Multi Academy Trusts, managed WANs and managed firewalls

If you’re responsible for managing multiple servers, network security and devices across multiple school sites and you haven’t discovered the benefits of managed WANs and firewalls, this article gives a brief overview of how managed services can make managing your estates easier, help improve control of your networks and remove the administration of multiple service contracts.

Managed WANs let you manage your networks, servers and devices across multiple schools from one central point. And as schools move towards Multi Academy Trusts, it makes absolute sense to share resources and reduce costs, such as those associated with funding multiple firewalls across sites. Schools can be added into the WAN and benefit immediately from centralised security.

From a security perspective, the single most impressive feature of the Schools Broadband-hosted firewall service is the amount of control we have of it on-site.
– David Ryder, Abbey MAT

Deploying virtualised firewalls across a WAN and using virtualised large-scale hardware – rather than smaller dedicated units that become outgrown – also means capacity is easily increased. A single-pane-of-glass view provides central control for Multi Academy Trusts of all their security and filtering across multiple sites. Schools Broadband’s largest client hosts 80 schools using this method.

David Ryder, IT director of Abbey MAT in Leeds says: “From a security perspective, the single most impressive feature of the Schools Broadband-hosted firewall service is the amount of control we have of it on-site. In fact, we have almost as much control as if we owned the firewall on-site.”

In the case of Schools Broadband’s service, content filtering can be centrally controlled too.

For more information about network security and managed WANs
Visit: www.schoolsbroadband.co.uk/wide-area-networks
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01133 222 333