Case study: Netbox Blue wins Lutheran College deal

The solution provides a complete suite of security and management features, protecting pupils from pornography, predators and other inappropriate internet material.

"Internet filtering is incredibly important in our school," said Scott Josephs IT manager at the college.

"Parents need to know that we're doing everything we can to ensure the safety of their child on the internet, just as they would at home."

Prior to installing NetBox Blue SecurED, the college was running three different products to secure and manage its network.

This was both expensive and time consuming.

"We were paying three different licence fees," said Josephs.

"We had three different companies and had to deal with three different support desks if we had problems or if something changed. We needed to consolidate that."

After investigating the companies that offered all-in-one security and management solutions, the choice was narrowed down to two products.

"I found the NetBox SecurED interface a lot easier to use," added Josephs.

"The other product used a lot of Java in their management tools and it didn't fit together as well.

"SecurED has a cleaner, slicker feel about it. We decided to go with that." 

The SecurED solution provided a new approach to internet and email management for the college.

With the one cost-effective appliance, it got rid of the duplication and expense of managing three disparate solutions.

Students now have spam filtering, an enterprise class firewall and education specific reporting tools as well as other features in the one appliance.

The  solution uses Closed Loop Collaborative Filtering to manage the internet.

A centrally managed data base of millions of classified internet sites is constantly updated.

The system rapidly responds to new internet material to ensure vulnerable students are always blocked from inappropriate content.

The College also uses the SecurED reporting tools to monitor which students are attempting to access blocked sites.

If the same student regularly appears on the list, he or she can be cautioned and informed that school policies are being contravened. From there further action can be taken for repeat offenders.

"We have a real obligation to make sure we're putting in place a safe system," said Josephs.

 "It's very important to have a cutting edge internet filter.

"Parents put a lot of trust in schools in that respect. They expect that we are doing the right thing and that the internet filter is doing its job. A configurable system that doesn't date is very important."

The SecurEd solution is one of the weapons in the college's battle against cyber bullying.

It also has an education program for parents to keep them abreast of the problem, how it can be tackled at home and how the college manages it at school.

"We tell parents that we use cutting edge technology that is constantly updated to filter the internet. NetBox Blue is a large local company with an international reputation, so we can protect children better than schools that don't have that technology," said Josephs.