Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Telecommunications Infrastructure Upgrade

Cook County is the second-largest county in the U.S. and home to more than 40% of all the residents in Illinois. The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest of the 24 judicial circuits in Illinois and one of the largest unified court systems in the world, with approximately 400 judges serving 5.2 million residents and more than one million cases filed each year within Chicago and its 126 surrounding suburbs. The Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court is the official keeper of records for all judicial matters and is responsible for managing an annual operating budget of more than $100 million with a workforce of 1,474 employees.

The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County sought to cost-effectively upgrade its telecommunications infrastructure to provide the power protection, physical security, and environmental controls required to support modern network and communications equipment and high-speed connectivity. 

As the prime contractor for the project, Level-1 designed and procured a distributed technology solution consisting of an 84×36-inch glass enclosure with the built-in power protection, environmental sensors and controls, and physical security required to reliably run a modern telecommunications network at the client location. Level-1’s solution included a single cabinet enclosure to permit secure rack mounting of servers and other gear. Locks on both sides of the cabinet entry offered optimal security, while built-in perforations for cables allowed hard-wire connections as required.

To ensure reliable, continuous operation of this self-contained distributed technology center, each enclosure’s sensors capture and transmit data on temperature, humidity, power consumption, and security via Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP). Such data can be reviewed by authorized administrators through a browser-based interface custom-designed by Level-1.