IT for New primary school from scratch in temporary building to begin with

[adefm]

Just looking for your comments/ideas. Thank you for any insights?

 

New primary school to be built from scratch.

2 new temporary buildings to be built first. First year 30 reception children , head teacher, teacher and receptionist in 2 temporary buildings. Must have sufficient IT to function, but keep costs low and maybe a bit of an IT WOW factor as well.  Main school opening with permanent building after that at some point. Second year 60 children and so on…. 

Assumptions 

The IT infrastructure in the first year either has to be temporary or be able to be adapted/upgraded for the permanent building 

I don't think 3 staff, 3 laptops and 30 kids in a reception class will need a very fast connection for the first year. Reception students only access to IT will be by Smart board type equipment which should not have high internet usage. 

Other nearby schools in the trust could be utilised for more advanced IT

 

Hardware 

Phone line into office ( maybe multiple internal phone points in head teacher and teacher's classroom) 

Broadband line, whether using voice phone line or 2nd line put in (the faster the broadband connectivity the more expensive it is and the more cost possibly to move by the 2nd year) 

Router/Modem boxes  (where internet comes in should be provided by broadband provider) 

1 LAN switch (nothing fancy, but it would be nice to be able to be re-used in the 2nd year) just enough ports to connect router, printer(s) and any other devices other than the laptops that need internet connectivity, e.g. smartboard? 

1 or 2 WIFI Access points (WAPs) with POE (no need for power cables as they get power via the LAN cables). So 3 laptops can connect internally without wires (sometimes the router/modem has this functionality built in. There has to be adequate coverage across the two buildings 

Very little LAN cabling (CAT 5e or 6) is needed, just enough to connect the LAN switch to the router, printer(s) and 1 or 2 WAP points . Ideally the LAN cabling would be properly installed and concealed when the temporary buildings go in.   

Telecoms cabinet  for router/modem/LAN switch ( may not be necessary in the first year) 

Head teacher, teacher, receptionist  3 laptops, portable, so can be moved.  Maybe the receptionists laptop could instead be a physical server with hyper-V functionality for the future.

Networked Printer, black and white (and colour?) 

No need for any server infrastructure at least initially. 3 laptops in a peer to peer workgroup. 

Smartboard or the like  in teaching classroom. This could be the WOW IT factor. 

Smartboard table or the like (so e.g. 6 students can sit down around the table and interact with an interactive display). This could be the WOW IT factor. 

Projector in teaching classroom if smartboard does not do the job. 

 

Staff Software 

Laptops run windows 10. 

Staff use their internet browsers to access office 365 in the cloud. This provides email, file storage, file sharing, office applications (which can be downloaded), e.g. word, excel, ppt. All management  and backup done remotely by MS or administering MS website

Management Software 

SIMs and FMS is already used in the trust and the new school will want to use it 

If they need a separate copy there is the option of Hosted SIMs and FMS.

"With Hosted SIMS and FMS  both teaching and non-teaching staff can access SIMS from any internet connected device, letting you enjoy all the features and functionality of SIMS, wherever you are. Also no hardware needed onsite and all management done by Capita/Microsoft."

Might be cost implications in the long run and you are relying on a reliable broadband connection 

 

Miscellaneous 

None of the following needs hardware at the school: 

School domain registered and DNS hosted ( copy what has been done at other schools in the trust) 

School website ( copy what has been done at other schools in the trust) 

Web filtering (could be provided by ISP) so no hardware needed.

[psydii]

Backups.

[mikeprice]

Look at interactive LCD screen rather than projectors and screens maybe - although expensive - very WOW

 

I would suggest that you start with a server and domain right from the start otherwise you will have to justify it later - slower logins etc etc

This also allows you to build your proper network structure slowly from the start - which will have benefits by the end

 

if you need to keep budget down - talk to ICT Direct for the basics

[MatthewL]

If there are already other schools in the trust can you not use storage/servers at their end and create a VPN for file storage/backups?

[adefm]

Hi Guys

 

Thanks for your responses, really useful.

