Even with the complex network infrastructure environment for educational institutions, Infoblox ensures agile, resilient and predictable network services. Infoblox helps our customers work smarter, not harder by automating many of the normal daily grind tasks that take staff off other critical functions. Increasing efficiency with network automation combined with the control and knowledge of network change and behavior greatly improves overall service availability and network uptime.
With high-availability, resilient appliances, Infoblox helps educational institutions meet network service requirements for their ever-changing needs. The single, integrated interface and hardened appliances with patented high-availability Grid™ technology reduce the risk for outages normally associated with Microsoft or Unix server platforms. The tracking and auditing for DNS, DHCP, IP address and network changes meet compliance requirements and help identify potential issues faster and easier than the traditional reactive troubleshooting approach.
The blacklisting functionality in our DNS solution helps educational institutions and libraries receiving E-rate funding to meet the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requirement by blocking “harmful online content.” This value-added service can significantly reduce security costs associated with this compliance requirement. Unlike simple in-line filtering solutions that charge by the seat and screen out only prohibited URL attempts, Infoblox provides additional compliance assurance by blocking access at the DNS request, thus preventing access to banned content at both the URL and the IP address levels. Blacklisting functionality is included on all our NIOS solutions at no additional cost.
Key benefits
- Delivers high-availability and secure infrastructure with easy to deploy, high-availability appliances
- Ensures continuous uptime with patented Grid™ technology and centralized management
- Reduces cost and increases visibility with built-in, automated IP address management
- Eliminates unnecessary risk of human error or misconfiguration across multi-vendor environments
- Enables CIPA compliance for user of the E-Rate program through the blacklisting functionality
- Mitigates risks with proactive monitoring and tracking for malicious attacks or unplanned events
- Scales to meet the most complex, distributed environments within the education sector
- Enables staff to focus on more business-impacting initiatives instead of the typical reactive, manual approach
- Shows the impact of changes to the health and stability of the network
Challenges
Networks at today’s educational institutions are highly complex, with more technologies and policies than at most enterprises, and must support a larger and more diverse set of users. Additionally, network demands at modern expansive universities—such as PCI for credit card transactions, HIPAA for university hospitals and/or internal policy mandates that span multiple campuses—make compliance requirements more stringent than in most environments. Despite these challenges, these networks are often managed with limited and frequently manual resources.
The transient populations of users in the education sector—students enrolling and graduating, and faculty supporting off-campus research studies, to name but two—expect the same quality of service when connected to the university network regardless of their location throughout the day. As IP-based networks and devices continue their rapid proliferation, Infoblox can help your IT organization keep up with growing requirements of educational institutions. By eliminating manual tactics and automating the processes of DNS, DHCP, IP address management and network change and configuration management, Infoblox can teach your network to grow with its expanding demands.
For users of the E-Rate program who must comply with requirements of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), blocking sites and filtering pictures that are obscene, contain child pornography, or are harmful to minors is a major challenge. The blacklisting functionality in the DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) portion of the Infoblox Network Infrastructure Automation and Control is a simple way for educational institutions and libraries to achieve that compliance at no additional cost.
Along with more than 5,000 organizations, many of the world’s best education institutions use Infoblox solutions to ensure maximum network uptime, meet internal compliance, manage changes, and keep the business running, while simultaneously making constant improvements to their dynamic infrastructure.
Higher Education IT Management Challenges
Education institutions often have the most dynamic, change-ridden and complex network environments of any organization across the world. For most institutions, the IT staff is overburdened and must manage multiple disciplines to handle unique requirements. This multi-functional approach leads to overall lower service quality since each staff member cannot be an expert in every discipline. This approach often causes preventable mistakes when personnel make human errors by working as fast as possible instead of as smart as possible.
Even the most leading-edge institutions make many of the same mistakes by maintaining the status quo and overlooking the importance of the network infrastructure services. This leads to challenges, including:
- Unnecessary risk of downtime with limited and unreliable disaster recovery options across buildings or campuses
- Exposure to penalties, sanctions or fines for compliance violations including PCI, HIPAA and others
- Burdensome requirements for local expertise and knowledge to maintain disparate assets and tools
- Increased risk of change as more planned and unplanned modifications occur
- New risk and high vulnerability to both internal and external attacks and threats with multiple access points
- Disparate, inconsistent network infrastructure services with no centralized visibility and management
- Audit exposure with limited tracking and logs for compliance requirements and/or troubleshooting needs
Success Stories
A few of our education customers
The Infoblox solutions for DNS, DHCP, IP address management and network configuration and change management have been deployed by over 4,000 customers worldwide. Many of the leading education institutions have taken advantage of network infrastructure control and automation powered by Infoblox. Here is a small sample of our education customers.
| Ball State |
Brown University |
Colgate |
| Harvard |
Loyola Marymount |
NYU |
| Northwestern |
Ohio Wesleyan |
Texas A&M |
| Univ. of Alabama |
Univ. of California |
Univ. of Chicago |
| Univ. of Hawaii |
Univ. of Houston |
|
See how your peers and leading organizations leverage Infoblox
Don’t take our word for the power of Infoblox solutions; view a few of the stories of successful implementations of Infoblox solutions across the world. Check out how a peer organization ensured a highly-available network service solution or learn how other leading organizations have better automation and control across the infrastructure. While the industries and comments may be different, one thing remains constant—Infoblox has changed the way these organizations manage their network today, and they never want to go back to doing things the way they did before they discovered the power of Infoblox.
> Visit our case study library
Demos & Resources
See the power of network automation and control in action
Since every network environment is unique, the best way to see the power of the Infoblox solutions is to request a one-on-one, interactive demo. Our experts will discuss your current requirements and future needs, and tailor the presentation to cover the aspects most critical to you. Sign up today.
Additional resources
- Overviews: Summaries of Infoblox and our solutions
- Data Sheets: In-depth descriptions of the Infoblox solutions, product lines, services and maintenance
- Case Studies: Real-world success stories from Infoblox customers
- White Papers: Business-level overviews and best practices in network services and network infrastructure management
- Solution/Tech Notes: Detailed technical discussions and instructions on network integration and specific applications
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