On 8/1/2013 9:16 PM, Jason Cook wrote: > We haven't had any reports of it showing up as malware. > > While by default most OS's these days work very well, we still find > inconsistencies within each OS and there's always a percentage of Windows/Mac > OS machines particularly that don't just work with auto-config. Included > drivers for Windows have caused issues for auto, but a manual config on the > machine no problems. Sometimes there's no explanation and we've done clean > installs on the same hardware with different results. While this overall is a > small percentage Xpress saves us on-site visits for support in the majority > of those cases. > > In our environment the cost of keeping Xpress is still justified. > > There's also the ability to map network drives via script, install 3rd party > clients like VPN software. While we haven't implemented this yet our thoughts > are to utilise this to provide a 1 stop method to setup personal machines > with all the basics for on/off-campus use. This would include configuring our > own SSID and eduroam.
(Stripping the whole thread for brevity...) We're in a similar boat, we initially "subscribed" to XC rather than purchasing the perpetual license thinking that "surely" wireless devices would get more reasonable about WPA2/Enterprise and 802.1X handling. Most have improved, but none are really bullet proof. We also push a self-signed certificate out of our Radius (yes, if I had it to do over, maybe not). XC installs our certificate as trusted and does so cross-platform. It also juggles SSID preferences. And since our eduroam authentication comes from the same Radius instance, the certificate installation doubles to "setup" our folks for remote eduroam access transparently. The other "value added" bits are also helpful... we do the IPv6 disable to prevent tunnelling and other issues until we are "uniformly" ready to support native IPv6, we also are a Bradford NAC shop and we have XC push out the Bradford client if not already present. It has become the "really Express" way of getting new students on our network (very important with Fall move-in just over the horizon). It does most everything in one step, and by installing the Bradford agent, we avoid the Bradford registration portal (once connected to the production network with an installed agent, it simply prompts for userid/password and you're done). It is also helpful as a front-line filter for helpdesk "wireless issue" calls... we walk them through XC one more time to see if that fixes things (and it usually does) before escalating to level-2 techs. We just renewed another year (making a total of three now), and I seem to recall the ROI on the perpetual license was about 5 years (when factoring in the annual support you still pay for that option), so we haven't lost out just yet :) If XC continues to expand on their "value add" bits, it can likely continue to justify the investment. Jeff ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