 

I was hoping that the use of office365 in the would mean no local servers/storage/backups are needed.

Regarding logical error protection, as far as I am aware Office365 provides does not allow files to be rolled back to a previous version. Which could be an issue.

 

I will look into a server/domain from scratch. Windows 20012 foundation could be a good place to start. I will look at ICT Direct.

 

I will look into the VPN from the other school for backups as well, but the connection may not be fast enough.

 

Adrian

[psydii]

You will still need to solve backup. This isn't something Office365 offers.

 

I would probably suggest that you may well not need server infrastructure. If MIS is off site, and Office365 is used for email, OneDrive and sharing resources, and your filtering is at the provdider level (I assuming pulling details through from the MIS or Office365?) then you are probably good to go.

 

Apps can be managed via inTune.

 

For backup initially BackBlaze may be suitable.

[adefm]

Hi

 

Psydii, if there are no servers on site, what data would the school be backing up?

 

Are you talking about the one drive directory on the laptops and anything stored else where on the 3 laptops?

 

In my initial idea everything is on the cloud apart from anything stored on the laptops.

[psydii]

Yes, users work would be in the OneDrive folder on the laptops (*), which while syncing up to O365 is not actually backed up. (an automatically syncing duplicate is not a backup).

 

And on their desktops, and Documents folders, which aren't syncing anywhere.

 

And USBs. (though backblaze etc can't help with that one)

[Oaktech]

As you are doing this from scratch, however much of something you think you're going to need - add a third to it.

 

I'm thinking particularly of network points, wifi capacity, storage and backups.

 

Even if you go fully azure AD you should still have somesort of DC onsite because, outages.

[psydii]

What would the DC allow for? If everything is syncing to the cloud, and teachers have 1:1 devices which cache credentials I don't really see what the DC would be offering.

 

Also in temporary Accommodation the LAN, while important is highly transient. Probably better to have the extra third partially laid and coiled in voids ready for rapid deployment, rather than fixed to positions that may be wrong when needed.

 

Also wireless: get some good APs(*). Ruckus would be what I'd look at for this scenario, as few as possible with maximum coverage. A lot will depend on the construction of the temporary accommodation. Will you be able to even get decent internet piped to them? (I remember it costing a frightening amount)

 

Finally I'd recommend at least 40/20 Down/Up. With everything being stored offsite there are many activities where your users will feel the pain of insufficient upload bandwidth.

 

(*)Given the cloudy, low infrastructure, nature of the strategy perhaps meraki would be the better fit here?

Edited December 2, 2015 by psydii
SPAG. + Meraki

[Blue_Cookeh]

Plan for the future. You don't want to run a whole school using servers in the cloud. Be prepared to rip all cabling out of a temporary building and ditch it, you don't want to reuse cabling. Also again, plan for the future. A rule of thumb I use is pull double the amount of ports and cabling I'll need when having the work done.

 

If you can afford it, ditch the whiteboards and get touch screen TVs on the walls, our teachers found them much more reliable and flexible than projectors/IWBs.

 

Just my 2c

 

What does your budget look like? I'd make my life easier and push as much as possible so when you do expand, you won't be making major changes. If you can get servers with Hyper-V now, do it.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Blue_Cookeh

[adefm]

Hi All

 

I don't know what my budget is at the moment, very early days. I have to come up with a cheap, mid- priced and luxury options.

 

Adrian

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @adefm

 

Sending you a PM.

 

Anthony

[Stone_Charli]

Hi @adefm,

 

This sounds like the kind of project we'd love to get involved in. You've obviously provided plenty of detail above, so if you would like to speak to one of our account managers and get some more advice and some idea around pricing, drop me a PM with your contact details and I'll put you in touch with them?

 

Thanks,

 

Charli

[biz]

Networked Printer, black and white (and colour?) 

 

Print server?

[liveman2]

I found that CrashPlan enterprise is excellent for backing up. There is also a hosted-solution in the cloud. You can specify upload/download speeds on different connections and perform remote restores if needed. Files are backed up every x minutes too which means that you can always recover that document that got corruped or over-written.