The dark horses of campus computing: new technologies and services will keep IT administrators on their toes

University Business, Oct, 2004 by Tom Warger

Campus computing has become an annual contest among an ever-growing number of technologies competing for the IT purse. As the new academic year bursts from the starting gate, some of the leading horses this year are not the usual contenders. Wireless networking, after a lot of talk and pilot projects, is now a must-have service. Legally obtained music appears ready to figure importantly in the muddy battle over file sharing. Spam has nosed ahead of viruses this fall as the enemy of campus network performance. Handheld devices are gaining credibility as important players in the "new" campus infrastructure. None of these horses is new to the IT scene; they have all matured to challenge the traditional contestants: computers, software, and support services.

WIRELESS READY FOR THE LONG RUN

Where IHEs have not deployed wireless access points, campus community members are now quick to fill the gap on their own dime. Anyone with $100 to spend can get a wireless router and open an access zone for a whole department or a good part of a dorm. Apple's AirPort Express, listing at $129, offers a combination of wireless internet access, music streaming, and printer sharing. Meanwhile, the campus IT organizations are preferring to supply the wireless access points of their own choosing. Many that use Cisco Systems, for example, are replacing access devices from other manufacturers with Cisco's Aironet series, which varies in cost from $500 to $1,300 but has the advantage of being well integrated with Cisco routers and switches, and so making management of wireless access zones easier to accomplish at the central network control points.

Wireless networking is a prime example of the technologies that are transforming campus computing from the "outside." Manufacturers are marketing directly to the public, keeping the technology inexpensive and easy to install. The downside for campus IT support units is that wireless signal strength fluctuates and behaves in ways that only a radio engineer can sort out. Many help-desk calls this fall are appeals to fill gaps in wireless coverage and to fix (or at least explain) variances in signal quality.

LEGAL MUSIC

The recording industry's race to overtake music file sharing and copyright infringement has been joined by the emergence of commercial download sources. Apple's iTunes music store and runaway hit iPod player have set the pace for legal music, with songs selling for 99 cents and audio books and music videos now included in the iTunes inventory. The iPod players cost $300 to $400, depending on the model.

Apple's success has spurred Napster to offer a music "rental" service at $14.95 per month, supplementing its 99 cents per song offering, which was the breakthrough business model for legal distribution of music via download. Napster 3.0 uses a technology termed "Janus" that keeps track of the subscription period and then disables the music files when the rental expires.

In the late summer, RealNetworks started its challenge to the front-runners, offering songs at 49 cents. Its Rhapsody service offers subscription access to music at $9.95 per month. STARZ! supplies video downloads for $12.95 per month for customers with Internet connections running at 600 kbps or higher.

Whether the proliferation of these outlets will finally rein in illegal downloading and file sharing remains to be seen. Colleges and universities face continuing pressure from the media industries to block file sharing and to persuade their campus communities to respect copyright for music, video, games, and software. The legal, low-cost sources hope to win over many of those network users who still take their chances with illegal sharing.

SPAM

Unwanted e-mail shows no sign of weakening as a burden to campus mail systems and the in-boxes of its users. Not surprisingly, the number of anti-spam software programs, hardware appliances, and filtering services is growing steadily, too. Stopping, or at least identifying, spam at the mail server has become critical for campus computing because once it has been distributed to users, the cleanup chore is widespread.

Barracuda Networks' Spam Firewall is an appliance (hardware, software, and update services requiring little management by the IT staff) that detects and quarantines spam with a low percentage of "false positive" mistakes. It is priced on a scale ranging from 90 cents per user up to 1,000 users, to 27 cents for populations over 10,000.

For campuses running Unix- or Linux-based mail services with sendmail, PureMessage from Sophos is a leading choice for anti-spam filtering. Unlike its appliance-based competitors, it is highly customizable at the mail server, which has advantages in flexibility but requires staff time and expertise.

Brightmail's anti-spam filtering software for individual computers is used in several commercial products, and in June of 2004 was acquired by Symantec and is now featured in its Norton AntiSpam 2004 product. The Norton package sells in the $15 to 50 range in the highly competitive online software sales market.