Social Firm Sees The Pluss Sides of Bloxx Web Filtering

“Bloxx reports allow us to analyse staff Internet use and consequently has assisted in the redesign and implementation of our Internet and computer usage policies,”

The Pluss Organisation Server and Network Architect, Martin Langmaid.

Customer Background

Pluss is a non-profit distributing organisation, which provides employment and training for people with disabilities. With 30 sites spread across the South West of England, Pluss employs over 500 people and is the largest provider of disability employment services in the southwest. The organisation is divided into three divisions. The first offers a range of services to help people train for, find and retain employment. The second is the ‘manufacturing’ division, which employs people in industrial units, which produce a wide range of quality products and services. The third division provides disabled workers with mobility and disability equipment to assist in their day-to-day independence.

The Challenge

Access to PCs and the Internet, is made available throughout the disparate Pluss sites, for its employees and users. However, without regulating use of the Internet, Pluss found that users accessing bandwidth-hungry sites such as Facebook and eBay, were utilising a large amount of the available 10 MB network bandwidth capacity.

“As well as regulating sites to free up bandwidth, we needed to be able to filter the darker side of the Internet from our users, some of which who have severe learning disabilities,” comments The Pluss Organisation Server and Network Architect, Martin Langmaid.

Consequently, the IT team decided it was necessary to begin regulating websites being accessed through the Pluss network. “We also wanted to be able to track Internet usage to allow us to enforce our Internet acceptable usage policy,” adds Langmaid. “In addition to this, I required a solution that would allow me to tailor the restriction to websites depending on department and also enforce usage times for publicly located, multi-user PCs.”

The Solution

The Pluss Organisation discovered the Bloxx web filtering solution and realised that it could give Langmaid and his team the control over Internet access at the various locations and in doing so help them apply an acceptable usage policy throughout the organisation.

Bloxx is an easy to manage, drop-in hardware solution which analyses and blocks websites quicker and more accurately than other web filters using manual URL classification and keyword scoring alone. Bloxx assists organisations that wish to proactively manage users’ access to web content which might lower productivity, expose the organisation to risk and liability or pose a network security threat.

Langmaid installed the Bloxx appliance onto the organisation’s network to monitor the 250 Internet users. “The appliance is easy to install and configure – the appliance synchronises directly with our Active Directory, making ongoing user management a doddle,” comments Langmaid. “Reporting is also very flexible and easy to use. Everyday I get emailed summaries and alerts regarding the Internet activity across our network, or I can quickly create specific reports as and when they are needed.”

The Results

“Knowing that the unwholesome side of the Internet is no longer available to our users, gives invaluable peace of mind to our IT team,” comments Langmaid. “In addition the detailed reporting on all Internet usage that Bloxx offers, is an extremely useful feature which allows us to drill down to an individual’s use of the Internet.”

“Since we can now easily manage usage of sites such as eBay and Facebook, Bloxx has helped us to substantially reduce the network utilisation at peak times,” explains Langmaid. “Bloxx reports allow us to analyse staff Internet use and consequently has assisted in the redesign and implementation of our Internet and computer usage policies.”

“It’s great to see that Pluss has found some additional functionality of Bloxx other than regulating the sites that are accessed by its users,” comments Bloxx Managing Director, Eamonn Doyle. “By monitoring the kind of activities that its users conducts, Pluss now has lower bandwidth consumption and has developed a comprehensive acceptable usage policy to ensure that users throughout the organisation know what they are and are not allowed to access on the network. Consequently, they can deliver fast Internet access and utmost safety for all users surfing the net.”