University of Illinois Housing Facility Provides Uninterrupted Internet Access with the Barracuda Link Balancer
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- Barracuda Link Balancer 430
- Barracuda Link Balancer
Tech Stack
- Quality of Service (QoS)
- Network Address Translation (NAT)
- Firewall
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Cybersecurity & Privacy - Network Security
- Networks & Connectivity - Gateways
- Networks & Connectivity - Network Management & Analysis Software
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Facility Management
Use Cases
- Building Energy Management
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Europa House is a certified housing facility for the University of Illinois, accommodating around 100 residents during the academic year. The facility also houses graduate students, post-graduate students, and visiting faculty members during the summer. Europa House provides network resources to its residents through a 100Base-T Ethernet local area network called EuropaNet. This network connects all computer ports in the facility to the Internet, enabling students and faculty to access online university resources and browse the web. The residents utilize EuropaNet to access various university web resources, including the online library, research databases, course materials, student portal, file sharing, blogs, and email. Additionally, they access other non-academic resources such as audio and video streams, which can be bandwidth-intensive.
The Challenge
Residents of Europa House, a certified housing facility for the University of Illinois, faced significant issues with Internet connectivity. The single cable connection provided was insufficient to handle the bandwidth-intensive activities of approximately 100 residents, including accessing university web resources, online libraries, research databases, and other essential academic and non-academic resources. Network administrators received numerous support calls regarding Internet latency, which hindered students and faculty from completing critical coursework and accessing necessary resources.
The Solution
After extensive product research, Europa House chose the Barracuda Link Balancer 430 for its affordability and comprehensive feature set. To complement the existing single cable link, two additional cable links were added to ensure Internet uptime and improve application availability. The Barracuda Link Balancer 430 was easily integrated into the existing network infrastructure, balancing traffic across three cable connections. The Barracuda Link Balancer provided the ability to define Quality of Service (QoS) rules for prioritizing web applications and accessing other online resources based on the type of web request. For example, it was configured to ensure that access to critical academic resources and applications received high bandwidth priority. This resulted in an immediate increase in Internet connection speeds and a drastic reduction in support calls. Additionally, the built-in firewall of the Barracuda Link Balancer replaced the in-house built firewall, allowing for the configuration of network address translation (NAT) and port forwarding rules to secure the network monitoring server and other internal Linux servers.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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