Great Bay’s Endpoint Profiler facilitates the successful implementation of 802.1X to all areas of the QCC LAN network
Contacts:
Bob Durkee
Great Bay Software
bdurkee@greatbaysoftware.com
Greenland, NH – October 4, 2005—Great Bay software today announced that Beacon, the company’s Endpoint Profiling product, has been selected to enable the deployment of 802.1X at Quinsigamond Community College. Beacon was deployed to identify all network attached endpoints by location and type, a critical action item leading up to the deployment of 802.1X. In addition, Beacon provides QCC with ongoing administration of the college’s authentication-enabled network by providing the foundation for Identity and Location management of all network endpoints, and managing the compliance of the end stations with the college’s policies for acceptable use of the network.
Pre-Deployment of Network-based Authentication
At QCC, Beacon facilitated the timely deployment of 802.1X by providing the IT team with the tools and information required leading up to the deployment, and providing a framework for managing adds, moves, and changes following deployment. Beacon addresses critical items in the deployment of 802.1X such as the requirement to ascertain the type and location of all EAP and non-EAP endpoints (those that will not authenticate using 802.1X) prior to the deployment and the ability to monitor/manage the state of the authenticated LAN edge for changes and security events on an ongoing basis.
Securing the network while providing collaborative computing
The IT team at Quinsigamond faced a daunting challenge; to provide open and collaborative computing for the college’s student’s faculty and staff, while securing network availability and the college’s resources. QCC decided that the deployment of 802.1X would provide the right balance between enabling the academic environment and securing system availability. The IT team used Beacon prior to the production deployment of 802.1X to discover the type and location of all attached network endpoints. “Beacon saved us a great deal of time and expense in preparing for the deployment of 802.1X in our network” said Ken Dwyer CTO at Quinsigamond. “In addition, we’ve found that we use Beacon continuously to assist with adds, moves, and changes in our authentication-enabled network”.
In addition to providing the basis for deploying 802.1X, the college has subsequently used Beacon to locate machines that are not running the supported managed anti-virus client, and to provision security roles to ports to further the network. “We’re glad to be a part of the successful 802.1X deployment at QCC” said Steve Pettit President of Great Bay Software. “The IT team at Quinsigamond committed to providing a secure computing environment to enable and empower the educational process and have executed impressively”.
About Great Bay Software:
Great Bay Software is a Software development firm focused on facilitating network-based authentication and secure network access. The Company’s Endpoint Profiling technology provides enterprise customers with the products, services and solutions required to enable the Network Admission Control and Trusted Endpoint Solutions being introduced by many of the top security manufacturers in the world. For more information on the Beacon System from Great Bay Software, visit www.greatbaysoftware.com or call (603) 866-1134.
