Enterasys Secure Network Will Handle East Georgia College Wired and Wireless Network

ANDOVER, MA - East Georgia College has upgraded to an Enterasys Secure Network for wired and wireless connectivity for more than 1,500 students, faculty, and staff. East Georgia College is part of the University System of Georgia with campuses in Swainsboro and Statesboro. The college’s upgraded infrastructure includes the Enterasys Matrix™ N-Series flow switches at the distribution layer and Enterasys SecureStack™ C2 switches at the network edge, RoamAbout® wireless switches and access points to expand access across the two campuses, and the NetSight® management suite for visibility and control.


East Georgia College is part of the University System of Georgia with campuses in Swainsboro and Statesboro. The college’s upgraded infrastructure includes the Enterasys Matrix™ N-Series flow switches at the distribution layer and Enterasys SecureStack™ C2 switches at the network edge, RoamAbout® wireless switches and access points to expand access across the two campuses, and the NetSight® management suite for visibility and control.

The Enterasys Secure Network supports a number of mission-critical initiatives at East Georgia College, including a VPN that enables the delivery of identical technology services across both campuses, and an innovative video-over-IP application that has enabled the college to make its outstanding nursing program available to more students.

“Enhancing our nursing program is one of the college’s key initiatives,” said Mike Rountree, director of information technology at East Georgia College, “and ensuring that our infrastructure can deliver the quality of service necessary to support the videoconferencing application that is a cornerstone of the nursing program is a critical IT objective. With our upgraded Enterasys Secure Network in place, we have the granular control we need to ensure that the converged solution delivers the reliability and performance faculty and students require. During the roll-out of the expanded nursing program, all eyes were on my IT team – Enterasys really made us shine.”


As is the case at most college and university campuses, ensuring the highest levels of security is a priority at East Georgia College. “Any organization faces a range of threats, but educational institutions need to offer a level of openness, while still protecting our IT assets,” Rountree said. “A college like ours can promise to deliver cutting-edge applications such as our expanded nursing programs, or a wealth of other distance learning or online course registration services, but those are empty promises unless the network is secure and rock-solid reliable. We leverage the embedded self-securing capabilities of our Enterasys hardware and the centralized visibility and control delivered by NetSight to proactively identify vulnerabilities and stop threats before they cause problems. Our infrastructure should never adversely affect our ability to deliver the services our customers need.”

Rountree says he is particularly impressed by NetSight’s ability to identify rogue devices, especially access points on the wireless network. “Once NetSight pinpoints a problem, we can assess its impact then resolve the issue with a single click,” he said. “We have just two staff members who are responsible for management and support of our network. Fortunately, NetSight’s centralized management interface eliminates the need for extensive hands-on troubleshooting across the campus. My team can isolate faults and resolve virtually any problem without leaving their desks, which enables us to focus our limited resources for mission-critical tasks.”

Rountree says the rate limiting capabilities of the Matrix switches and NetSight provide another important advantage to the college. “Web sites such as My Space and Facebook are eating up bandwidth across college campuses,” he said. “With our Enterasys technology, we can establish priority levels for sites like these and then use rate limiting to ensure that their use doesn’t interfere with more important network traffic. The Web sites are still accessible so we retain our ‘openness,’ but we’re able to control bandwidth utilization.”

According to Rountree, Enterasys training and support services have helped East Georgia College realize even greater benefits from its Secure Network. “When we deployed Enterasys hardware and software, we took full advantage of Enterasys’ training resources. Enterasys customized a program to meet our specific needs and delivered the sessions on our campus so that we could learn by working with our own equipment. It was an excellent experience,” Rountree said. “During training and literally in every other interaction we have with Enterasys, we’ve benefited from the company’s personalized approach. I doubt we would have had the same experience with any other vendor. Enterasys is the prefect-sized company for us. They are totally focused on meeting our needs, and are really willing to do whatever it takes to provide superb products and service. That’s a huge advantage for East Georgia College.”