California District Turns to NAC To Manage BYOD Program
The Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD) has implemented a network access control solution (NAC) in an effort to manage bandwidth usage on its wireless network.
With a bring your own device policy, NVUSD's network serves more than 18,000 students and faculty members at 32 schools. The $2.1 million project allows students and faculty to access the district's Echo learning management system, Google Apps, and other collaboration and communication tools from their mobile devices.
According to NVUSD Technology Director Laurel Krsek, students were also using a large portion of the available bandwidth for non-educational purposes.
To solve the problem and manage access on the variety of devices students bring, the district chose to implement Impulse Point's SafeConnect NAC solution.
"Right now we have Facebook open and peer-to-peer sites blocked. But if we need to change that, the business rules are easy to setup and modify," said Krsek. "In our environment we need to be able to adjust on the fly and we see SafeConnect as a key piece of that puzzle."
The district also uses SafeConnect to protect against malware, viruses, and spyware by making sure that devices are running current virus protection and redirecting unknown or noncompliant devices to a registration portal or simply denying them access.
"We looked to see what colleges had been doing because we didn't have the luxury of using something unproven," said Krsek. "SafeConnect helps strike a balance between reserving resources and maintaining a reliable high-speed network that enhances the learning environment for everyone."
More information about SafeConnect is available at impulse.com.
About the Author
Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].