Liberty University

University Boosts PC Security, Manageability to Support Growth in Online Learning

Liberty University is growing rapidly, especially in the technology-heavy online-learning sector. To support that growth, the university needed to upgrade the security and manageability of its personal computers. A key part of that upgrade has been the shift from McAfee antivirus software to Microsoft® Forefront® Client Security. The university gets first-class protection for just 20 percent of the cost of its former software.

 

Business Needs

Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, may be one of the largest and most famous religiously oriented, coeducational U.S. colleges but, when it comes to maintaining the security of its information infrastructure, no one there wants to have to do much praying.

And with good reason. The school increasingly relies on that infrastructure to meet its goal of expanding both on-campus and online-learning student registration. In 2000, the university set a 20-year goal to increase its enrollment from 8,500 on-campus and online-learning students to 50,000 students, with increased emphasis on online-learning enrollment.

“Technology is the engine that supports the university’s growth,” says Matthew J. Zealand, Chief Information Officer at Liberty University. “To help ensure that we continue to support that growth, we need an information security architecture that is more scalable and more flexible than what we’ve had in the past.”

The university needed to address the issue of its aging mainframe computer. It needed to upgrade key applications, such as Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003. And it needed a better way to manage the security of its 3,800 personal computers: university-owned faculty and staff computers, as well as student-owned computers connected to the network. Enhanced security was essential because an increase in online-learning activity would mean more computers connecting to more parts of the university from outside. That in turn would increase the potential for the introduction of viruses.

For PC security, the university relied on McAfee antivirus software. But the cost of the university’s implementation was “prohibitive”, according to Zealand, and the dollars were slated to rise by 62 percent. Moreover, the McAfee management interface was complex, “making it difficult to find the information we wanted to address security needs,” notes Jimmy L. Graham, Manager of Network Services at Liberty University.

Solution

Liberty University has addressed its multifaceted IT challenge with a multifaceted approach. It has migrated from a mainframe to a clustered environment of Windows Server®–based computers that eliminates the “single point of failure,” boosting reliability. It has upgraded to the latest, security-enhanced versions of Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. And it has adopted Microsoft System Center products, such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, to help ensure that security updates are deployed quickly and effectively to all relevant personal computers.

Our top priority is protecting our customer base. Forefront Client Security makes it possible for us to do that while decreasing the cost of that protection. Matthew J. Zealand Chief Information Officer, Liberty University

And it’s done more. To address its cost and management issues surrounding its previous antivirus software, the university conducted its own comparison of what it considered the top antimalware products, including McAfee software, Symantec antivirus software, and Microsoft Forefront® Client Security. It found a major difference among these first-class antivirus products. For the university’s needs, Forefront Client Security was far more cost-effective. As part of the university’s Microsoft Academic Volume Licensing agreement, the university could add an Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) that gave it access to a broad range of the latest Microsoft technologies—including Forefront Client Security—at a fraction of the cost of licensing those technologies separately.

Forefront Client Security was a particularly attractive addition for the university. Liberty University has deployed Forefront Client Security on its 3,800 personal computers. It’s also made the software available through its student-facing intranet for free download to student-owned machines.

Benefits

The university’s various steps to enhance the security and manageability of its infrastructure have been successful, according to Zealand. “Our computer platforms are more reliable and secure,” he says. “They’re better able to accept the outside connections required for distance learning, without permitting viruses or other malware to enter the system. We have greater uptime and better failover technologies in place to recover more quickly from any issues that do occur. That helps us to support the university’s strategic goal to increase enrollment with an emphasis on online learning.”

The move from McAfee to Forefront Client Security has been successful, as well. Zealand estimates that the Academic Volume Licensing agreement and Enterprise CAL with Microsoft have cut the cost of antimalware protection for personal computers by 80 percent.

“Our top priority is protecting our customer base,” says Zealand. “Forefront Client Security makes it possible for us to do that while decreasing the cost of that protection. That’s an important benefit as we anticipate adding thousands of student PCs to those we already support.”

Beyond lower cost for first-class protection, the move from McAfee to Forefront Client Security has given the university’s IT staff a comprehensive and intuitive monitoring console. The console boosts staff productivity while contributing to greater uptime by making potential problems easier to spot and address before they become actual problems. “With Forefront Client Security, I can group computers in a logical way,” says Nicholas Kesler, IS Operations Technical Lead at Liberty University. “I can find what I need more easily. Reporting is more accurate, and we get more information about both how well we’re protected and what the potential threats are.”

Together with the System Center family of system management products, Forefront business security software is part of a comprehensive security and manageability solution from Microsoft. “Having one infrastructure for management is a huge benefit for us,” says Zealand. “We have one place—Microsoft—to go for support, accountability, and licensing. This has tremendous impact on lowering total cost of ownership and increasing return on investment.