Case Study: North-West University achieves secure, high-capacity campus-wide access and instant zero-day threat protection with Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform

Empowering Students and Staff With Secure Access to Network and Cloud Services

North-West University (NWU) is one of South Africa’s largest higher-education institutions, serving more than 68,000 students across multiple campuses. Rapidly growing network traffic outstripped the capacity of legacy firewalls, causing frequent service disruptions, high latency and exposure to zero-day threats during a campus-wide connectivity upgrade.

NWU deployed the Palo Alto Networks Security Operating Platform—high-capacity next‑generation firewalls in a high‑availability configuration, with Threat Prevention, WildFire and Panorama for centralized management. The implementation immediately resolved service issues, cut zero‑day response from days to seconds, secured thousands of concurrent sessions without proxies, reduced firewall configuration time by 75%, and delivered a longer service life and strong return on investment.

North-West University

Flip van Schalkwyk

Manager of IT Infrastructure