The growing adoption of BYOD has brought along a number of security challenges for IT administrators. For example, in an educational institute, securing and delineating network access for a diverse set of students, faculty, staff, and other users with all their networked devices can be a daunting challenge.

Bradford Networks (News - Alert), a provider of Network access control (NAC) solutions, aims to address the network security needs of these educational organizations.  The company’s Network Sentry solution is designed to offer complete visibility and control of all users and devices on a network to prevent unauthorized access and keep both the network and information secure.

Recently, the company upgraded this solution and announced the availability of Network Sentry version 6.2  for educational institutions.

Updated features of Network Sentry 6.2 include:

• Support for schools that are transitioning to cloud and virtualized services: The new version of Network Sentry can now run on the Microsoft (News - Alert) Hyper-V Server 2012, thereby reducing hardware and energy costs and centralizing and simplifying NAC administration.
• Integration with the MaaS360 (News - Alert) Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution to combine device-level security with network access security and deliver a holistic BYOD management
• An integrated RADIUS server for a quick and easy deployment of authentication/authorization services, resulting in easier on-boarding, guest management, and 802.1x implementation.

"With thousands of students bringing three, four, even fourteen devices onto campus, network access control is no longer a nice to have in education, it's an imperative," Tom Murphy, chief marketing offer at Bradford Networks, said in a statement.

Network Sentry Version 6.2 is now generally available and can be deployed as an appliance or virtual appliance. It is also available through Bradford Networks’ recently announced NAC, delivered via a cloud service.

Recently, the company's Founder and CTO, Frank Andrus, presented a session on best practices for ensuring a secure and comprehensive bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy at Interop (News - Alert) New York 2013.