3. Firewall Evaders
In addition, keep an eye out for apps that students might use to bypass campus security policy. For example, the freeware Ultrasurf app bypasses filters and firewalls by going through a proxy server. Students may use it to go where schools do not want them to, such as gambling and other inappropriate sites. Hotspot Shield does the same; it provides a free virtual private network (VPN) that offers privacy, security and access to blocked content. Students who gain access to these websites and video streams may unexpectedly impact the network.
Application Intelligent Networks
For campuses struggling with Wi-Fi performance, application-level intelligence helps bring sanity to the mess by prioritizing critical apps, such as education or productivity apps, over entertainment services. This ensures network administrators service important apps with the best quality to ensure predictable performance, while they provide unimportant apps with only best effort service. Some of today’s Wi-Fi solutions can manage applications directly on the access point to deliver the best performance.
Management tools are also key to making everything work seamlessly. Administrators set policies to block, rate, limit, and prioritize apps based on a variety of factors, including time of day, device type, user type or location. For example, the administrator can set a policy to block large file transfer apps such as BitTorrent everywhere except in the dorms, or they completely block the use of security evasion apps.
Conclusion
In today’s highly dynamic college environments, there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter network design. Administrators must be able to manage and provision current Wi-Fi usage while remaining adaptable to react to the next change around the corner. With the right tools and application intelligence designed for the task, administrators will be in the position to handle the inevitable and constant changes in the network year to year, and ultimately keep their students learning.
Bruce Miller is VP of product marketing at Xirrus.
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