Case Study: University of Birmingham achieves a faster, more secure, and easier-to-manage campus network with Fortinet

Building a Network for the Future of Education at One of UK’s Largest Universities

The University of Birmingham, a leading UK research and teaching institution with over 35,000 students and a rapidly expanding campus footprint, was facing growing network strain and security risks. Rising bandwidth needs (moving from 10 Gb to 100 Gb), diverse user behaviours and many disparate security vendors led to performance bottlenecks, harder-to-manage policies and increased vulnerability across the estate.

Partnering with Fortinet, the university replaced legacy firewalls with FortiGate 6300F NGFWs and implemented FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer (plus FortiSandbox and FortiExtender) for centralized management, analytics and advanced threat protection. The result was faster, more reliable connectivity, simplified and consistent security policy control across campuses, reduced admin overhead and downtime, and improved user satisfaction — creating a scalable, secure foundation for future growth.

University of Birmingham

Renyk de’Vandre

Network Development Manager