Case Study: Edinburgh Napier University achieves secure, resilient IT and faster service delivery for students with VMware NSX

Edinburgh Napier University Enriches Student Learning While Becoming Secure at its Core

Edinburgh Napier University, a leading higher‑education institution in Edinburgh serving over 19,500 students, needed to provide a seamless, resilient IT experience while protecting sensitive research and administrative data. The IT team faced long lead times to provision compliant infrastructure (up to a week), risk of shadow IT, and the challenge of giving Cyber Academy students realistic testing environments without exposing core systems.

The university deployed VMware NSX with support from Phoenix Software and VMware Professional Services to add micro‑segmentation and attach security policies directly to workloads. The result: faster, automated provisioning (now half the time), improved campus resilience and security, tailored secure labs for cyber students, and the ability to share segmented resources with partner institutions—supporting research, innovation and a better student experience.

Edinburgh Napier University

Iain Russell

Head of IT Infrastructure