Case Study: Upper Grand District School Board achieves secure, scalable 21st‑century teaching and learning with Fortinet

Upper Grand District School Board Enables 21st Century Teaching and Learning with Secure Sd-Wan Initiative

Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB), a large Ontario school district serving about 34,000 students across 76 schools, faced an aging MPLS-based network that couldn’t meet growing bandwidth needs or protect the surge of board-owned and BYOD devices. As the province piloted a broadband modernization program targeting 1 Mbps per student, UGDSB needed a secure, scalable solution to handle increasing SSL-encrypted traffic and enable modern teaching and learning across a wide geographic area.

UGDSB selected Fortinet’s SD‑WAN built on FortiGate firewalls, managed with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer and deployed with partner Integra Data Systems. The perimeter-based SD‑WAN and NGFW inspection improved internet capacity and application performance within existing costs, centralized management, enabled SSL inspection, reduced the attack surface, and provided a secure, scalable platform that supports expanded Chromebook use and 21st-century learning.

Upper Grand District School Board

John McCormick

Associate Chief Information Officer