Microsoft to move out of the education market?

[localzuk]

That it a bit like the cloud is the RM CC3/4 management console you can do these things and it works fine but if you want to do something not I the menu your stuffed.

 

That's quite a nice way of looking at it. It is definitely a case of losing flexibility IMO. You're beholden to the cloud provider and what features they wish to offer.

[pcstru]

There is a big difference between saying "we will adapt how we manage our environment" and saying "we will let someone else determine how our environment is managed"...

For the end users, it's not about the technological ecosystem, it is about data and information, digital assets, IP, operational control, strategic control. Who really cares how many RAIDS or where the compute or storage actually is. But the directory and the MIS and the documents and their meta-data and the spreadsheets - oh my, the spreadsheets. That - or rather what is embedded and encoded in that and every day acted out from it, that is what is important. Disruptive change is when it gets ahead of us - when users are sharing departmental assets on personal dropbox accounts and 'signing up' to whatsapps personal T&C's while using it as a business communications tool, we have to accept they do it with good intent. And anyway in a few years, maybe 10, embedding 5G at chip level will be so cheap and network coverage so good that what we think of as our networks will be pointless. In 20 years time Abillybob will be regaling new posters here with tales of patch cables and real physical network 'switches'. Mind you, they will still be wondering why IPv6 hasn't yet managed to displace IPv4. No one ever asks whatever happened to v5. In some circles they bury the bodies real deep.

[Ephelyon]

For the end users, it's not about the technological ecosystem, it is about data and information, digital assets, IP, operational control, strategic control.

 

Bless 'em. It's our job to think beyond that.

 

Who really cares how many RAIDS or where the compute or storage actually is.

 

We do - that's our job. It's also our livelihood. And without that, none of the rest happens.

 

But the directory and the MIS and the documents and their meta-data and the spreadsheets - oh my, the spreadsheets. That - or rather what is embedded and encoded in that and every day acted out from it, that is what is important.

 

... so why on earth would you move from a situation where you can access that without the Internet to a situation where you can't? Where is the business logic there?

 

Disruptive change is when it gets ahead of us - when users are sharing departmental assets on personal dropbox accounts and 'signing up' to whatsapps personal T&C's while using it as a business communications tool, we have to accept they do it with good intent.

 

Good intent notwithstanding, that bodes ill. It's something we need to sort out.

 

And anyway in a few years, maybe 10, embedding 5G at chip level will be so cheap and network coverage so good that what we think of as our networks will be pointless.

 

That is a pretty wild prediction. It's often the case that what we thought would be have come about by X Time is in fact surpassed by orders of magnitude... but it's also often the case that it's missed by miles. Where are the flying cars?!

 

In 20 years time Abillybob will be regaling new posters here with tales of patch cables and real physical network 'switches'.

 

They will still exist... you've got to get that cloudy connection from classroom to classroom and from block to block, after all!

 

Mind you, they will still be wondering why IPv6 hasn't yet managed to displace IPv4. No one ever asks whatever happened to v5. In some circles they bury the bodies real deep.

 

Valid point - we can only guess what's going to happen there... :/

Edited April 30, 2016 by Ephelyon

[CyberNerd]

That's quite a nice way of looking at it. It is definitely a case of losing flexibility IMO. You're beholden to the cloud provider and what features they wish to offer.

 

But I don't think that comparing a move to the cloud to virtualisation really works out. In the latter model, you had to decide how you would repurpose your infrastructure. In the former, you're handing that decision off to someone else. It's not the same thing at all.

 

 

SAAS yes, but the point of containers and virtual machines is that you can migrate them. Much of the cloud *IS* just off site virtualisation and putting something on somebody else's infrastructure doesn't change the functionality any more than using a closed source hypervisor

 

That is a pretty wild prediction. It's often the case that what we thought would be have come about by X Time is in fact surpassed by orders of magnitude... but it's also often the case that it's missed by miles. Where are the flying cars?!

/

Flying cars aside, there is pretty clear evidence that network/internet speeds have been getting faster for decades with no sign of this rate of change slowing.

[Edu-IT]

I've read the past few pages, and I'm still confused, having not seen the webcast. Will onsite servers be an option for Education still or not?

[localzuk]

I've read the past few pages, and I'm still confused, having not seen the webcast. Will onsite servers be an option for Education still or not?

 

Yes, but licenses will cost more. 19% more in 2018. Who knows after that.

[mavhc]

https://cloud.telestream.net/features lets you encode h265 using gpus

[Arthur]

https://cloud.telestream.net/features lets you encode h265 using gpus

Wrong thread?

[CyberNerd]

Wrong thread?

 

no - my fault. I was explaining how I spent an entire morning recompiling software so that I could HEVC encode using my graphics card 'because I couldn't do it in the cloud'. Turns out I wasted a morning.

[JRowley]

Still no word on this recording? It's been almost a week now.

[ZeroHour]

We have got the file just now!

It took a bit longer as it was a bank holiday yesterday. I am working to get it uploaded for you all to view now.

[ZeroHour]

It has been uploaded to youtube several times now but its stuck on processing so I cant post the link yet until its done. I have been up sorting the video until now but it will hopefully be done when I start again later today.

[jmak]

Just wondered if MS had provided a copy of their slides as well? I took part in the conference, so don't especially want to watch the whole hour, but would like to check a couple of the details which appeared in the slides.

