ApplianSys announce availability of PROTEX solution on CACHEBOX

By ApplianSys , April 25, 2006

ApplianSys today announced general availability of the E2BNProtex solution on the ApplianSys CACHEBOX platform. A joint development by East of England Broadband Network (E2BN) and ApplianSys, the Protex solution delivers accelerated filtered content to the regions schools and libraries.

"This solution, developed in conjunction with ApplianSys, gives local authorities and schools flexibility and control over their own filtering. With it they can set appropriate levels of filtering depending on who the end users will be, rather than the all-or-nothing approach some authorities have in place at the moment," explains Chris Kastel, CEO of E2BN.

For local authorities, E2BN recommend CACHEBOX300 as their caching engine. Powered by industry leading DataReactor software for web caching and acceleration, it is ideally suited to handle the demanding job of high volume filtering and caching for multiple dependent sites and combines well with the very high performance IBM servers used for the URL and content filtering.

At school and library level, local caching and filtering is handled by CACHEBOX200 or CACHEBOX050, which have a custom-built, integrated web-interface for content filtering management. A special emergency block/unblock feature has been implemented which not only blocks pages instantly at a local level but also sends the URL to E2BN for automatic propagation to all the other systems across the region in under 30 minutes. The URL is assessed and either added to the banned lists or unblocked regionally. Regardless of the outcome it remains blocked locally.

As security is paramount, school systems are only able to connect with the Local Authority system. The Local Authority level cache/filtering system cannot be bypassed and attempts to connect to an unauthorised cache/proxy result in no internet connection at all.

"Since rolling it out, we have had no negative feedback from schools at all, no complaints about the speed or filtering. The only ones complaining are the students because the solution won't allow access to unauthorised sites anymore," adds Kastel.

As one of the Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) E2BN (web.e2bn.net), are responsible for rolling out broadband to all schools in their region by 2006. Working with their members, the Local authorities, they have created a single and secure private network. By interconnecting with all 10 RBCs this Government initiative has delivered the National Educational Network (NEN), a dedicated, educationally focused resource for teaching and learning without constraints of time or location.