiber network offers data center capability, and collaboration opportunities along with a highly scalable, highly competitive information technology tool. Users will then have highly available access to both voice and data network service.

OnLight Aurora is an Illinois not-for-profit with offices in Aurora Illinois serving the community by providing low cost, highly available and scalable access to the City of Aurora’s fiber optic network. Its services are designed to support and foster economic development growth and promote organizational collaboration through this network.

Illinois City Upgrades Network as Foundation for Economic Growth

Report from Cisco, 2012

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Aurora, the second largest city in Illinois, had become increasingly concerned with the costs of its unreliable network spread across 52 different buildings within 46 square miles. The network was disjointed, resulting in high fluctuations and variance in service from building to building. Aurora began to look at ways to use fiber optics — an advanced, innovative technology, to replace its older, traditional copper network. 

"Aurora’s network upgrade has resulted in a range of successes and improvements across the municipality. The consolidation of equipment and providers and integration of Cisco’s fiber network has provided an annual savings of $485,000 for the city."

These savings resonate in the current economic climate, as affirmed by Mayor Weisner, “With local governments increasingly facing limited resources, you have to be able to find efficiencies in operations.” Although the cost savings are gratifying, Beck notes that that was just the beginning: “The priority for the fiber optic network was initially cost savings; however we’re realizing that the benefits don’t end there. We’ve had some super wins with this technology, and we’re going to keep leveraging the infrastructure.” 

“Cisco’s fiber network has helped us become the 21st century version of the City of Lights: the city of light speed.”
— Mayor Tom Weisner, Mayor, City of Aurora

Click on the image below to read more.

This report covers how City of Aurora has integrated an advanced fiber optic network to improve government efficiencies, saving taxpayer dollars.