Florida Community College at Jacksonville Selects Roving Planet to Control Student and Staff Access to Wireless Network19 October 2005
Roving Planet, a leading provider of secure
guest access for wired and wireless networks, today announced that the
nation's 10th largest community college, Florida Community College at
Jacksonville (FCCJ), has selected Network Commander from Roving Planet to
manage multiple levels of guest access for visiting faculty, traveling
staff and students at its nine campuses.
Using Network Commander, FCCJ now offers free wireless services to both its
student body of 60,000 and staff of 3,500 for mobile devices including
laptops, PDA's and IP-based handsets. The IT staff also uses Network
Commander to control VoIP phone access by security and technical staff
throughout the network.
As a leading institution in the adoption of technology, FCCJ decided to
expand wireless services after students and staff enjoyed wired services
for the past two and a half years. In March 2002 Yahoo! Internet Life
recognized the campus as the second most wired community college in the
nation.
"Our biggest concern was removing the anonymity of wireless access and
informing the students that we know who is on the network and what they are
accessing," said Ron Smith, Director of Networks and Telecommunications at
FCCJ. "After testing numerous products we selected Roving Planet as the
most complete offering to provide secure guest access and user management."
FCCJ operates its wireless network on two separate virtual local area
networks (VLANs) per location - one for students and the other for staff. A
single Roving Planet Network Commander provides access controls on both of
the VLANs using distinguishable SSIDs for each group to permit various
levels of access to users.
This feature meant that FCCJ did not have to buy various platforms from
multiple vendors or duplicate existing software. In addition, Network
Commander allows FCCJ IT staff to shut down unapproved ports and users as
well as monitor user activity and access points (AP) to discover usage
patterns.
"Network Commander allows us to identify APs that are underused and then
move them to closer proximity to congested APs, solving bandwidth issues
around our campuses," Smith added. "We have also found that Roving Planet's
reporting tool provides all of the necessary information for State audits
that we are required to perform to demonstrate that we are properly
authenticating users throughout the network."
FCCJ's current network consists of 140 APs at its campuses throughout two
Florida counties. Through a simple authentication procedure, both staff and
students can roam between campuses and access pre-approved records and
files free of charge.
"Guest access is a leading concern for IT staff in higher education as well
as in healthcare and the enterprise," said Dick Schulte, Roving Planet
President and CEO. "Network security starts with who is allowed on a
network and how well that user is managed. Network Commander simplifies
this process to such a degree that FCCJ has just one member of its IT staff
successfully controlling all user access."
FCCJ plans on adopting Roving Planet's Scan & Block software once it has
run the Network Commander for an additional 10 months. Scan & Block will
allow FCCJ to scan devices that access the network and ensure that their
security patches and programs are up to date.
About Florida Community College
Florida Community College at Jacksonville (www.fccj.edu) currently serves
more than 63,000 students primarily in Duval and Nassau counties.
Conferring Associate in Art, Associate in Science degrees and a multitude
of Workforce Development certificates in more than 200 programs, Florida
Community College is one of the largest and fastest growing colleges in the
country. World-class distance learning technology and programs provide
civilian and military students across the nation and around the world the
opportunity to complete course work anyplace from kitchen tables to
battleships. Educational partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco
Systems, Sun Microsystems and Dell, and nationally recognized leadership in
educational technology have cemented Florida Community College's reputation
as one of the nation's technology leaders.
About Roving Planet
Roving Planet (www.rovingplanet.com) delivers Policy-Driven Network
Management and Control Solutions for enterprise networks. Products from
Roving Planet create a robust and secure network environment by managing
and controlling users, endpoints, connections, and sessions. Roving Planet
solutions drastically reduce operating and management costs, ensure
perimeter security and integrity, while providing correlated,
enterprise-wide network intelligence, visibility and reporting.
Company Contact:
Tom Ohlsson
Director, Marketing
Roving Planet, Inc.
(303) 464-5416
Email Contact
Media Contact
Brian Adams
Lewis PR
(617) 454-1105
Email Contact
SOURCE: Roving Planet, Inc.
Source: Marketwire
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