During the pandemic, the bSecure GlobalProtect VPN became an important tool for our students, faculty and staff. Usage of this service increased dramatically. Increasingly campus departments rely on the bSecure firewall service to ensure they are able to meet policy and privacy requirements. Berkeley IT would like to expand the usage of this service to most campus connections by default to reduce risks for our user community. We have implemented additional hardware capacity to ensure the ongoing stability and scalability of VPN. We also implemented additional capacity to expand firewall services on campus.
Goals
As part of a broader program to improve the campus network user experience, Berkeley IT has implemented additional campus firewall capacity. The goals of this project were:
- To ensure the continued stable operation of existing campus firewall services.
- To ensure the ongoing scalability and reliability of the bSecure GlobalProtect VPN service.
- To enable expanded firewall services for campus users to protect institutional data and our users.
These goals were primarily achieved by implementing additional hardware capacity in addition to the existing campus firewall infrastructure that as previously in place.
Timeline
This project was completed in spring 2022.
| 11/16/21 | bSecure VPN Migration to dedicated hardware |
| 1/31/22 | Hardware deployment with increased compute cycles |