Infoblox Inc. (NYSE:BLOX), the network control company, today announced that Council Rock School District of southeastern Pennsylvania has selected Infoblox to modernize network operations and enhance visibility throughout the network. The initiative lowers ongoing operational costs while better meeting the needs of faculty and students. As the existing network has grown, maintaining visibility into IP addressing with manual spreadsheets has become a significant challenge, causing unnecessary repetition of work. Through Infoblox DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI), Infoblox DNS Firewall, and Infoblox NetMRI, the district has deployed an updated, secure network architecture that meets the growing needs of staff and students while protecting its information.
Council Rock School District contains 15 schools, and its network infrastructure serves 13,500 students and faculty daily. With more than 5,000 devices connected to the network, managing and securing district resources is a complex task. Furthermore, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 35 states including Pennsylvania saw a drop in educational spending per student between 2008 and 2014. The result is that school districts are tasked with accomplishing more with fewer resources. And in an increasingly complex IT environment, managing the network without the ability to automate operational tasks is a significant challenge.
As Council Rock School District updated its aging network architecture to employ the latest fiber and wireless technology, it identified a need to integrate a solution to better manage its core network services. After attending a webinar and reading a white paper on the capabilities of Infoblox, the school district’s director of IT selected two Infoblox DDI appliances running its integrated DNS, DHCP, and IP address management solution. In addition, to manage the more than 250 switches used by the district, it deployed the Infoblox NetMRI solution to easily view each switch when applying updates. Finally, Infoblox DNS Firewall was implemented to secure its DNS servers and prevent data exfiltration.
With the Infoblox solutions in place, the district has not only prevented security compromises such as curious students attempting an internal denial-of-service attack, but it has enabled the IT department to identify ongoing issues, such as a machine infected with a botnet, which was resolved with just five minutes of work. Without Infoblox DNS Firewall, it would have taken three weeks of troubleshooting to solve the problem. The district’s IT team can see the current state of all network switches at a glance, and the centralized DHCP control with role-based access gives insight into current conditions without the possibility of accidental configuration changes.
“We couldn’t keep track of our IP addresses with our legacy Microsoft system, but Infoblox has been the perfect solution for us,” said Matthew Frederickson, director of IT for Council Rock School District. “We first brought in Infoblox to help us replace outdated Microsoft DHCP servers and manage our switches. We found the centralized visibility and management so impressive that we decided to bring in Infoblox DNS Firewall to secure our DNS servers. The result is a network that lets us take full advantage of our fiber connection without worrying about day-to-day configuration or security issues. They’ve made us feel like true partners in our technology investment.”
“IT departments find themselves in a constant battle to provide cost-effective, high performance services while maintaining security,” said Ashish Gupta, chief marketing officer at Infoblox. “Our goal is to help businesses achieve that balance, and our uniquely capable solutions deliver the performance and peace of mind that organizations need—regardless of their industry.”
Read this case study and more at https://www.infoblox.com/resources/case-studies/council-rock-school-district/; and view a video of Matthew Frederickson describing how Infoblox has helped him manage the Council Rock School District’s network.