Case Study: University of Central Lancashire achieves frictionless, secure learning and improved student satisfaction with VMware NSX (VMware)

University of Central Lancashire: Innovative Learning for the Real World

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), one of the UK’s largest universities with nearly 38,000 students and staff, wanted to deliver “learning without barriers” by letting students use any device, on or off campus, without friction. The IT team faced the twin challenges of supporting many personal devices while protecting sensitive student data and meeting stricter GDPR requirements — all with a relatively small operations team and a desire to avoid locking down access.

UCLan redesigned its infrastructure with a Zero-Trust approach, virtualizing the network with VMware NSX on top of vSphere to add micro-segmentation, built-in firewalling and policy automation. The result was a compliant, more secure environment that reduced manual configuration, preserved seamless student access anytime/anywhere, and drove higher student satisfaction and stronger institutional agility for future partnerships and services.

University of Central Lancashire

Frank Wadmore

Networks and Security Manager