Everything In The Cloud - Best Way?

[localzuk]

Chromebook Vs Windows laptop:

 

On a ChromeBook, there is no need for antivirus/anti malware and so there is no device slowdown caused by this.

Price: the series 3 ChromeBook can be had for around £195 (ex vat)

config: On a Chromebook you add it your wifi, enroll the device and thats about it. (I don't think I need to tell you how this works on Windows)

speed: A Chromebook can be on and working before a Windows machine even gets to the loading screen.

lost work: If the machine crashes, the students don't lose their work.

app deployment: pushing apps or your own code is pretty much 1-click 'push' and these go to chrome on the desktop too.

 

Lastly but most importantly: Cross platform, Chrome/Google works on pretty much any device - iOS, Android, ChromeOS, Windows, Mac, Linux. For me this is more important than the hardware as it does not matter who wins the device war - the ecosystem will always be there.

 

As much as I like GAPPs, and related services, some of the above is a limited look at the system and its problems.

 

Anti-virus? Not at the moment, but it will eventually - all systems have flaws.

Price - this is due to the limited specification of the machine. This limited spec also limits what you can do with the machine. No photoshop for you.

Config - this is the same on Windows - add to wireless, join to domain and that's about it.

Speed - all down to spec and what you're running. If your machine is just running a web browser, you can make it start quickly. Even with Windows...

Lost work - Depends what you're doing, on what app etc...

App deployment - Deploying on Windows isn't exactly difficult, so long as its in the right format in the first place (MSI). Add to GPO, add GPO to OU. Done.

 

Cross platform - useful yes, but this is more down to your choice of apps, not the choice of OS.

[robjduk]

Just put in a budget bid to refresh all of our server hardware here with a view it will allow us the hardware backbone for a 6 year plan to slowly migrate to cloud tech. My head asked if we could go to the cloud now and I said yes, but it would be rushed over spending time on what would be best for us.

Assuming I get my network money wish, I plan on slowly migrating to a mix of Azure and Google (365 didn't cut it for me) while keeping a small presence in house. . Capita can host their rubbish SIMS databases for a yearly fee, Google can have our mail and documents and I will figure the rest out when we see what the needs are so to reply to OP... hardware now with a strong view the cloud is the way.

Personally I don't subscribe to the whole "if the internet goes down". How often does it honestly go down at the moment and if anyone answers lots, then its new ISP time for you as business grade lines shouldn't have too many issues. I am working to the assumption that redundant connections will become the new staple for ISP's in business and education.

[Arthur]

Anti-virus? Not at the moment, but it will eventually - all systems have flaws.

Google has already added a feature to ChromeOS that will allow users to reset their account e.g. to remove malicious extensions.

 

Google adds ‘Reset profile settings’ feature to Chromium, allows users to fix issues and clean up after malware « The Next Web

[mthomas08]

We are in the process of going RealSmart route, which simply is externally housed VLE which does have some nice functions. Bad news is this is not internally based and will rely more upon our internet connection.

 

I am also looking in to signing our domain up to Google APPs and then Drive, bad news is our domain name is currently already registered and unless I can sort it out we are screwed - another reason why externally housed to google is a bad thing you need certain details before you can contact them.

[edutech4schools]

bad news is our domain name is currently already registered and unless I can sort it out we are screwed

 

I did not re-register our domain name - true all our g traffic goes to google.com/a/school rather than just school.sch.uk but the primaries I work for did not want to lose the old hosting. To prove the school owned the domain name Google asked me to upload a file to our webspace.

 

Everything works as expected and I can re-register the domain if needed and update Gapps at any time.

[localzuk]

You don't need to re-register anything for Google Apps - you simply need to create some subdomain (CNAME records) and some MX records that point at their services. For proof of ownership, you need an email address such as 'admin@domain' or 'postmaster@domain' (there's a list you can choose from).

 

Otherwise, they can verify via a file upload (or they used to, don't know if they do it any more).

[mthomas08]

Luckily enough the person who had created it was still here for another month!, although I did look and it was asking for the original email address used.

[zag]

We have Office 365 here and the proof is in the using really.

 

It works brilliantly, has never gone down, and has increased our storage and new features are great.

 

Overall its been a complete success story. It seems crazy to me now that we ran a complete exchange server for just 1000 users. Overkill in the extreme.

