The University of Buckingham provides secure remote access to staff and students with the PortWise S
Added: (Fri Aug 14 2009)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
The motivation for the University of Buckingham to provide a remote access solution originated with a necessity to provide more flexible working conditions for staff. This would allow the University to reduce staff absence due to increased home working and flexible hours, with the additional ‘green’ benefit of reducing carbon emissions.
“We needed to give staff better access to facilities when they were off the campus, but were also mindful about making access to sensitive resources such as exam papers and student files secure,” said Matthew Day, Head of IT, “The University has to comply with the Data Protection Act so we didn’t feel comfortable simply putting information on a website without additional security.”
The University of Buckingham is the only university independent of direct government support in the United Kingdom and has used its independence to pioneer a distinctive approach to higher education. This has lead to it being voted the top university for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The University of Buckingham spends more per student on Information Technology (IT) than most universities in the UK; only four others spend more.
FA requirement to deliver a Secure Virtual Private Network was identified, where users must log in using a Strong Two Factor Authentication method.
Matthew and his team looked at a range of solutions for VPN and Two Factor Authentication. “We tried installing VPN hardware in people’s homes but this proved difficult to manage as did authentication tokens. Users could easily lose, break or forget them,” commented Day.
Essentec, in partnership with reseller, Probos Consulting, recommended the PortWise Security Platform, a complete software based solution for SSL VPN and Two Factor Authentication. With PortWise the University staff did not need security tokens and instead could receive passwords via their mobile phones. There was no expensive hardware that the University needed to purchase.
PortWise had the additional benefit that it could work within the Terminal Services and Thin Client environment that Probos Consulting had previously implemented for the University. PortWise was installed on a Virtual Server to reduce hardware costs even further.
A successful pilot has meant Staff can now remotely access their Terminal Services Desktop, Intranet Applications, SharePoint and Outlook using PortWise, with a similar service to be rolled out to students in the near future.
“PortWise is a really well thought out product and works in a very powerful, yet intuitive way,” said Matthew. “I particularly like the way it integrates with Microsoft Active Directory so we only have to enter user information in one place. The single sign on feature is another additional benefit so users don’t have to remember lots of passwords.”
Matthew Day is convinced that the ability to securely access files remotely will not only benefit the University in terms of flexible working but also through enabling business continuity and aiding contingency planning. “At the start of the year we had problems when staff couldn’t get on to the campus due to heavy snowfall. Now we have PortWise if there were severe weather conditions or a Flu pandemic staff and students could work remotely.”
He believes that the University is one of a very few that will offer this kind of secure remote access solution to students and puts this down to the affordability and flexibility of PortWise. “Secure Remote Access fits perfectly with our whole approach to being customer and student focused which means the University continues to top student satisfaction surveys.”