Bishops College in South Africa: Scaling a Multi-Campus Network with UniFi MC-LAG

Background

Bishops College has long embraced technology as a pillar of the student experience. The school’s IT organization—led by Assistant Technical Manager Justin Richter—designs, deploys, and continually optimizes ICT systems that must be reliable during class, robust enough for boarding life, and simple enough for a small team to manage across three dispersed campuses. The network spans more than 60 buildings, with a mix of classrooms, labs, libraries, offices, and three boarding houses.

The legacy environment reflected years of incremental growth: Cisco wireless dating back to the early 2000s, HP switching, and later a Juniper campus and core. As user expectations rose—particularly the need for “like home” Wi-Fi in boarding houses—scaling and visibility became pressing needs. Procurement complexity and cost added friction, especially in South Africa where import availability can vary and licensing models strain budgets.

In 2018, Bishops began adopting UniFi for wireless, starting with a pilot in the boarding houses that quickly validated both performance and value. The school has since expanded UniFi across the network stack, including a strategic core refresh featuring dual UniFi EFG consoles and four ECS Aggregation switches, while continuing a phased transition from legacy gear. Today, the team manages over 230 UniFi devices and is actively future-proofing for Wi-Fi 7 within South Africa’s current spectrum constraints.

Organization Requirements

• Unified, scalable networking across three campuses. Replace fragmented legacy systems with a platform that delivers consistent policy, visibility, and control while scaling to dozens of buildings and dormitories.
• High-quality wireless everywhere students learn and live. Ensure reliable classroom connectivity and a “like home” experience in boarding houses, with tools to diagnose and resolve issues on the spot.
• Enterprise features without enterprise complexity and cost. Deliver core redundancy, modern security, and straightforward operations—without burdensome licensing or procurement overhead.

Why UniFi

Cost, capability, and cohesion drove the choice. Bishops needed to expand from classroom-centric Wi-Fi to whole-campus coverage, including dorms and high-traffic common areas, without re-creating the expense and complexity of legacy solutions. UniFi’s controller-based management provided the “single pane of glass” they wanted, the hardware portfolio matched their scale and performance targets, and total cost of ownership aligned with public-education realities—especially important in a market with import limitations.

The decision was also influenced by manageability and time-to-value. Technicians can configure, monitor, and troubleshoot from the UniFi application or the WiFiman app—critical when a ticket arrives during a live class or late in the evening in a residence hall.

Deployment and Key Features

Phased Wireless Modernization Across 60+ Buildings

The journey began in the boarding houses. Bishops piloted approximately 40 NanoHD access points, focusing on residential coverage patterns and student experience. The pilot quickly expanded: the pastoral/boarding side grew to onwards of 100 NanoHDs, and as the footprint broadened, the school standardized on UniFi wireless for additional academic and administrative spaces. By 2025, boarding alone ran about 80 APs across three buildings, illustrating how residential demand shaped network scale.

As Wi-Fi 6 and 7 matured, Bishops added U6-Enterprise and recently purchased 40 E7 access points to future-proof the estate. South Africa’s regulator currently allows only a small set of 6 GHz (6E) channels; nonetheless, the team is deploying Wi-Fi 7-capable hardware now so they can immediately utilize broader spectrum when it becomes available.

Core Upgrade with Dual EFG and ECS Aggregation—Including 200 Gbps MC-LAG

Moving beyond access, Bishops invested in the core: two EFG consoles and four ECS Aggregation switches. One EFG is already installed in the main data center as the team transitions from a software controller to appliance-based management, migrating hardware methodically to minimize risk and align with policy changes.

A standout milestone is the new 200 Gbps MC-LAG between ECS Aggregation switches—more than doubling what they previously achieved with legacy campus hardware.

The school operates two data centers, mirroring key elements for resilience. Today, MC-LAG serves the core stack in the primary site, with server distribution moving onto that fabric. As features evolve (e.g., two-MC-LAG topologies), Bishops plans to extend aggregation toward the secondary data center to further harden availability.

