In many ways the engineering labs at Southern University's College of Engineering are student paradise. The Windows 2003 network supports 300 high-end Intel workstations with dual flat-panel displays, running myriad applications from AutoCAD, Unigraphics and others. Students transform two-dimensional projects into 3-D models using 3-D printers and the "Cave," an eight-foot cube where they project and manipulate holographic images.

The only trouble is this paradise keeps business hours - 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with only one lab staying open until 10 p.m. Students and faculty can't access their work - all of which lives on the network's 50 servers - unless they're on site.

Security has been the biggest concern. The Baton Rouge, La., school has an ample budget for equipment but a meager one for staff. Scott Woodall, the school's IT director, and Alan Mattson, the system administrator, typically work 16-hour days. Woodall had experimented with remote access on his office systems - installing Microsoft Terminal Server - but he had to take a hard line with users.

"If we gave people free rein we'd be up here 24 hours a day," he says.

But increasingly, students and faculty pushed for 24-hour access to the labs and remote access from their homes and dorms. While the school recently received $150,000 in state funds to install a keycard system and cameras to secure the lab after hours, Woodall also began exploring remote-access products and settled on the Netilla Security Platform from Netilla Networks.

The Netilla appliance works in conjunction with Microsoft Terminal Server to offer thin-client remote access to applications and data. The system screens and intermediates Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)-encrypted sessions between remote user and applications sitting on the network servers. Because the Netilla system passes only mouse clicks and keystrokes between client and server, it requires only a thin datastream, making it possible for students to access applications even over a dial-up connection - albeit with some delay.

Woodall explored various SSL-VPN products, but Netilla's ease of use impressed him most. "Since it's just the two of us, it had to be simple to use. I've found over the years, no matter how great the technology, if it's not easy, the students and faculty won't bother with it," he says.

Making the grade

Since Woodall installed the system last fall, students and faculty have raved about how the Netilla box has improved their productivity and their home lives.

"It's the tool I've been waiting for," says Parviz Razi, associate professor for mechanical engineering. "I teach 8 a.m. classes, and my family doesn't like me working late on campus. So if I didn't finish my PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow's lecture during the day, I'd often have to come in at six in the morning."

Woodall started with the Netilla business-class version, which supports 150 concurrent users, but because "people were hammering at it like there was no tomorrow," he quickly stepped up to the enterprise version, which serves 400.

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