Columbia Public Schools Instructional and Information Technology Services will be putting a new Firewall, named SonicWALL, into place Monday, March 19.

There may be glitches in the new system as is the case with any change, Media Specialist Dennis Murphy warned in an email March 14.

There are two major reasons for the change: a more advanced firewall system and preparation for end-of-course exams. Last year, Columbia Public Schools experienced problems with bandwidth when it moved EOC testing to online since students going onto YouTube used a lot of the bandwidth. The installation of SonicWALL should alleviate these problems, according to Murphy.
“SonicWALL will allow us to cache some … memory and say ‘x’ amount of this is going to go for just end-of-course testing for this day. And so for the week of testing that we have, they will be able to allot so much of the bandwidth for testing and over here they’ll say only so much can go to YouTube,” Murphy said. “And that will make the testing procedure a lot better. So that’s the number one thing [for the change]. That and [it] being much more competitive price-wise.”
The timing of the change will allow it to be ready for end-of-course testing, which is coming up in only a few weeks.
By Walter Wang