At Middlesex University we have been using EZProxy to provide access to
IP-authenticated e-resources for about three years (where the licence allows).
Allowing 13 weeks worth of person-hours for installing, configuring, testing
and launching EZProxy sounds rather excessive. I think I spent about two
weeks in all, though of course there is ongoing maintenance once the service
is up and running, not to mention user/staff education. However, we only
use EZProxy for a relatively small number of e-resources (most of our
e-resources are Athens-authenticated), and we are not using EZProxy with SFX
and MetaLib. I do know that some institutions route all their e-resources
via EZProxy, and some institutions are considering this option due to the
fact that in a couple of years we will have to pay upfront for use of Athens.
We were originally motivated to get EZProxy because of the heightened
security our IT department introduced about three years ago, involving an
internal network with Network Address Translation. Prior to this,
off-campus access to Middlesex University’s network and IP-authenticated
e-resources was achieved via an arrangement with a commercial ISP with a
range of reserved IP addresses. But this arrangement was discontinued by
our IT department and replaced with VPN (Virtual Private Network) technology
(ignoring our requirements!).
It soon became apparent that VPN had created a problem for us with respect
to off-campus access to IP-authenticated e-resources; the problem being that
even if a user has established a VPN connection to the network, that
connection does not give them an “external” Middlesex University IP address.
The user’s “external” IP-address remains that assigned to them by whichever
ISP they are using. EZProxy was the solution to this problem.
We did intend to install EZProxy on a server which users could access
without a VPN connection to our network. However, due to a
misunderstanding, the server was moved to a position on the network, access
to which required a VPN connection. Hence we configured EZProxy so that
users were not required to authenticate (as they could not even use an
EZProxy link without having first established a VPN connection).
Security-wise, our IT department was OK with this as it remained possible to
find out who was using what by comparing the EZProxy logfiles with the VPN
logfiles.
A few months ago the server on which EZProxy was installed suffered a fatal
crash, so we reinstalled EZProxy on a server accessible to the outside
world. Using tools built into EZProxy, we were able to reconfigure EZProxy
to authenticate against our Active Directory service (using LDAP).
A project for the future is to integrate EZProxy authentication with Athens
DA authentication (which also authenticates against Active Directory using
LDAP).
In short, EZProxy has proved a valuable solution to our e-resource access
problems.
Alex Birchall
Deputy Systems Librarian
Middlesex University
The Sheppard Library
The Burroughs
London NW4 4BT
Tel: 020 8411 5235
Mobile: 07765 237 570
On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 15:19:52 +0100, Russell Burke <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Apologies for cross-posting.
>
>Hi,
>
>We are looking as implementing EZProxy for remote e-resource access here
>are King's. A previous project proposal suggested that we should allow
>13 weeks worth of person-hours to install, configure, test and launch.
>
>I'd be very grateful to hear from anyone who has implemented EZProxy to
>get an idea of time / resources required for implementation and any
>major problems to look out for, particulalry if you have implemented
>EZProxy with SFX and MetaLib. Would you say 13 weeks is too long / too
>short a time frame (we have identified which e-resources do not allow
>proxy access)?
>
>Kind regards
>
>Russell
>
>------------------------------------------
>Russell Burke
>Electronic Resources Co-ordinator
>ISS - Archives and Information Management
>King's College London
>Tel: +44 (0)20 7848 4385
>Fax: +44 (0)20 7848 4290
>email: [log in to unmask]
>------------------------------------------
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