Management, Visibility, and Troubleshooting—From Controller to Pocket

Operational efficiency is where UniFi’s “single pane of glass” truly compounds. From a centralized view, the team sees gateway, switching, and client layers together, with the ability to define VLANs, zones, and firewall rules and mirror configurations across devices—accelerating both deployment and day-two changes.

When issues arise, technicians rely on UniFi’s live telemetry and integrated tools:

• Instant throughput tests and client experience indicators to validate a user’s complaint in real time.
• On-site changes from the mobile app to resolve misconfigurations or adjust policy without a trip back to the office.

This capability has been especially valuable in dormitories, where late-night issues previously required manual checks. Now, the team can confirm connectivity, run tests, and push changes from the field.

Migration and Policy: Methodical Cutover, Clear Requirements

Bishops is moving steadily from a software controller to an EFG-anchored architecture while evolving security policy. Today, a FortiGate firewall still handles reporting and some functions that the school’s leadership expects for governance (e.g., comprehensive reports on application usage, IPS, and firewall activity). The team is building UniFi firewall rules and zones while maintaining FortiGate in parallel until executive reporting needs are fully met.

That pragmatic stance—run what you need today, migrate when the capability lands—has kept the project moving without disruption. It also reflects a broader principle for K-12: reporting and auditability are not “nice to haves”; they’re core requirements.

Additional Solutions and Expansion

Wi-Fi 7 Adoption Strategy

Even with limited 6 GHz channels, Bishops is actively deploying E7 access points and planning selective use of available mid-6 GHz spectrum for high-value staff and administrative segments. As national policy evolves, they will unlock full Wi-Fi 7 capabilities without additional rip-and-replace cycles—an intentional hedge that lowers future capital outlay.

Advanced Network Features on the Roadmap

The team’s next phase includes MC-LAG expansion, WAN load balancing, high-availability clustering, and shadow-gateway use cases. These align with the school’s two-data-center posture and desire for fast failover during teaching hours and evening study periods in residences.

Considering UniFi Protect for CCTV and Access Control

Security modernization is also in scope. While the current case centers on networking, Bishops is evaluating UniFi Protect as a cohesive approach to CCTV and potentially access control—consolidating operations while leveraging the same management paradigm already familiar to the team.

Outcomes

Bishops College now operates a campus-wide UniFi network that scales to the realities of K-12 life—from crowded class changes and assemblies to sustained residential demand in the evenings. The school reports:

• Near-seamless wireless coverage and a “like home” experience in boarding houses.
• Significantly improved troubleshooting speed through live client telemetry and on-device testing.
• Core performance and redundancy gains with a 200 Gbps MC-LAG and a clear path to extend resilience between two data centers.
• Operational simplicity via controller-based management and mobile tooling that empowers technicians to act quickly.

Equally important, the IT team retained governance standards by running FortiGate reporting alongside UniFi during the transition—maintaining executive trust while adopting a more scalable, cost-effective platform.

Conclusion

Bishops College’s multi-year, multi-campus modernization shows how UniFi can unify legacy estates into a single, scalable platform while honoring K-12 constraints around budget, staffing, and governance. Starting where impact was most visible—the boarding houses—the school proved value and then broadened outward, standardizing wireless, upgrading the core with EFG and ECS Aggregation, and instituting high-bandwidth redundancy. The team’s operational rhythm improved in parallel: technicians now resolve issues in minutes, not hours, with live insights, tests, and mobile changes.

This is enterprise-grade networking made workable for education. Bishops can meet today’s needs—classroom instruction, evening residential demand, and two-site resilience—while keeping costs predictable and the roadmap open: expanded MC-LAG, WAN resiliency, HA clustering, and Wi-Fi 7 performance as spectrum opens up. It’s a pragmatic blueprint other schools can follow: start with the experience that matters most, standardize on a platform that scales, and evolve toward full-stack simplicity.