* ConSentry NAC gear gives Fayetteville State University better network traffic visibility
Since it has implemented ConSentry NAC gear, Fayetteville State University in North Carolina finds that it gives the school better visibility into network traffic that results in using the gear as a troubleshooting tool.
For example, a professor called for help after someone logged into her machine remotely. Using the ConSentry NAC gear, the help desk detected a high volume of packets headed from her machine toward a particular IP address range. The traffic was blocked by changing access control lists on switches until the trouble could be cleaned up.
That capability is a useful bonus for anyone who bought NAC primarily for its ability to test endpoints for compliance with network admission policies. But it’s no substitute for tools designed to give visibility into networks, says the school’s director of systems and infrastructure Joseph Vittorelli.
The university is looking at NetScout and other vendors for a purpose-built distributed network monitoring tool, he says. The ConSentry box is useful to a degree for this purpose, but “ConSentry doesn’t give enough visibility,” for all purposes. “We need to find the right balance.”
Colleges face new laws that force them to provide students with a source of streaming music that is legal and to assume responsibility if students use the campus network to download music illegally. The ConSentry gear provides sufficient visibility and enforcement to meet that need, he says.
What he has discovered is that NAC gear can open eyes to functionality and network issues that IT staff may need to address, even if it can’t fulfill the need all by itself. But it can serve as a BandAid solution until the customer makes a purchasing decision on the appropriate product.
