BYOD on School Network Challenge Solved
Hunter Valley Grammar School
Industry: Education
Network Size: Over 1,300 students and staff, plus 600 bring-your-own-devices on campus.
“Untangle’s flexibility and ease-of-use works for our continuously growing network.”
Background
Hunter Valley Grammar School is an independent, co-educational, non-denominational K-12 school that caters to over 1,100 students. Founded in 1990, the school is located on a large 32 acre park in Ashtonfield, Australia. Phil Burgess is the IT Manager at Hunter Valley Grammar School.
Free Trial and Right Price Points to Untangle
With a large campus and 600 BYOD on the school’s network, safe search and bandwidth control are of utmost important to Phil. Using a proxy-based solution proved to be ineffective and very limiting, as many applications were not proxy-aware and performed poorly. With a complex router already in place, Phil began looking for alternative solutions, but quickly found that many solutions were far too expensive to fit his school-sized IT budget. He also was looking for a solution that did not require an appliance to be purchased.
Through his research, Phil came across Untangle NG Firewall and decided to test it out with the free trial. “I liked the option to do a free trial before purchasing, as it allows us to actually test out the software to see if it can work in our environment and meet all our needs,” said Phil. In the end, Phil chose Untangle. “As a school, we do not have corporate-sized budgets, and Untangle’s pricing fit. The ease of setup was also a big factor in our decision-making.”
Adaptable Solution for Growing Networks
NG Firewall’s large application set provides Phil with everything he needs to manage, control, and report on the school’s network. Untangle’s Web Filter application allows him to enforce safe search on popular search engines and block inappropriate web content in real time. “Keeping our students from accessing inappropriate sites is a major concern for us, not just to protect the students, but to keep our compliance,” said Phil. “Keeping the network up and running is critical to our campus. Untangle’s Bandwidth Control application has helped immensely in managing bandwidth consumption on the network. I can set limits and quotas to users and groups as well as track and monitor the bandwidth abusers and take action.”
Hunter Valley Grammar School had been using NG Firewall as a transparent bridge behind their existing router for 3 years. This last year they decided to switch over to utilizing Untangle as its firewall to better accommodate their growing network needs. “This ability to easily switch is yet another reason why Untangle is a great solution and the perfect fit for us,” said Phil.
