The Background
Ithaka is a newly formed not-for-profit organization with the mission to accelerate the productive uses of information technologies for the benefit of the higher education community. Ithaka incubates promising projects with a goal of creating sustainable not-for-profit, higher education-oriented entities that leverage information technology to fulfill their objectives.
The Network
Ithaka's IT group provides each of its incubating entities basic IT infrastructure services, including helpdesk support. Ithaka's IT infrastructure is installed at its headquarters in New York and accessed remotely by the staff and associates from over ten incubating entities spread throughout the northeast of the United States. The IT group is also responsible for managing the public server infrastructure that provides access for incubating entities to two extensive online databases containing collections of academic research and scholarly journals.
The Challenge
The nature of Ithaka's operations creates significant network management challenges for its IT group. New incubating entities are connecting to Ithaka's network on an ongoing basis. Often, these entities are not technology-oriented and often do not maintain any IT standards.
Needless to say, simply understanding what is happening on its distributed network and staying on top of the changes that are occurring is not easy for Ithaka's IT group.
Of particular concern to the IT group was protecting the valuable data stored on its network. With its existing tools, the IT group had no way of accurately knowing what computers and other network devices at remote locations where connecting to the network. Despite an effort to create various processes to solve this problem, the IT group felt that its network environment was causing a serious risk to Ithaka's mission.
The Solution
In 2005, Insightix Visibility was installed at the Ithaka's headquarters in New York City. Within hours of implementing Insightix Visibility, the Ithaka IT group was able to achieve a clear view of its entire network environment for the first time. In real-time, Insightix Visibility provided Ithaka an accurate, dynamically updated graphic mapping of its physical network topology, including an accurate inventory of all the devices of each incubating entity at remote locations.
"Suddenly, I could see my entire network in a single view," commented Alexey Vitashkevich, Network Security Administrator at Ithaka, shortly after installing Insightix Visibility.
As a first step, the IT group used Insightix Visibility to take stock of all the network devices across the entire organization. Insightix Visibility provided Ithaka real-time details about each network element, including element type (hosts, routers, switches, printers, wireless AP, VMWare), operating system (vendor, version, service pack), hotfixes on Windows devices, running services and open sesions.
Ithaka's Network Security Administrator further stated, "Insightix's solution positions us to successfully rollout a range of IT initiatives to improve the security of our IT environment. Insightix has given the confidence that we can incorporate new entities into our organization without compromising on the security of our network infrastructure."
Using Insightix Visibility, the Ithaka IT group is achieving a sense of control over its network environment that it had never previously experienced. Insightix Visibility enables Ithaka to maintain best IT practices to manage and secure its network and utilize its IT environment to achieve its organizational objectives.