Mechanicsburg Area School District Switches to OpenDNS from ISP's DNS Service
4,000-Person Mechanicsburg, PA District Chooses OpenDNS to Improve Students' Internet Experience
Aug 22, 2007 — SAN FRANCISCO – OpenDNS, the award-winning DNS provider that makes the Internet safer, faster, smarter and more reliable, today announced Mechanicsburg Area School District is using OpenDNS as a forwarder for each of its three internal DNS servers. Mechanicsburg Area School District is a kindergarten through twelfth-grade (K-12) school district in the state of Pennsylvania with more than 3,700 students and 550 faculty and staff. OpenDNS is the system administrator-recommended, world’s largest, fastest-growing DNS service.
Mechanicsburg Area School District is leveraging all OpenDNS features, include adult content Web filtering, phishing site blocking and typo correction. OpenDNS provides the district with a free, ultra reliable DNS service that requires no hardware to purchase and no software to install.
The decision to switch to OpenDNS was due in large part to Web content filtering requirements the district must meet, and a desire to see and respond to DNS issues on the network before they become problematic. OpenDNS meets both requirements easily and without charge.
“Web content filtering is especially important to our District since the majority of Internet use here is done by minors. We want to try to provide a safe and secure environment for Web surfing,” said Todd Ritter, Systems Administrator for Mechanicsburg Are School District. “Since we are a school district, we are legally required to have filters in place for Internet traffic.”
OpenDNS fits in squarely with Mechanicsburg Area School District’s commitment to provide best-in-class technologies for its students and optimize the performance of their computers. During the 2007-08 school year, the district will continue its laptop pilot program, bringing between 25 and 50 Apple MacBook laptop computers to every district elementary school. The laptops will be housed in mobile carts, which will permit the computer lab in its entirety to be brought into the classroom. Each computer will be using OpenDNS to improve the Internet experience, making the network faster and maximizing their Internet time, and restricting access to unsafe Web sites. By bringing the computer lab to the classroom, the computers can serve as tools to enhance the existing curriculum instead of being delivered in isolation as a separate event.
“I like the premise of OpenDNS, and I feel the larger cache and responsiveness of OpenDNS servers helps our District by speeding up web browsing and preventing phishing sites from being accessed,” said Ritter. “Being able to view network statistics about our account is also a great addition to my toolkit and gives me a view into DNS on my network I’ve never had before.”
Mechanicsburg Area School District’s use of OpenDNS means teachers and staff can focus solely on curriculum and enriching students’ learning experience with the use of the Internet, instead of restricting access to the Internet because of fear that students will be exposed to inappropriate materials, and consequentially made vulnerable. OpenDNS has provided Mechanicsburg Area School District with 100 percent DNS uptime, freeing students and staff of Internet outages and making them more productive on the whole.
About Mechanicsburg Area School District
Mechanicsburg Area School District is located on the west shore of the Harrisburg metropolitan area. The district encompasses 16.1 square miles, including Mechanicsburg and Shiremanstown boroughs and Upper Allen Township. Comprised of approximately 3,700 students and 550 staff members, it has eight main buildings in the district (five elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and one facilities center). The mission of the Mechanicsburg Area School District, through the collaborative efforts of students, staff, parents, and the community, is to promote relentlessly the processes of acquiring and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for all students to become lifelong learners; to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for all students; to address the diversity of each student's needs; and to instill in every student the worthiness of being a self-disciplined, responsible, contributing member of a rapidly-changing global society. For more information about Mechanicsburg Area School District, please visit: http://www.mbgsd.org
About OpenDNS
OpenDNS makes the Internet safer, faster, smarter and more reliable. Based in San Francisco, the company operates a large distributed network that powers a new kind of recursive DNS (Domain Name System) service that provides all Internet users increased security, reliability and performance. OpenDNS is thoroughly committed to building and operating the best DNS platform in the world and to improving the Internet. For more information about OpenDNS, please visit: http://www.opendns.com
Mechanicsburg Area School District is leveraging all OpenDNS features, include adult content Web filtering, phishing site blocking and typo correction. OpenDNS provides the district with a free, ultra reliable DNS service that requires no hardware to purchase and no software to install.
The decision to switch to OpenDNS was due in large part to Web content filtering requirements the district must meet, and a desire to see and respond to DNS issues on the network before they become problematic. OpenDNS meets both requirements easily and without charge.
“Web content filtering is especially important to our District since the majority of Internet use here is done by minors. We want to try to provide a safe and secure environment for Web surfing,” said Todd Ritter, Systems Administrator for Mechanicsburg Are School District. “Since we are a school district, we are legally required to have filters in place for Internet traffic.”
OpenDNS fits in squarely with Mechanicsburg Area School District’s commitment to provide best-in-class technologies for its students and optimize the performance of their computers. During the 2007-08 school year, the district will continue its laptop pilot program, bringing between 25 and 50 Apple MacBook laptop computers to every district elementary school. The laptops will be housed in mobile carts, which will permit the computer lab in its entirety to be brought into the classroom. Each computer will be using OpenDNS to improve the Internet experience, making the network faster and maximizing their Internet time, and restricting access to unsafe Web sites. By bringing the computer lab to the classroom, the computers can serve as tools to enhance the existing curriculum instead of being delivered in isolation as a separate event.
“I like the premise of OpenDNS, and I feel the larger cache and responsiveness of OpenDNS servers helps our District by speeding up web browsing and preventing phishing sites from being accessed,” said Ritter. “Being able to view network statistics about our account is also a great addition to my toolkit and gives me a view into DNS on my network I’ve never had before.”
Mechanicsburg Area School District’s use of OpenDNS means teachers and staff can focus solely on curriculum and enriching students’ learning experience with the use of the Internet, instead of restricting access to the Internet because of fear that students will be exposed to inappropriate materials, and consequentially made vulnerable. OpenDNS has provided Mechanicsburg Area School District with 100 percent DNS uptime, freeing students and staff of Internet outages and making them more productive on the whole.
About Mechanicsburg Area School District
Mechanicsburg Area School District is located on the west shore of the Harrisburg metropolitan area. The district encompasses 16.1 square miles, including Mechanicsburg and Shiremanstown boroughs and Upper Allen Township. Comprised of approximately 3,700 students and 550 staff members, it has eight main buildings in the district (five elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and one facilities center). The mission of the Mechanicsburg Area School District, through the collaborative efforts of students, staff, parents, and the community, is to promote relentlessly the processes of acquiring and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for all students to become lifelong learners; to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for all students; to address the diversity of each student's needs; and to instill in every student the worthiness of being a self-disciplined, responsible, contributing member of a rapidly-changing global society. For more information about Mechanicsburg Area School District, please visit: http://www.mbgsd.org
About OpenDNS
OpenDNS makes the Internet safer, faster, smarter and more reliable. Based in San Francisco, the company operates a large distributed network that powers a new kind of recursive DNS (Domain Name System) service that provides all Internet users increased security, reliability and performance. OpenDNS is thoroughly committed to building and operating the best DNS platform in the world and to improving the Internet. For more information about OpenDNS, please visit: http://www.opendns.com
