Education | Millersville University

Millersville University installs BlueCat Networks’ IPAM Solution to ensure its network is always up and running

OVERVIEW

Foundeda in 1855, Millersville University has over 1,100 faculty and staff and a student population of 7,259 undergraduate and 1,047 graduate students. Listed among U.S. News & World Report’s Top 10 public universities in the North, Millersville University offers all the advantages you would expect from a university: competitive programs, great facilities, a diverse student community and a variety of campus programming all offered in an accessible, intimate and close-knit atmosphere more frequently found at a smaller college.

PROBLEM

Always looking to provide its faculty, staff, and students with the best possible working environment, Millersville wanted to improve the robustness and availability of its campus network.

“We had several DNS issues that left our DNS server either fully or partially unavailable to our campus,” stated Greg Schmalhofer, Information Technology Manager, Millersville University. “We realized we had to move from our non-standard DNS implementation to a more reliable solution that incorporated best practices.”

Millersville began researching different methods of addressing its DNS problems. Specifically, Millersville wanted to be certain that the selected solution would feature the robust functionality necessary to ensure its network would always be available to all faculty, staff and students.

SOLUTION

“We were primarily looking for a proven DNS appliance that incorporated industry standards, and that would be compatible with UNIX, Windows, Linux and Mac, as we utilize all four operating systems,” noted Schmalhofer. “BlueCat presented both its Adonis DNS and Proteus IPAM [IP Address Management] products, and once we saw the benefits of them working together we were convinced it was the ideal solution.”

The Adonis family of DNS, DHCP and integrated DNS & DHCP appliances offer ISC Bind DNS and ISC DHCP services in a variety of purpose-built platforms. Adonis Management Console, a platform-independent software application, completes the solution, providing simplified configuration and administration of distributed Adonis appliances from a single, centralized workstation.

Purpose-built for scalability and high-availability, Proteus provides sophisticated utilities to rapidly design, deploy, reconfigure and maintain distributed IP addresses. It consolidates management of the entire IP infrastructure, and all DNS and DHCP services (including Windows DNS and DHCP) within one centralized console.

Millersville was so confident that BlueCat’s combined solution was exactly what it required that it did not feel it necessary to look any further.

“We had multiple conference calls and on-site visits by BlueCat staff to plan out the migration,” said Schmalhofer. “Their training staff, installation staff, and support staff were all excellent and the migration was completed with the prep work being done during the week and the actual switch-over being done on a Saturday.”

Schmalhofer was pleased to mention that BlueCat could not have been more helpful from start to finish.

“Working with BlueCat’s installer greatly helped us to understand how best to utilize the product,” commented Schmalhofer. “In fact, BlueCat’s entire team has truly been excellent,” he continued. “Everyone, including the management team, sales representatives, technical engineers, trainers, installers, and technical support people were all very professional and willing to go the extra mile to ensure our implementation was a complete success.”

Working with BlueCat, it proved easy for Millersville to get Adonis and Proteus up and running. And, once installed, the IT team found the technology very simple to configure and manage.

“Integrating the technology with both our UNIX and Windows environments could not have been simpler, and the intuitive interface proved easy for administrators to use,” commented Schmalhofer. “This, combined with the fact that it is not necessary to distribute software to users, makes it very simple to add computers and IP addresses to the IPAM system,” he continued. “We now use the one Proteus IPAM management tool to manage all of our IP and DNS needs. It is set up in a redundant configuration and completely replaces our previous DNS configuration.”

RESULT

Schmalhofer feels confident that BlueCat’s technology has met all the IT team’s DNS and IPAM requirements by not only reducing management complexity and significantly reducing administration headaches, but by also greatly improving overall system robustness to minimize network downtime and maximize system continuity.

“We now not only benefit from using a highly secure, redundant, industry standard DNS management tool, but also from having instant access to a highly-knowledgeable technical support staff to address or discuss any possible IP or DNS issues,” concluded Schmalhofer. “BlueCat enables us to ensure the network is always up and running and I wouldn’t hesitate to highly recommend their Adonis and Proteus solutions to any organization.”