Case Study: York Region District School Board achieves centralized, secure 1:1 BYOD control with HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass

York Region centralizes control of 1:1 BYOD with ClearPass Access Management

York Region District School Board, which supports more than 200 schools and roughly 120,000 students (131,000 users) across Ontario, was overwhelmed by wireless authentication demand—about 700,000 requests daily—and faced a projected rise to 300,000 unique devices as it rolled out mandatory 1:1 BYOD. The district’s Microsoft IAS server routinely needed mid-day restarts and the team required a more scalable, centralized way to manage massive WLAN traffic and device access.

York deployed Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager on top of its existing Aruba infrastructure (5,200 APs, 200 mobility controllers and AirWave servers) to centralize policy, enable role-based access tied to Active Directory, and support secure onboarding and guest access. The result was immediate visibility and faster troubleshooting, granular user/device roles for stronger security, stabilized authentication services, and a clear path to self-service onboarding, sponsored guest Wi‑Fi and additional mobile features such as AirGroup.

York Region District School Board

Andy Bischoff

Manager of Network Services