| ISONAS system secures access to Vocational Educa-Center and Early Childhood Education building |
The Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District (DIISD), located in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is an administrative unit consisting of 6 separate districts with a total of 16 schools. The DIISD operates on a consolidated services or “consortium” basis for many of its cross district requirements. One such consortium is the District’s Technology department, which provides IT infrastructure, communications and computing resource services for all 6 districts.
Enhance physical security of various facilities
In 2011, DIISD determined the need to enhance the physical security of its various facilities. The task of choosing the access control component that would best fit all District requirements was managed by Darren Schiltz, the DIISD Director of Technology. “We don’t have the luxury of a large staff,” states Mr. Schiltz, “so we wanted a system that was as easy to install and utilise as possible. We also really needed a system that was affordable and that we could cost effectively expand over time. Scalability on our terms is a really big deal.”
Ability to expand door without control panels or extra power supplies
Upon completing an RFP process in late 2011, the District chose ISONAS and installed their first PowerNet reader controllers in January 2012.
“We were particularly attracted to the ISONAS reader’s one-wire installation and its use of PoE,” says Mr. Schiltz. “We liked the ability to be able to expand a door at a time without control panels or extra power supplies. Since we have multiple connectivity methods (WAN, LAN, fibre, wireless), simplicity of the system was one of the key features of the ISONAS solution for us.”
The initial installation of the ISONAS system was a replacement of an old clock based at the DIISD Vocational Educa-Center that had to be re-set every Friday. “That was cumbersome to say the least,” according to Mr. Schiltz. “We also had issues with tracking keys on regular lock-an-key entry doors, so it’s nice now not to have to waste time doing that any more or waste money on the occasional re-key process with a locksmith.”
In addition to the DIISD administration building, the ISONAS system secures access to the Vocational Education Center and the Early Childhood Education building. There are currently 150 users of the system; primarily staff that need access to the 3 buildings that have the PowerNet reader-controllers installed.
The DIISD policy called for access cards to double as personal ID cards. Assigned cards are now printed with the user’s picture and personal ID information in accordance with District policy.
ISONAS EasyWeb applications
“We are acquiring the ISONAS EasyWeb applications, which will allow us to administer the system remotely, including from mobile devices.” says Mr. Schiltz. “The system is perfectly suited to our very diverse geographic reality, and we anticipate expanding it over time to all of our facilities. We recommend it to our technical counterparts in other Districts.”
The DIISD server hosts the ISONAS system for all current and future doors to centrally administer and secure their geographically dispersed campuses.