UPPER GRAND DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD

ENABLES 21ST CENTURY TEACHING AND

LEARNING WITH SECURE SD-WAN INITIATIVE
“Fortinet understands the unique
challenges we’re facing in education
to deliver meaningful learning
opportunities to students while
maintaining the necessary levels
of security.”

– John McCormick, associate chief

information officer, Upper Grand District
School Board

DETAILS
The impact of technological innovation is ubiquitous. With arguably one of the greatest potentials for CUSTOMER:
Upper Grand District School Board
positive change, the world of education is embracing many of the same tools and resources that are
transforming the commercial world. However, one of the biggest obstacles, especially in the K-12 sector, INDUSTRY: Education
is the absence of a network infrastructure capable of supporting the teaching and learning requirements LOCATION: Ontario, Canada
of the 21st century.

Recognizing the criticality of scalable, high-speed Internet connectivity, the Ministry of Education in BUSINESS IMPACT
Ontario, Canada launched a multi-year program to modernize broadband services for its schools. The nnModernization of WAN and
program’s goal is to enable a cost effective, secure, and scalable infrastructure with an initial target of Internet infrastructure via SD-WAN
1Mbps per student.
implementation across a huge
geographic area
EDUCATION IN AN ONLINE WORLD
nnSignificantlyimproved schools’
Located in central Ontario, the Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) was selected as a pilot Internet capacity and applications
board in the province’s initiative to elevate its networking capabilities. With 65 elementary schools, 11 high performance within existing
schools, and covering 1,600 square miles, UGDSB’s 3,000 dedicated teaching and support staff serve
operational cost structure
approximately 34,000 students. nnSimplified
management, deployment
and improved operational efficiency
One of the challenges faced by the school board is delivering the necessary bandwidth in a manner that
is both equitable and secure. The complexity of protecting the web-based activities of students and staff nnCapabilityto perform detailed SSL
is further compounded by the proliferation of board-owned desktops, laptops, Chromebooks, iPads and inspections with NGFW Security
other smart devices within the school environment. Further adding to this complexity is the Board’s policy nnEnhanced levels of security and
to support BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for both students and educators. reduced attack surface
LAYING THE FOUNDATION nnFlexibility
to accommodate advanced
teaching and learning techniques
A project team comprised of board and Ministry of Education personnel was formed to provide strategic
and technical guidance for the broadband modernization program. John McCormick, associate chief
information officer for the UGDSB volunteered to be a member of the project team. One of the first SOLUTIONS
activities of the team was to prepare a survey to understand school boards network situations across nnFortiGate Enterprise Firewall
the province. nnFortiManager

nnFortiAnalyzer
All school boards responded to the survey and the resulting data was analyzed. McCormick noted,
“The results of the survey quickly confirmed our suspicions that a major overhaul of school boards’
infrastructure, which was primarily based on a MPLS architecture, was needed. We took the opportunity PARTNER
to evaluate new approaches and technologies, including the SD-WAN architecture.” nnIntegra Data Systems

CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY: UPPER GRAND DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD ENABLES 21ST CENTURY TEACHING AND LEARNING TECHNIQUES WITH SECURE SD-WAN INITIATIVE

