Campus Virtual Private Network: Overview
Students, staff and faculty increasingly connect to the UC Davis network from off campus, and the need to access university resources is likely to continue to increase. For remote users and travelers, access to some licensed online material (e.g., library journals) and other university resources (e.g., departmental and personal files) is limited to systems assigned a campus IP address.
Virtual private network services can provide a secure method for allowing off-campus systems to access these materials and resources. The workgroup charged with identifying a secure VPN solution for the campus and providing recommendations released their report in March 2006. See http://security.ucdavis.edu/vpn_report.pdf.
DescriptionA virtual private network (VPN) gives individuals working remotely a secure way to access the organization's network. A UC Davis VPN service would allow authenticated users to connect to the campus network from outside of campus, as if they were on campus, and would encrypt the information sent to the network.
FundingBased on the workgroup's report, IET proposes to:
- Pursue the establishment of a virtual private network for the UC Davis community.
- Prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) to identify solutions that will allow a phased implementation of a campus VPN.
- Partner with the University Library and Law Library for an initial VPN pilot to access online library resources.
- Incrementally expand the pilot to allow remote access to other campus online resources.
Funding for the initial phase of the campus VPN implementation will be provided by IET, with partnership from the University Library and Law Library.
Benefits of Establishing a UC Davis Virtual Private Network- Enable individuals off campus to securely access UC Davis library resources, including licensed or restricted materials
- Eliminate the need for duplicate log-ins that are imposed for remote access to licensed online resources
- Enable individuals off campus to securely access departmental servers and personal files
- Ensure that information passed to and from off-campus users, including login IDsand passwords, is secure via an encrypted channel.
- Integrate with existing campus authentication procedure.
- Provide a cost-effective solution.