 

TIA

[ZeroHour]

 

I will get the slides as well to upload.

[deKay]

OK, so I'm probably missing something very obvious somewhere, but...

 

I've watched the webcast, and can see that we can use one of our existing Windows Server licences to spin up an Azure VM. My question is... how? I mean literally, what do I do? I can't sign up for Azure itself (I expected I could just do that, fill in a server licence key somewhere and be away) as it needs a credit card and that ain't gonna happen ever, so is there some magic Schools-only route in?

 

Also, a general question which may have been answered (it's a big thread!): how are schools going to deal with vague monthly costs for cloud services? I have a fixed budget. I'm very reliant on things costing X per year, mostly paid upfront, not it varying each month like a phone bill. How can I budget for "server time" and transfer costs and things, which I can see spiralling quickly and uncontrollably if not carefully watched and managed. This isn't just about Azure, but also things like cloud backup, AWS, etc.

[Dos_Box]

OK, so I'm probably missing something very obvious somewhere, but...

 

I've watched the webcast, and can see that we can use one of our existing Windows Server licences to spin up an Azure VM. My question is... how? I mean literally, what do I do? I can't sign up for Azure itself (I expected I could just do that, fill in a server licence key somewhere and be away) as it needs a credit card and that ain't gonna happen ever, so is there some magic Schools-only route in?

 

Also, a general question which may have been answered (it's a big thread!): how are schools going to deal with vague monthly costs for cloud services? I have a fixed budget. I'm very reliant on things costing X per year, mostly paid upfront, not it varying each month like a phone bill. How can I budget for "server time" and transfer costs and things, which I can see spiralling quickly and uncontrollably if not carefully watched and managed. This isn't just about Azure, but also things like cloud backup, AWS, etc.

 

We have James Evans (@EduTech) talking on Azure (amongst other things) at the conf. If you are coming it may be worth your picking his brains. If not try PM'ing him as he may be able to get you the info you need.

[localzuk]

OK, so I'm probably missing something very obvious somewhere, but...

 

I've watched the webcast, and can see that we can use one of our existing Windows Server licences to spin up an Azure VM. My question is... how? I mean literally, what do I do? I can't sign up for Azure itself (I expected I could just do that, fill in a server licence key somewhere and be away) as it needs a credit card and that ain't gonna happen ever, so is there some magic Schools-only route in?

 

You can buy Azure credits from Microsoft licensing resellers.

 

Also, a general question which may have been answered (it's a big thread!): how are schools going to deal with vague monthly costs for cloud services? I have a fixed budget. I'm very reliant on things costing X per year, mostly paid upfront, not it varying each month like a phone bill. How can I budget for "server time" and transfer costs and things, which I can see spiralling quickly and uncontrollably if not carefully watched and managed. This isn't just about Azure, but also things like cloud backup, AWS, etc.

 

This is indeed a big question. The problem being that if you cap your account, you could end up with your infrastructure going offline as you've run out of funds...

[nathan]

Best make sure you estimate it correctly then

 

Seriously though, if your school only use certain services during school hours you can turn some off during out of hours. That should hopefully save some pennies.

[sted]

Best make sure you estimate it correctly then

 

Seriously though, if your school only use certain services during school hours you can turn some off during out of hours. That should hopefully save some pennies.

i suppose in theory if you did move to azure you could possibly spool down most if not all services over the weekend to save cash

[localzuk]

Best make sure you estimate it correctly then

 

Seriously though, if your school only use certain services during school hours you can turn some off during out of hours. That should hopefully save some pennies.

 

i suppose in theory if you did move to azure you could possibly spool down most if not all services over the weekend to save cash

 

Is that not simply reducing your capabilities then? At the moment, all our services are available 24/7/365 (well, barring maintenance times). Moving to the cloud and then turning stuff off seems like a reduction in service!

[deKay]

You can buy Azure credits from Microsoft licensing resellers.

 

But just to test, on the free tier, with my current server licence... I shouldn't be paying anything yet! No chance I can put the school credit card on their system - that won't fly with governors.

[CyberNerd]

Is that not simply reducing your capabilities then? At the moment, all our services are available 24/7/365 (well, barring maintenance times). Moving to the cloud and then turning stuff off seems like a reduction in service!

 

no, just power up more machines as you need them. The baseline still runs 24/7 but uses less resources.

Example: Fileserver uses a distributed GlusterFS or NFS backend and new servers automatically popup as the load increases.

[nathan]

Is that not simply reducing your capabilities then? At the moment, all our services are available 24/7/365 (well, barring maintenance times). Moving to the cloud and then turning stuff off seems like a reduction in service!

 

Well your service would meet the demand.

 

Would you say your service is being used 27/4/365?

[gshaw]

Just highlights the difference between cloud services that make sense for the customer vs those that are put there for the sole purpose of driving profit for the supplier.

 

If it's going to cost more and add uncertainty to put a classic server on Azure it either a) shouldn't be forced up there by licensing changes or b) migrated to something more efficient / cloud native

 

MS are taking a big gamble if people go for the latter option and end up moving away from the ecosystem completely.

[gshaw]

Well your service would meet the demand.

 

Would you say your service is being used 27/4/365?

 

Some of the times we see people accessing VLE etc would surprise many, lots of night owls out there doing their work at all times of day & night