According to IT consultants in Los Angeles, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is quickly becoming the standard in many IT-intensive environments, including education and training. It saves on hardware costs and reduces IT support needs. On the other hand, it raises concerns about security and network performance.
Thirty people sign up for a training course and bring their own devices. How do you allow access without compromising on security and performance?
Security
In the past, it was very common for training departments to provide computers or other devices to the students for the duration of the training course. This made it easy to secure the training environment. However, with the BYOD approach, it is a challenge to secure each device individually.
With BYOD, the better choice is to have students log in via a system which manages the behavior of the device accessing it.
A major component of such a system is network access control. NAC is a security solution that allows you to identify who is accessing your training system, assigns each user a role, and manages that user’s access via policies you set up. It limits the user’s access to only those areas needed for training purposes.
Performance
According to IT consultants in Los Angeles, the other component of the BYOD puzzle is network performance. With each student bringing a separate wireless device, you need adequate Wi-Fi bandwidth to handle the traffic. Throw thirty different wireless devices on a single router with limited bandwidth and you are going to have thirty very unhappy students.
Before that happens, you need to perform tests to see ready for the network load. Do you have adequate signal coverage in each training environment? Is the bandwidth enough? What channels are they using? If the network isn’t ready, you are going to have to invest in updated hardware and upgraded network capacity.
And, once you have the environment ready, you are going to have to keep monitoring performance and making upgrades to keep up with growing demand.
Moving Forward into the Future
One option to consider for both security and performance is a managed Wi-Fi solution. Instead of worrying about upgrading and securing your network, you let the pros handle it. For a set monthly price, you get a third-party to set up and manage your training network. It’s economical and lets you focus on doing your job.
BYOD is not going away any time soon, so you need to get ahead of the trend and keep ahead of it. If you want more information, contact us at Advanced Networks today. We are the IT consultants Los Angeles educators rely on.
