Avenda Secures Wireless Access for Ontario School Board

The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board has reportedly deployed Avenda Systems’ eTIPS network access solution.

 

The Ontario school board will use the solution to secure wireless access for more than 6,000 users, while protecting its network from unauthorized use. The eTIPS platform can centrally manage policies across access methods, operating systems, as well as managed and unmanaged endpoints and existing identity stores.

 

HSCDSB has a large geographic footprint, and had a hard time authenticating and centrally managing network access for its many wireless users. Derek Warmington, network administrator, HSCDSB, said the company faced challenges keeping devices with out-of-date protection from infecting the network. Management realized that it needed a solution to enforce policies for students, staff and administrators that could be quickly deployed across the district's many wireless access points, he said.

 

Warmington said company officials searched for solutions and finally decided that Avenda (News - Alert) is affordable and easily secures the firm’s wireless networks. In the near future, the board intends do health checks to keep certain devices off the network that do not meet HSCDSB’s current protection levels based on set policy requirements.

 

“In addition to supporting all of our existing platforms, we can also create policies to manage iPhone (News - Alert) authentication on the network, as well,” Warmington said in a statement.

 

Avenda's eTIPS will serve as the district's RADIUS server and integrates with HSCDSB's Meru wireless LAN and 802.1X authentication system. By working seamlessly with HSCDSB's active directory server, the eTIPS solution provides identity-based access to secure the wireless LAN and manage network usage.

 

"The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board is a good example of how an organization can tie security, authentication and network protection together," said Ron DiBiase, Avenda Systems vice president of sales. "Organizations are realizing the benefits of a role-based, policy architecture that integrates with all of their existing systems and user platforms; and, thus, are turning to Avenda Systems."