Re: Gaming and dorm students

[Chris Golden <cgolden () LEEUNIVERSITY EDU>]

We are doing the same.  They don’t use a lot of traffic but need it to be spot on.

Your Palo Alto will allow them to play it – and its classified right.  I'd contact your Palo Alto rep and see if they 
could help out.

-Chris

From: Jeff Kell <jeff-kell () UTC EDU<mailto:jeff-kell () UTC EDU>>
Reply-To: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () 
LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>>
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:32:35 -0500
To: <SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU<mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU>>
Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Gaming and dorm students

We actually prioritize games... their traffic is minimal.

We use a Procera, and block P2P, but permit the Blizzard (World of Warcraft) updates; it has a specific client string.  
We don't however prioritize that along with the game traffic, we just permit it to pass.

In the grand scheme of Netflix/Youtube/Hulu/Pandora/etc streaming media traffic, gaming is a drop in the bucket.

We also prioritize Skype (contrary to our initial reaction at it's introduction).  A surprising number of students 
depend on it to phone home and keep in touch, and it too is relatively low in volume.  Just take precautions against 
the old Supernode promotions (does that even happen after the Microsoft takeover?).

You can create a number of happy campers just letting it go :)  They won't all be happy, but you'll have fewer 
pitchforks outside the door.

Jeff

On 1/14/2013 9:23 PM, Bob Williamson wrote:
I am the network admin at a small K-12 private school.  We have about 90 dorm students.

A problem I am running into is enabling the dorm students to be able to use normal games like “World of Wrcraft”, 
“League of Legends”, etc.  It seems a lot of these games are using bittorrent on the backend.

Without digging into the specifics, how are others handling the dormers requests?  Telling them no does not seem 
appropriate, but not letting them play seems bogus.  I was toying with the idea of having the individuals sign a sheet 
saying they will not use bittorent for illegal purposes.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Note that I am using a Palo Alto so can handle filtering by user and app level.

Bob Williamson
Network Administrator
Annie Wright Schools | 827 N Tacoma Ave, Tacoma, WA 98403 | www.aw.org<http://www.aw.org/>
D: 253.272.2216 | F: 253.572.3616 | Bob_Williamson () aw org<mailto:Bob_Williamson () aw org>

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