 

It makes me wonder what other services should be put in the cloud. I'm sure its not perfect for every situation but things like online payments, VLE, MIS come to mind as good applications.

[robjduk]

 

It makes me wonder what other services should be put in the cloud. I'm sure its not perfect for every situation but things like online payments, VLE, MIS come to mind as good applications.

 

 

feel exactly the same as you. Not put email over to google just yet but can see it happening next year. Why the hell are we maintaining ever clumsy software packages when someone else will do it for you cheaply. Im going cloud crazy from now on.

[elsiegee40]

We have had google apps for education since half term and its uses are already showing. The Bursar and I are rapidly converting paperwork to Forms and automating the manual... if our IT illiterate HT is loving it then it must be good

[m25man]

I think that ultimately resistance is futile, the cloud is here it has distinct advantages in many areas and these are still evolving.

 

What may not look to be suitable for SaaS now may well be in 6 months so we all need to keep an open mind and assume that within your next 5 year plan much of what you have now will indeed be cloud based.

 

That does however highlight those Google and 365 shortcomings.

Schools like Free Stuff, 365 for Edu is no exception but if you do not pay for the service you have limited rights and little or no redress in the case of a failure, outage or data loss.

Compare Office 365 Education plans - Office.com

You will see that "Financially backed uptime guarantee" is only available to paying customers.

 

Do read the small print.

 

Web services, storage etc all have some advantages being cloud based but most of us in education will be running hybrids for many years to come I think.

[mthomas08]

Why are schools not rushing for it?

 

Prime example, we had internet trouble today so congratulations instead of internet trouble which affects a 3rd of our system we would lose 90%.

 

 

So worth going cloud, 3rd time we had internet trouble since I have been here (now on 3rd month).

[localzuk]

There's a simple reason - internet reliability and cost are too low and high respectively. It might be fine for people in cities where they have a choice of ISPs with relatively cheap connectivity.

 

Here, if we wanted a non-LEA provided line, we'd be paying £20k minimum. If we were reliant on it, we'd want 2, for reliability, so we'd be looking at a minimum of £40k. However, that is based on current usage. If we were to increase usage, we'd have to increase speeds - meaning the line would then need to be a gigabit bearer, which puts the 'per line' cost up to £32k each...

 

After all that, our costs would then be higher than we pay now for our servers...

[mthomas08]

I would also add I am in the process of looking at our current bandwidth, at the moment yesterday downloading a file 300MB took far too long.

 

Students have an average of 1GB in their areas, our shared drive has almost 600GB of data. It is far too easily to simply say "go down this route its easy" without considering that not every school has funds for fast bandwidth and as Local mentioned not every school has ISP choices.

 

We stick to ours because other companies charge more, we have checked... and frankly this school has lost an average of 110K a year due to other funds being cut in the last 2-3 years..

 

You may be saving in one area but sounds like you are being charged in something else.

[zag]

There's a simple reason - internet reliability and cost are too low and high respectively. It might be fine for people in cities where they have a choice of ISPs with relatively cheap connectivity.

 

Here, if we wanted a non-LEA provided line, we'd be paying £20k minimum. If we were reliant on it, we'd want 2, for reliability, so we'd be looking at a minimum of £40k. However, that is based on current usage. If we were to increase usage, we'd have to increase speeds - meaning the line would then need to be a gigabit bearer, which puts the 'per line' cost up to £32k each...

 

After all that, our costs would then be higher than we pay now for our servers...

 

Those costs seem highly excessive!

 

Our 100mbit dedicated line costs 14k, with a 80/20mbit VDSL backup.

 

Its never gone down in the 2 years we've had it.

 

Its supplied by BT.

[localzuk]

Those costs seem highly excessive!

 

Our 100mbit dedicated line costs 14k, with a 80/20mbit VDSL backup.

 

Its never gone down in the 2 years we've had it.

 

Its supplied by BT.

 

They seem excessive, because they are. I have actually had quotes from around 6 different suppliers. Those are the cheapest prices in this area. Compared to our LEA which is about £6k a year or something similar for a 100Mbit line. Don't assume the costs you pay are the same for us. VDSL is also not available in this area. The options are: ADSL or leased line. That's the lot.