Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Features
Overcoming Wireless LAN Management Challenges
1/30/2004
Using their standard user IDs and passwords, students could authenticate into the wireless network—leveraging the existing system. They needed safeguards to protect applications, such as student information systems and lab applications.
Central Site Director provided an out-of-the box integration with University of Wyoming’s Active Directory system, enabling University of Wyoming to authenticate users via user IDs and passwords rather than via Mac addresses.
Network administrators can now monitor and protect applications, such as student information systems and lab applications, by specifying which servers, ports, and applications can be accessed depending on the user.
Moreover, WLAN access for visitors and guests, which formerly required the manual entry of a Mac address for each guest user, has been vastly simplified via a default public user group. The University of Wyoming administrators can define this in terms of what applications and network resources will be available to such users.
Fast, Simple Installation
The Roving Planet system comprises an engine and agents, which are accessed
and managed via a Web browser interface. The engine maintains all network information
and policies, resides out of the data path, and communicates with the agents
to deploy policies and manage wireless network activity. The agents are networked
in the data path and function as an OSI Layer 2 bridge/pass-through to enforce
access and bandwidth controls at each AP. XML gateways and the ongoing development
of additional APIs facilitate simplified integration with existing systems and
enterprise applications.
The Layer 2 architecture made Central Site Director extremely simple to implement and required very little configuration overhead. University of Wyoming was able to install Central Site Director, get it fully operational in about five hours and begin trouble-shooting network issues via its real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities immediately.
The University of Wyoming is ready for the expected increase in wireless network traffic as broadband access becomes a common feature on many mobile computing devices and incoming freshmen come to expect WLAN access throughout the campus.
Justin Borthwick (jarik@uwyo.edu) is network systems manager at the University
of Wyoming.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Fixed-Mobile Convergence: Dartmouth Beefs Up Cell Coverage, Cuts Costs
Problems with cell phone coverage aren't uncommon on college campuses. There are two main reasons: The beefy structure of historic buildings can block cellular reception within walls, and, on more remote campuses outside cities, signal coverage can be light.
- Thompson Rivers U Deploys Unified Digital Campus for ERP
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in British Columbia has selected SunGard Higher Education's Banner Unified Digital Campus (UDC) to integrate its ERP systems.
- DV Kitchen Web Video Publishing System Released
DVcreators.net has released DV Kitchen, a new video encoding and publishing application for Mac OS X designed specifically for creating materials to be posted on the Web.
- NEC Debuts 4 Education Projectors
NEC this week debuted four new projectors targeted toward education applications, along with a new MultiSync LCD display. The new NP-series projectors are entry-level models started at $899 but are designed to provide high light output, support for closed captioning, and built-in networking capabilities.
- Security Researchers Uncover Spring Framework Vulnerability
Software frameworks are enjoying enormous popularity these days among a range of developers. It's popularity well earned; frameworks provide powerful tools for building more flexible and less error-prone applications. They generally enhance developer productivity with out-of-the-box functionality. And they can free developers to focus on features instead of common coding tasks.
- 3PAR Server Arrays Integrate Fat-to-Thin Processing
Utility storage provider 3PAR has announced the release of the 3PAR InServ T400 and T800 Storage Servers. The new hardware is built on the company's third-generation InSpire architecture, featuring the 3PAR Gen3 ASIC with integrated fat-to-thin processing.
