Cloud Storage

[swiftysw1]

Currently we use our in house servers to store Pupil, staff data and a central 'departmental' folder?

 

But would like to cut down on new server costs.

 

What do other IT Guru's use for cloud storage?

 

A lot of staff here use 'personal' Dropbox's but I guess that can work out expensive for a corp version.

 

Thanks

Si

[fairm010]

This is another of those threads where the first thing I'd check is your line in strong enough to cope with the constant upload / download of files from the internet.

 

I have a steady stream of around 10Mbps in / out from our file servers, I'd hate that to be constant on our net connection. Also what if it goes down?

[Marshall_IT]

Dropbox is not recommended, maybe not legal, to use. You need to check which companies comply with the UK cloud data handling policy.

 

You can only use services that can guarantee the data stays only within the EU.

[localzuk]

Dropbox is not recommended, maybe not legal, to use. You need to check which companies comply with the UK cloud data handling policy.

 

You can only use services that can guarantee the data stays only within the EU.

 

Or companies that comply with the SafeHarbor agreement... Both Dropbox and Amazon (where, I believe, Dropbox store their data) are signed up to SafeHarbor.

 

On the topic of cloud storage, I would suggest that you think about speeds before anything else. Your servers onsite will most likely be hooked up at 1Gbps. Is your net connection up to that? What about cloud providers? Do they throttle download speeds etc... We've got Notebook files here that are multiple hundred megabytes in size - staff having to wait for them to download would drive them a bit mad.

Edited February 11, 2015 by localzuk

[kennysarmy]

Or companies that comply with the SafeHarbor agreement... Both Dropbox and Amazon (where, I believe, Dropbox store their data) are signed up to SafeHarbor.

 

On the topic of cloud storage, I would suggest that you think about speeds before anything else. Your servers onsite will most likely be hooked up at 1Gbps. Is your net connection up to that? What about cloud providers? Do they throttle download speeds etc... We've got Notebook files here that are multiple hundred megabytes in size - staff having to wait for them to download would drive them a bit mad.

 

We've got students with video files well over 1Gb in size!!!

[Patman]

Can you set up Office 365 or Google Apps?

 

I think it is not only an issue of being able to share or transport data, but also an issue of custody of data. The staff might use these personal resources for storing school data. If they leave, you do not have access to the data. I think the school should have custody of data where it can.

 

My 2p worth...

 

Patman