By Zack Eckerdt
Trail Staff Writer

In the fall semester of 2006 and spring of 2007, students across campus faced technical problems with their on-campus computer services.
These include lack of access to saved files, the inability to gain access to their profiles and slowed or stopped access to the campus network. Now, however, Northwest College College Computing Services intends to take another step towards fixing the problem with Cisco Clean Access.
“We’ve been dealing with a lot of the same issues we did last semester,” said Bill Kiel of Computing Services.
The problems dealt with students bringing spyware and viruses onto the campus server after connecting into Internet sources off campus and through illegal file sharing.
When this occurs, the campus firewall gets tied up in trying deal with all of the negative effects of each, which can slow down and hurt the server, keeping students from getting efficient access.
Cisco NAC Appliance, also known as Clean Access, will soon be used to help solve for this problems though. “Clean Access is a 90 percent cure-all,” Kiel said.
He further explained how the system works. Cisco Clean Access can look at each individual machine and query it, taking a look at the security software the computer has, and then it can help to repair any vulnerabilities the computer may have.
Essentially, Clean Access has the ability to make sure that everyone is up to date on the security policies of the campus.
If an individual’s computer is not up to par, Clean Access will block the computer from NWC server access, but then will offer the necessary means to meet security standards.
In turn, this allows students back online faster, and allows Computing Services to work more efficiently. This also moves Computing Services from a defensive stance to an offensive stance, allowing them to take care of problems before they happen.
Now it’s just an issue of funding. “We have an allocated amount that pays for part of it set aside right now, we’re just waiting for an account number from the people up top to make the actual purchase,” Kiel stated.
He further mentioned that the system should be purchased by March, and hopefully will be installed and in use by the end of the 2007 semester.