The SD-WAN – software-defined wide area network – architecture is UGDSB deploys FortiGates at each school to provide perimeter
gaining popularity with organizations like UGDSB that need to scale protection and utilizes a high-availability pair at the board’s primary data
their Internet capabilities. A benefit of the SD-WAN technology is the center. “By design, the SD-WAN architecture requires security to move to
ability to aggregate different transport technologies – including fiber, the perimeter where the school is connecting to the Internet. Deploying
cable and wireless – to effectively provide sufficient capacity. SD-WAN FortiGates at each school protects the school from vulnerabilities,”
topologies offer increased scalability, flexibility, simplicity and cost stated McCormick.
savings in comparison to the legacy MPLS-related architectures.
To complement the FortiGate deployments, the school board also uses
At the UGDSB, the deficiency of cost-effective Internet capacity led to Fortinet’s FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer solutions. “The FortiManager’s
restrictions on which applications could be used. Some students and single-pane-of-glass interface makes deploying and managing FortiGate
staff countered these restrictions by using VPN clients and/or moving devices anywhere in the environment much more efficient,” explained
to SSL encrypted traffic. McCormick noted “Using our FortiAnalyzer McCormick. “The ability to centrally manage and push out templates to
we observed the increasing trend towards SSL-encrypted content and all of our facilities gives us significant operational savings and is a huge
we anticipated that this type of traffic would hit at least 80% of our total advantage when responding to a security incident.”
volumes sometime in the next 20 to 24 months.” Having visibility into
He added, “The FortiAnalyzer gives us the enterprise view of what’s
the SSL traffic became one of the UGDSB’s security requirements.
happening across our network, and provides a context that you can’t get
TIME FOR HOMEWORK from individual appliances alone.”
The broadband modernization technical team evaluated a shortlist of UGDSB’s Fortinet solutions are integral components of the Fortinet
leading vendors of SD-WAN technologies based on information from Security Fabric, an architecture that supports the rapid exchange of
a number of sources, including data from Gartner Magic Quadrant threat intelligence between Fortinet devices and other vendors’ products.
reports. McCormick worked with long-time advisor Integra Data The Fabric facilitates coordinated protection across the school board’s
Systems, a leading supplier of technology solutions to Ontario’s K-12 entire infrastructure without impacting performance or increasing
education system and recent recipient of the prestigious Fortinet management overhead.
Enhanced Technology Partner of the Year award to procure the
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
FortiGate equipment for the evaluation.
UGDSB has deployed more than 14,000 Chromebooks in its schools
The vendors’ equipment was evaluated based on both SD-WAN and
and as a result the board has one of the highest ratios of Chromebooks
security-related criteria developed by the team. This process provided
per student in Canada. McCormick elaborated, “Because some students
valuable insight into the capabilities of the prospective solutions,
are allowed to take the devices home, we’re excited to be exploring the
including the ability to aggregate transport capacity, behaviors when
Fortinet FortiClient for Chromebooks product which provides the ability
a link failed, and recovery from the interruption when a link was
to enforce our security policies even when the children are not connected
restored. An RFP was issued by the Ontario Education Collaborative
to the school network; this may be extremely valuable to us. We’ve
Marketplace (OECM) based on the evaluation criteria and experience of
also made Chromebooks available in public libraries for children in the
the technical project team. Contracts were awarded to several resellers
more rural areas where cost effective Internet services are not as readily
and manufacturers. The region’s school boards were able to pick the
available that require similar protection.”
solution that best fitted their needs and were invited to leverage the
RFP award as a procurement vehicle. McCormick noted that “The Fortinet FortiGate, FortiManager, and
FortiAnalyzer solutions have provided a solid network foundation that
TOP OF THE CLASS has helped us meet the Ministry’s broadband modernization project
McCormick recalled, “When it came time for UGDSB to decide on its objectives and provides a secure, scalable, and manageable platform to
SD-WAN solution, we compared the Fortinet FortiGate with another address our dynamic network needs.”
option from a manufacturer with whom we also do business. We chose
McCormick concluded, “Working with Integra Data Systems has
the FortiGate enterprise solution for several reasons, including SSL
enabled us to select and efficiently deploy the right solutions. Fortinet
inspection capabilities, throughput, deployment flexibility, and internal
understands the unique challenges we’re facing in education to deliver
staff expertise.”
meaningful learning opportunities to students while maintaining the
He continued, “Many vendors approach the SD-WAN space from necessary levels of security. Our relationship has been very solid and
a network-centric standpoint but Fortinet takes a security-first we’re happy to call both Integra Data Systems and Fortinet our partners.”
perspective and combines it with strong network capabilities. In our
environment, it’s imperative for us to protect student and staff personal
information and Fortinet’s stronger security play was another key factor
in our decision process.”

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