Keene State College Press Release

SafeConnect™ NAC Replaces Cisco at Keene State College

Impulse Point’s Network Access Control Solution Reduces IT Support Costs

KEENE, NH – February 1, 2010– Impulse Point, provider of the most scalable network access control (NAC) solution for large higher education enterprise networks, and Keene State College announced today that SafeConnect™ has successfully been deployed to provide endpoint security policy management for the College’s wireless and residential networks.

Keene State chose Impulse Point’s SafeConnect NAC to replace Cisco Clean Access (CCA) after using CCA for five years and closely reviewing other NAC products. Among the requirements considered was the product’s ease of use and the capacity to help realign the workload of a limited IT staff.

“Keene State’s IT department is continually focused on strategic technology projects. We simply could not have a NAC solution that necessitated any additional support staff to run on a day to day basis,” states Laura Seraichick, CIO for Keene State College. “Not only was SafeConnect installed, running and deployed in record time, but we don’t have to dedicate additional IT resources to managing it”.

SafeConnect NAC is delivered as an operationally managed support service. In addition to turnkey installation and training, Impulse Point provides proactive 24/7 monitoring, problem determination and resolution, software and appliance hardware maintenance, and future software enhancement protection.

Implemented as a true “out-of-line” network device, the SafeConnect Policy Enforcer Appliance sits out-of-line with the core network and fails open—presenting no single point of failure, performance bottle-necks or maintenance-related or scheduled network outages. In the event of a failure all existing and new users to the network are unaffected and have uninterrupted access to network resources. Impulse Point’s Managed Support Service also includes daily policy configuration backups and 24-48 hours policy appliance restoration recovery services, in the unlikely event of a system failure.

“By leveraging our managed services capability, we can routinely install a system in less than an hour. Impulse Point pre-loads specific configuration information, and guides the network team through the connection process, “says Jenny Ireland, Regional Sales Manager for Impulse Point.

“Keene State was able to reduce the time focused on our Help Desk. Using Cisco Clean Access during previous back-to-school seasons, we had to hire outside contractors to help cover the IT desk because we touched almost every student machine on campus,” continues Seraichick. “The SafeConnect end user interface is very user friendly and most of our time this year was spent on machines with serious problems, rather than spending time simply installing the NAC. The student experience is much better.”

Remaining invisible to the end user as long as the device is in compliance with security policies, SafeConnect provides remediation guidance to walk a user through the process of correcting the problem. Users are able to self-remediate without having to contact the Help Desk for assistance.

SafeConnect™ offers an easy to implement and support endpoint policy management solution that allows organizations to control access to their networks based on an end user’s compliance with security policies, while seamlessly connecting to their existing multi-vendor infrastructure. Although not required, SafeConnect is also compatible with 802.1x, providing the flexibility to quarantine users at the router, switch, or endpoint device.

The SafeConnect™ network access control solution provides the following capabilities:

• Prevents unauthorized user access to wired, wireless, and VPN networks.
• Ensures users maintain compliance with anti-virus, anti-spyware, Microsoft security patches, P2P file sharing software, power management, and custom endpoint security policies through real-time continuous security posture validation and enforcement (pre- and post-admission control).
• Automates the isolation of non-compliant devices at Layer2 and provides individualized remediation guidance independent of network switch hardware.
• Enables flexible identity-based policy management for students, employees, vendors, and guests.
• Allows the organization to send on-demand broadcast messages for emergency or informational communications by network location or policy group.

SafeConnect™ is supported by the NAC industry’s only Managed Support Service offering. Impulse Point provides continuous proactive monitoring and support that includes hardware server and software problem determination and resolution, as well as upgrade protection to future software functional releases.

About Keene State College

Keene State College is a dynamic public institution offering 40 majors in the liberal arts and sciences and professional programs. The College enrolls about 5,300 students in undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education courses. Keene State emphasizes academic excellence, integrative learning, community engagement, faculty scholars, and a tradition of small classes and spirited inquiry. For more information, please visit www.keene.edu