Bigbro's foray into the scary world of blogging
Rachael Holt describes some of the technology that connects schools around Ireland to the internet. Wth upwards of 28 million URLS in the Fortinet content filtering system, connectivity to end users on ADSL and Satellite and a userbase ranging in age from 5 years old (Junior Infants) up to 65 (or whatever age the oldest teacher is) the mix of requirements makes provision of service a difficult problem.
Fortinet manage an overall whitelist for all the schools, and there is no differentiation at the HEAnet level between different schools, and different computer users within the schools. Whitelisting only means that access can be controlled very rigourously.
Cacti, Google maps machups, RT, mrtg and a wealth of other software systems are used on a day-to-day basis, providing an often visually rich user experience, allowing problems with the network to be highlighted and visualised.
Open questions: Kids have Nintendo DS computers and PSPs, both of which support WiFi access - can they be given internet access in the classroom? It's not available in Ireland yet, but has already been discussed by HEAnet.
posted at: 14:38 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry
