Finding any device in minutes across a two-campus university
One of the UK’s largest universities, with up to 27,000 students and 2,700 staff, deployed Rebasoft to locate any device on its network down to the switch port, catch rogue equipment before it disappeared, and reclaim unused ports.
- 17,000
- network ports tracked
- 9,000
- devices on the network at any one time
- 5 min
- to find a rogue device, down from 30+
- 2009
- first deployed
The challenge
- Two campuses and a dozen or more buildings: finding the source of a problem meant walking the estate.
- By the time a rogue device was located, often after half an hour or more, it had left the network.
- Staff moved offices without telling IT, so nobody knew which ports were free and new switches were bought unnecessarily.
Our approach
- Rebasoft software installed on a university server, with no agents on student or staff devices.
- Continuous discovery of switches and forwarding tables, mapping every MAC address to its port and building.
- A watch list that alerts the moment a flagged device reappears anywhere on the network.
What the university gained
Trace anything
Type in a MAC address and see exactly which switch, port and building it is connected to.
Rogue devices caught
An unauthorised wireless access point was found within five minutes of reappearing on a different port.
Risky laptops traced
A student laptop behaving suspiciously was traced immediately and dealt with.
Free ports found
Unused port reports let the team disable or reuse ports instead of buying new switches.
Moves and changes
The team always knows where a user and their device are, even after an unannounced office move.
Capacity planning
A clear picture of port usage by building to plan the network and the budget.
“We just type in the MAC address we are looking for and it reports on exactly where that user is.” Senior IT systems engineer, security and network team.
Why it matters for universities
Fast answers
Minutes, not a walk round twelve buildings.
Money saved
Reclaim ports before buying switches at around £2,500 each.
A long-term partner
From the first release of our discovery software to today’s platform.