The GlobalProtect agent is software provided by SUNY New Paltz ITS to facilitate secure access to sensitive on-campus services normally not made available to the entire Internet. It does this by serving as a VPN client.
VPN:
VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a technique that uses encryption to tunnel all or part of your Internet traffic through a remote end point. This allows you to keep your data from being inspected and tampered with by your Internet Service Provider and any provider between your computer and the remote end.
You still need to have your own connection to the Internet, but the VPN helps facilitate access to things you normally wouldn't be able to connect to over the Internet. It also helps protect access to sensitive data by making it much harder for someone to ease drop on the connection between your computer and the campus network. Essentially, by using a VPN, you can access the security resources of the remote network, but on your own computer at a remote location. So, in terms of using SUNY New Paltz’s VPN, you get to use the resources of SUNY New Paltz’s internal network services, but from off-campus.
What SUNY New Paltz Provides:
SUNY New Paltz provides two ways to access sensitive internal services from home or remote computers:
The first is Virtual Desktop Infrastructure known as VDI. VDI is simpler to use as it provides access to a remote Windows Desktop hosted on the college campus and can be used within your web browser. No additional software installation is needed.
The second is by using Palo Alto's GlobalProtect Agent which services as a VPN client. This requires installing software on your computer. GlobalProtect access is available to faculty and staff. Student access is limited to those accounts with a demonstrated need and is not widely available.
A Note On VPNs:
The term "VPN" has been changed by modern marketing from it's original meaning. The VPNs you see sold in advertising these days are tools promising to enhance your privacy or dodge geolocation blocks. The VPN service we provide through GlobalProtect is not intended for this purpose. The sole purpose of our GlobalProtect service is serve as a secure way to access campus affiliated sensitive services. We do not tunnel your general Internet traffic or provide any protection for such traffic. Only traffic relevant to accessing campus and campus affiliated services is brought over the VPN tunnel meaning the rest of the Internet is not protected or affected by the GlobalProtect VPN service. This is not a service intended to enhance your privacy or dodge geolocation blocks for third party Internet services.