IU 13 Provides Flexible, Customizable Filtering to the Districts It Services
School / District: IU 13
State: Pennsylvania
District Size: 35,000 students
Solution: Total Traffic Control, Educational Video Library
Focus: Filtering, Proxies, Web 2.0
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Overview
Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit (IU 13) is a regional educational service agency that
partners with the 22 school districts in Lancaster and Lebanon counties to provide costeffective
school-based services. Among the services IU 13 provides to its districts is a WAN.
This service provides connectivity between school districts to encourage collaborative projects,
including distance learning and resource sharing, network design and management. It also
provides web filtering, to protect students from harmful materials on the Internet.
Challenge
Each of the districts IU 13 serves has distinct goals and needs related to its use of technology
and Internet access; and within each of those districts, different users and groups require
different levels of access. IU 13 needed a filtering solution that was flexible enough to meet the
diverse needs of its clients. With their previous filtering solution, when one district requested
that a site be blocked, it was then blocked for all districts and all users across the WAN.
“In 2006, we recognized the need to replace the existing filtering solution for our WAN network with
a new solution that would give our districts the ability to do more granular filtering,” explains Mike
Shellenberger, Systems Administrator for the agency. “We needed to upgrade our filtering solution so
each district would have more features, flexibility and functionality. From the technical side, we were
also looking for a redundant solution that would allow us to stay running in the event of a hardware
failure. Because we serve as an ISP for several districts, the level of expectation for availability is high.”
Solution
IU 13 found the solution to its technical and filtering challenges with Lightspeed Total Traffic
Control. A key differentiator that set Web Access Manager, the filtering component of Total
Traffic Control, ahead of competitors IU 13 investigated: proxy blocking. “Proxies can be a
significant problem. Total Traffic Control filters proxies very well, particularly SSL proxies.
Lightspeed has helped us virtually eliminate the proxy situation,” Shellenberger explains.
And to meet their primary need of flexibility and customizability for different districts and users,
Total Traffic Control offers policy creation and access differentiation by user, IP, group, organizational
unit, or domain. “Total Traffic Control allows us to provide CIPA-compliant Internet access, but goes
beyond that by allowing us to give the districts the customizability they need,” says Shellenberger.
Now, the 35,000 workstations across IU 13’s WAN are filtered according to the unique
policies each district sets, rather than according to global settings. “We provide tiered
administrative policies so districts can control what is blocked and allowed within their
own district,” Shellenberger explains. Mike Debakey, network systems administrator for the
Lampeter Strasburg school district within IU 13, uses this flexibility to ensure appropriate
access for different users. “I was able to configure it with multiple levels of filtering: tighter
for students, looser for staff, and very relaxed for administrators,” Debakey shares.
The struggle to find a balance between learning and safety is something all districts face as they
integrate Web 2.0 tools into learning environments. “We are forced to think about how to use Web
2.0 tools properly in a more controlled environment and how to use them for education,” explains
Debakey. “Web 2.0 is valuable, but without proper set up and configuration it can become an
open door to the world. Now, with the Educational Video Library, teachers can safely use YouTube.
Teachers share the content they want, but EVL strips out all of the comments and links.”
To help ensure that the policies each district creates are being enforced, and to monitor traffic across
the WAN, IU 13 and its district-clients rely on Total Traffic Control’s comprehensive reports. “We utilize
built-in reporting functionality to get an overview of what is happening on our network. It gives us a
tremendous amount of insight into what is happening on our network,” shares Shellenberger. “We also
rely on the HR Report, and pass it along anytime someone from HR requests Internet access history
for an individual. We share the reports with principals at each district so they can make sure staff and
students are using the Web appropriately.”
Conclusion
With Web Access Manager, the filtering component of Total Traffic Control, IU 13 is able to provide a flexible
and customizable filtering solution to the various districts it serves, allowing them to create, monitor and
enforce the policies they create. They have also virtually eliminated proxy tunnels around their filter.
In addition to the flexibility of the filtering itself, the flexibility of the component features of Total Traffic
Control provide additional features—as needed locally by IU 13, or individually by districts. The bandwidth
management capabilities allow IU 13 to control bandwidth and ensure that each district receives a fair share
of Internet access. IU 13 has also implemented Power Manager to save on energy consumption and utility
rates at their site. Security Manager is utilized for anti-virus on Mac clients.