NETWORK PROFILE
Wired and wireless access to 16,000 undergraduate and post-graduate students and 2,000 staff; student residence network provides nearly 4,000 wired connections.
CHALLENGES
“Home Grown” NAC Solution Limits Access, Increases Staff workload
With its main campus spanning 300 acres in Canterbury, UK, and additional campuses in Medway, Tonbridge and Brussels, the University of Kent serves more than 16,000 undergraduate and post-graduate students and 2,000 academic, research and administrative staff.
To ensure that students benefit from secure connectivity to the main campus network, the University provides a Study Bedroom Service (SBS) with nearly 4,000 wired connections to enable students to access email, networked files, course material, library resources and the Internet using their own devices.
The SBS was secured by a home-grown Network Access Control (NAC) system that depended on registering MAC addresses and user names manually. “Our legacy NAC system had been developed by staff who had long since left the University, so we were limited in our ability to extend it to meet new network security challenges. It was simply unsupportable,” explains Jim Higham, help desk manager at the University of Kent. “In addition, the system was administratively cumbersome with data about each user entered manually. This prevented new students from connecting for several days after they arrived while the administrative process took place. At the same time, viruses and spyware problems added to our workload at the start of each term.”
“Bradford Networks offered the only full-fit solution. The company has a solid track record at hundreds of universities. A closer look showed that they were the ideal network access control solution for a campus like ours.” – Jim Higham Help Desk Manager
Search For New Solution Opens Door To Greater Control
Hingham and his staff recognized that they needed a more effective solution that would enable them to control and protect the network while delivering the level of immediate service students expected when they arrived on campus. Most significantly, the University wanted to reduce or eliminate the administrative overhead associated with the existing solution.
“Ideally we wanted an automated solution that could be delivered online,” Hingham notes. “We wanted students to do what they needed to do to register their systems, eradicate virus or spyware, and begin to use the network without contacting the help desk, and we wanted them to understand what was happening as they were going through the process. This would enable the University’s IT team to focus on other start-of-term concerns.”
SOLUTION
Campus Manager Solution, with Network Sentry Foundation, Access Manager, Device Tracker, Endpoint Compliance
“The company has a solid track record at hundreds of universities and has proved itself worthy of consideration.” – Jim Higham
RESULTS
The University of Kent has reduced the time needed to resolve problems such as virus infections or to identify who is where on the network. “Network access control is now managed automatically without significant administrative or operational involvement, and our customers are able to connect easily and quickly,” said Higham. “On that basis alone Network Sentry has proven its worth.”
- Can now automatically control network access without significant administrative or operational involvement.
- Increased customer satisfaction by actively controlling and managing vulnerabilities, resulting in fewer support requirements and quicker problem resolution.
- Eliminated manual disabling and re-enabling of student accounts.
- Enforced access control across wired environment reduces risk to student systems and to the campus network by ensuring that unsecure devices cannot connect.
- Leveraged data collected to diagnose problems, identify who is connected to the network and where, and inform planning and support decisions.