CBTS NaaS: Helping to Build the Next Generation of Explorers

August 1, 2017
David Jean

How can a wireless access point create a lifelong dream to explore the world’s oceans?

Well the answer is simple. Well not “really” simple. But if the access point is located in an elementary school that leverages CBTS’ scalable Network as a Service (NaaS) solution, then the following scenario could unfold:

Miss Wheeler’s 2nd grade class has been waiting for this day all year.  The Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Institute has selected her class to participate in a remote session with marine biologists aboard the research vessel Atlantis, which is currently located just off the Galapagos Islands.  The students will listen to and speak with the scientists about the research they are conducting.  The grand finale includes the children using remote technology to control the robotic arm of Alvin, the Institute’s advanced research submersible, a mile and a half deep and almost 3000 miles away.

The children are excited; a few have never seen anything like this before, growing up in the Midwest.  Miss Wheeler is excited for them and continues to check with Steve, the school’s IT administrator, who is on hand for the event to ensure everything will go smoothly.  She would hate to see the children disappointed as sometimes the school’s Internet can be a little questionable (apparently the 5th grade teachers like to binge watch The Great British Baking Show while their classes are at gym, lunch or recess, and use all the bandwidth).

Now Steve is comfortable because he knows the school system had recently converted to NaaS from CBTS, the most flexible, reliable, secure and scalable solution available to them.  Steve knows that CBTS manages the solution for him with a staff of world-class engineers and operators ready, at a moment’s notice, to solve any issue.  Steve also knows about The British Baking Show marathon so, at the click of a button, he requested a private SSID for this specific event with traffic shaping enabled, allocating priority to the remote session traffic.  All changes were executed on his existing NaaS hardware, with zero downtime and via rapid and flexible cloud management.  Oh, and he requested a filter for Nexflix traffic on the remainder of the network.

So ultimately, Steve can relax knowing that CBTS NaaS will do its part to ensure that Miss Wheeler’s 2nd grade class will enjoy their opportunity of a lifetime.  Miss Wheeler can smile as one little girl steps up to the screen and sees an image transmitted from 3000 miles away of a hydrothermal vent 1 ½ miles under the ocean, then reaches out and in real-time controls the robotic arm of a real submersible, fueling dreams of one day becoming a marine biologist herself.   Or that wireless access point could be from another less reliable solution. In this scenario, as the little girl steps excitedly up to the screen, her dream dies before it ever had a chance as she sees, “Safari cannot open page”.  While just down the hall, consuming all the school’s available bandwidth, the 5th grade teachers look on aghast as yet another baker is sent home for having presented a scone, which was just not round enough.

CBTS NaaS incorporates features designed to meet the needs of educational institutions of all sizes.  As solutions become more complex and the demand for growth, security and operational oversight increase, you need a solution to keep pace now and in the future.  CBTS NaaS provides the capabilities to meet and exceed those needs with key benefits such as:

  • Scalability
    • Designed for distributed environments
    • Grows with your needs
    • Reliable for high number of client devices
  • Flexibility
    • Self-maintaining devices automatically retrieve configurations/updates from the cloud
    • On-demand MACD
    • Plug-and-play device addition
  • Security
    • Segmented SSIDs for different user groups with full policy configuration
    • Detection and containment of wireless threats in real time
    • Identification of attack profiles: rogue SSID, spoofing, packet floods
    • Content and user filtering at the AP level
    • Application level throttling
    • Policy-based management: bandwidth limits, firewall/traffic shaping
  • Centralized Management
    • Aggregated visibility: sites, devices, users, applications
    • One click configuration change
    • Alerting
    • Auto VPN (SD-WAN) provides secure site-to-site connectivity
  • Intuitive reporting
    • Who is using the network: devices, users, applications, websites, ports, etc.
    • For what are they using it: bandwidth, application, individual client usage

Leveraging CBTS NaaS in your school system or campus environment provides the robust capabilities to ensure students of all ages have the ability to achieve great learning opportunities while giving IT administrators the peace of mind to know that the network is ready for what comes next.

And, our man Steve? He also knows that if, on a really slow day, he lets the 5th grade teachers watch The British Baking Show season finales, well, he’s got the pick of the doughnuts in the teachers’ lounge for life.

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