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New Castle County Moves to the Cloud

The largest county in Delaware, with over 550,000 residents, found a way to do more with less in order to meet citizen expectations with a cloud-managed network.

The largest county in Delaware, with over 550,000 residents, found a way to do more with less in order to meet citizen expectations with a cloud-managed network.

It is no secret that government agencies are not always on the cutting edge of new technologies. From tight budgets to lean teams, it can be very challenging for government IT to deploy and manage the robust technologies used by their private sector counterparts. And yet, 85% of U.S. citizens expect government digital services to be on par with or better than private sector digital services. How do governments meet citizen expectations without the resources required?

One answer? The cloud. By using cloud-based solutions, government agencies can scale operations, decrease total cost of ownership, and improve citizen experiences with less day-to-day maintenance and more time to focus on impactful projects.

One such county is leading the charge for government organizations across the United States: New Castle County. The largest county in Delaware, with over 550,000 residents and 1,600 government employees, found a way to do more with less in order to meet citizen expectations. They started with a cloud-managed network, deploying access points, switches, and security appliances across the county. With their new network, New Castle County experienced three main benefits:

  • Intuitive Interface: The team now manages their access points, switches, and security appliances from a single pane of glass, greatly simplifying day-to-day network management. The elimination of command line helped the small IT team allocate resources more effectively.
  • Increased visibility: By knowing all the devices that are connected to the network, who is using bandwidth, and where more coverage might be needed, the team can easily maintain and troubleshoot the network. With building floor plans uploaded into the Meraki dashboard, the team can see how endpoints are moving from access point to access point and identify where someone is if they are having connection issues.
  • Improved security: By using content filtering to block inappropriate content and intrusion prevention to safeguard against malicious traffic, New Castle County’s network is much more secure than before. Plus, with simplified firmware upgrades, the team ensures 24/7 uptime, so there is no impact to critical operations such as the 911 center.
Governments are eager to provide more for citizens, but it isn’t always easy. By managing their entire network through a cloud-based dashboard, the New Castle County IT team has eliminated the day-to-day tasks that come with traditional networking solutions, opening up new opportunities for team members to focus on providing digital services for citizens. The IT team now prioritizes projects that will improve daily operations for government employees and citizen experiences across the county.

To learn more about how the cloud has enabled New Castle County to be a technology-forward government organization, watch the webinar recording. You’ll hear from Mike Hojnicki, Chief of Technology and Administrative Services, and Jon Yearly, Manager of Information Systems, on why they chose to move to the cloud. Or, attend an upcoming webinar to see a live demo of the Meraki dashboard in action and get your questions answered. You’ll even be eligible to receive a free access point, just for attending!