College of the Canyons Deploys Wireless Network Security

Valencia, CA-based College of the Canyons has selected Enterasys equipment to provide secure connectivity for 3,000 wired and wireless devices serving 24,000 students, faculty, and staff. The college decided to implement 10 gigabit Ethernet network connectivity throughout all campus buildings to support increased bandwidth and security needs brought on by recent expansion.

"We selected Enterasys solutions to meet our IT goals because they took the time to understand our exact requirements without applying a lot of pressure; and the products were proven to interoperate very well with our existing vendors, including Fortinet and Adtran," said James Temple, director of IT. "Enterasys has also been instrumental in our campus wireless project, which has enabled us to offer students and teachers secure wireless network access in every classroom. Our goal was to have reliable, always-on connectivity for students, faculty, and staff, regardless of their location. Enterasys products were simple to implement and worked immediately out of the box. We didn't have to think about it--it just worked!"

The vendor's Matrix N-Series flow-based switches serve as the core of the college's network. The campus has also implemented Enterasys Network Access Control to monitor access to the wireless network and the college's servers while quarantining suspicious network connectivity attempts. Temple and his staff of four network support people manage the network using NetSight Management Suite.

The company's products are also in use at Boston College, Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, and Southampton Solent University in Hampshire, UK.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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