Client Overview
Catholic Network Australia (CNA) is a not-for-profit entity that supports Australian Catholic schools through collaboration and shared expertise. It was established to advance and promote the religious, educational and general charitable purposes of the Church and its entities. It has since evolved to focus exclusively on education, and to share resources and expertise across its Participants. Today, 26 of Australia’s 28 Archdiocese/Diocese are CNA Participants. This sees CNA serve over 1,500 Catholic schools and almost 800,000 students, teachers, and staff.
Digital literacy is a key area for CNA. Guided directly by Teaching and Learning experts from within Participants, CNA has a strong focus on flexibility, choice, and equitable access for all, regardless of size or location. One initiative CNA undertakes is to provide procurement support to Participants relating to telecommunication and associated managed services.
In partnership with Orro and CNA, three major Participants – Catholic Education Western Australia (CEWA), Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE), and the Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) – undertook a comprehensive network transformation project to deliver high-speed, reliable and secure connectivity that supports digital learning and administrative efficiency. This initiative impacted 850 schools and offices, laying the foundation for future educational innovation for more than 270,000 students.
Problem: Bridging the Digital Divide for Equitable Learning
The digital era has brought about transformative changes in education, but for many Catholic schools, particularly those in rural and regional areas, access to high-speed internet and modern digital learning tools was inconsistent and often insufficient. CEWA, BCE, and VCEA faced several key challenges:
- Limited Bandwidth and Connectivity: Existing MPLS WAN networks were inadequate to support the increasing demand for cloud-based learning platforms, multimedia resources, and real-time collaboration tools.
- Lack of Resilience: Schools in regional and remote areas were particularly vulnerable to network disruptions, leading to inconsistent access to critical learning resources.
- High Costs and Inefficiency: Legacy networks were costly to maintain and did not offer the scalability required for future growth, making it difficult to adapt to evolving educational needs.
- Equity of Access: A central goal was to ensure that all students, regardless of their geographic location, had equal access to high-quality educational resources, which was not achievable under the existing infrastructure.
The Participants needed a scalable, secure, and cost-effective network solution that could provide equitable access to digital learning resources across all schools, enabling students in even the most remote locations to benefit from the same opportunities as their urban counterparts.
Solution: A Secure, Resilient and Scalable SD-WAN Network
To address these challenges, Orro deployed a contemporary SD-WAN solution utilising Fortinet’s industry-leading technology, specifically tailored to the diverse needs of CEWA, BCE, and VCEA. Key elements of the solution included:
- High-Speed Dual Fibre Connectivity: Each site was equipped with dual fibre data links. CEWA and BCE invested in dual NBN fibre connectivity (Enterprise Ethernet and Fibre to the Premise) resulting in an active-active, load-balanced solution. This ensured redundancy and failover capabilities to maintain continuous connectivity, significantly improving network resilience. VCEA combined a range of carrier technologies to significantly increase bandwidth whilst introducing a secondary fibre service to provide a backup link in the event of a primary link outage.
- SD-WAN Solution: To meet the stated requirements of Participants, Orro utilised Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN technology to design, pilot and implement a robust solution. Providing comprehensive security, application prioritisation, and advanced traffic inspection capabilities, this has enabled schools to access critical learning tools with enhanced performance and security.
- Application Prioritisation: Orro’s solution intelligently prioritises essential applications such as Microsoft Teams over less critical traffic like video streaming, ensuring that learning and administrative tasks received the bandwidth they needed.
- Integrated Security: The solution included local internet breakout, distributed firewalls, intrusion prevention, and web filtering to secure students’ online activities and ensure compliance with educational standards.
- End-to-End Visibility: The solution enables complete visibility into network traffic across all schools, allowing for real-time monitoring and optimised performance.
- Scalability and Flexibility: The network was designed to double bandwidth capacity during the contract term if needed, accommodating growing demands as digital learning expands.
- Centralised Management and 24/7 Support: Orro’s proprietary network management platform seamlessly integrates with Fortinet’s technology, enabling real-time monitoring, automated traffic management, and rapid incident response, ensuring optimal performance and high levels of service reliability.
Orro has been a key strategic technology partner, providing our 153 schools with access to an education-tailored network capable of scaling up as needed to accommodate future demands. Our network architecture offers high performance, robust security and stability, along with streamlined management and cost efficiency. A key focus of the project has been to ensure equitable connectivity, guaranteeing reliable access to digital learning resources across regional, remote and metropolitan schools.The flexibility of the network design ensures that as new technologies emerge, they can be seamlessly integrated into the existing network, keeping our educational infrastructure at the forefront of innovation.
— Mike Kovacevic – Chief Information Officer and Chief of Business Development
Orro has been instrumental in delivering a robust, scalable network that supports future learning environments across our schools. This transformation ensures equitable connectivity for all our students, regardless of location, and sets a strong foundation for ongoing digital innovation.
— Leigh Williams, CIO, Brisbane Catholic Education
Outcome: Transforming Education Through Equitable Access
The network transformation delivered significant benefits across all three Participants:
- Enhanced Performance and User Experience: Bandwidth increased by over 400% on average, with minimal downtime and major incidents reported post-implementation. This improvement has enabled seamless access to digital learning platforms, real-time collaboration tools, and multimedia resources, significantly enhancing the learning experience for students and teaching capabilities.
- Equitable Access for All Students: One of the most transformative outcomes of this project was the ability to deliver equitable access to high-quality educational resources, regardless of location. For example, the solution enables specialist teachers, such as those for languages, music, or the arts, to now teach students across the entire network, overcoming geographic limitations and expanding the curriculum available to all students.
- Cost Efficiency and Sustainability: The new network model reduced operational costs by an average of 30%, resulting in significant monthly savings, making it financially sustainable for the Participants to maintain and grow their digital capabilities.
- Improved Security and Learning Environment: The introduction of advanced security measures provided a safer digital environment, protecting students and staff from cyber threats and ensuring compliance with content filtering standards.
“The new network has drastically reduced incidents and improved our ability to manage connectivity across multiple sites. The ability to prioritise critical applications like Teams has made a noticeable difference in classroom engagement.”
— Aaron Delaney, Manager – Digital Platforms, Brisbane Catholic Education
Conclusion: Building a Future-Ready Education Network
Orro’s partnership with CNA and the Participants of CEWA, BCE, and VCEA has fundamentally transformed the digital landscape for Catholic education in Australia. By addressing the unique challenges of each Participant and providing a future-ready network solution, Orro has empowered these schools to deliver enhanced educational outcomes. This transformation not only supports current needs but also ensures scalability and resilience for future demands, positioning CNA and its member schools at the forefront of digital learning innovation.
To learn how Orro can enhance your network connectivity and security, visit Orro’s Network Services.
