Bradford Networks for Education
Network Access Control (NAC), BYOD

The Challenge:

Secure Your Campus Network While Simplifying IT Administration

Whether you adopt a BYOD or 1-to-1 program, controlling access to your network and keeping users happy can be a challenge. Laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other networked devices are showing up in record numbers pushing the limits of simplistic network access policies and traditional onboarding techniques. Mobile Device Management is helpful to manage the configuration of the devices, when it can be installed, but there will always be scenarios where users will not allow MDM on their device or the device is unauthorized to join the network.

Securing network access for a diverse set of students, faculty, staff, and other users with all their networked devices – iPads, smart phones, laptops the list goes on – can be a daunting challenge for even the most highly-staffed IT organizations. How do you provision the appropriate level of network access for each user? Do these devices comply with your security policies? How can you register 100,000 student devices on your network before students get back to school?

The Solution:

Network Sentry: Visibility, Automation, & Control

Network Sentry provides you with complete visibility and control of all users and devices on your network to prevent unauthorized access and keep your network and information secure. Network Sentry registers and authenticates all users and their associated devices, monitors their network access and usage, and dynamically provisions network access.

Network Sentry automates enforcement of your established endpoint security policies to ensure compliance, and isolates any non-compliant devices from the network. If users’ computers are simply blocked from the network without explanation, this will only lead to a flood of calls to the help desk. Network Sentry takes the process a step further and enables self remediation. It informs users as to why their network access has been restricted, and provides instructions together with limited network access to correct policy compliance issues without having to engage IT staff.

In addition to visibility and control, Network Sentry simplifies device onboarding, providing a self-service and scalable device registration process. By allowing end users to register their devices, through a simple captive portal, every device on the network has an identifiable owner and the appropriate network access can be granted automatically granted to the user. The burden of onboarding and maintaining a large volume of constantly changing devices is shifted from IT staff to end users thereby ensuring the process is scalable and cost effective.

Maximize Your Existing IT Security Investments

No doubt you have already deployed security solutions such as IDS/IPS, firewalls, packetshapers, and other solutions, to protect your network resources. Network Sentry even helps you get more out of these investments through its extensive third-party integration capabilities.

For example, using just a source IP address provided by your IDS, Network Sentry can correlate the associated endpoint device, its user, and its location on the network. What’s more, Network Sentry can dynamically quarantine an infected or non-compliant device right at the switch port or wireless controller to eliminate threats from the network.