Google Schools

[jmak]

Just wondered if anyone has gone the whole hog and ditched Windows altogether - including admin and teaching staff. I'm looking at server replacement (still 18 months away) and wondering if not replacing it is a realistic option? Unless I've missed something big, there's still no real information on the cost model once our EES agreement expires.

 

Interested in any real life experiences.

 

Thanks

[TwistedHelixis]

Our local community college is 99% google, with Chromebooks for all the pupils. I believe they have a few windows systems in the office for Sims to run on. I think they have been a Google school since about 2009

 

The schools I look after (primary) use lots of bits from Google but not everything yet so we still have lots of windows machines and servers.

[jmak]

If we were to go for hosted SIMS would we need full fat Microsoft Office applications? Just going through things that are currently hosted on a Windows server

[just_david]

I guess the question is what software do you use?

 

We have a good IT and DT dept who use a lot of software that's windows only.

 

If you don't, and all your school uses is powerpoint and word, you might be able to get away with it.

[robsonma]

We are a School That is 95% Google, Mail is offered by Google Mail, office is Provided by Sheets/Docs ect, our whiteboard we use google slides.

We have to use windows pc and the office still have MS Office on for sims as I wont go hosted yet with sims, Students use chromebooks with tons of apps ect.

All our School Data is Stored on Google Drive and all staff have a small USB YubiKey to access data. you can set google to auto convert docs when you upload them to drive so we have this turned on for all staff.

Edited November 16, 2016 by robsonma
Spelling mistake

[jmak]

We are a School That is 95% Google, Mail is offered by Google Mail, office is Provided by Sheets/Docs ect, our whiteboard we use google slides.

We have to use windows pc and the office still have MS Office on for sims as I wont go hosted yet with sims, Students use chromebooks with tons of apps ect.

All our School Data is Stored on Google Drive and all staff have a small USB YubiKey to access data. you can set google to auto convert docs when you upload them to drive so we have this turned on for all staff.

 

We're an infant school, so in terms of applications that are used, the only ones I can think of which couldn't be easily replaced by Chrome OS alternatives are SIMS and Smart Notebook. On the timescale I'm looking at, we could theoretically move to an alternative to SIMS, but I think that would be a difficult sell. We're already having conversations about moving away from Smart Notebook anyway and surveys suggest that the interactive features aren't heavily used at the minute.

 

Lots of the "applications" that the pupils use are already on line (Purple Mash, Mathletics and similar) so would be unaffected.

 

Other than managing the network and the servers, the main things left over for me are WDS and AD which I'd no longer need and a Print Server, which could either move to Google Cloud Print or I could run something on a Linux machine. I don't have the skills to manage a Linux network and would feel exposed as I don't know enough people locally who could help me out if I got stuck.

[robsonma]

We have also used, Open-Sankoré to replace Smartnotebook in the past, its a good bit of Software, it is French but it is installed in English.

Yes WDS, but they can be pulled down from the Internet, just like at home. (not ideal but)

I would still stick with a Single Server, or even an old pc with server (whatever on) for WSUS

[jmak]

We have also used, Open-Sankoré to replace Smartnotebook in the past, its a good bit of Software, it is French but it is installed in English.

Yes WDS, but they can be pulled down from the Internet, just like at home. (not ideal but)

I would still stick with a Single Server, or even an old pc with server (whatever on) for WSUS

 

But if I don't have any Windows clients, I won't need WDS or WSUS

 

I know I can drastically reduce reliance on Windows and either have a few MS machines in key locations or provide a box for the Chromebooks to RDP to for key applications. However, I'm looking for two things: simplicity of management and reduced cost. Moving to mostly Chromebooks with some Windows devices actually adds to complexity from my point of view, so while there might be an argument that Google Suite works better for most people, I would increase my workload. From a cost point of view, everything I've seen suggests that Server OS is going to become massively more expensive when our EES agreement runs out in a couple of years. We currently only have one physical server, so proportionally our licensing costs will sky-rocket and that's the start of a business case for completely getting rid of everything Microsoft. The caveat is that I need to ensure it doesn't impact teaching and learning.

 

I'm trying to work out what is possible before we make major hardware purchasing decisions. It's not imminent, but this kind of change takes a lot of planning and I'd want to be pretty sure it would work!

[winng]

We're looking to further engage with Google Chromebooks and make more use of Google Drive, etc. We currently use Gmail and Classroom but with storage at capacity and no money to purchase more, I've just started a push to upload their docs and shared areas to Drive.

Hopefully, they will grasp the collaborative opportunities and go a step further away from Windows.

[mjk]

We have 13% of our PC's running windows. The problem is that this small number of machines cost the most in licensing and support.

All the rest are Chromebooks or thin clients.

 

I don't think we *need* to use windows, but it's good for kids to see how things work in other places, and if we need an old fashioned legacy windows app they can run them through a browser via an HTML client.

 

SIMS is a bit of a problem (as usual) but there are so many third party HTML extensions now that it's hardly necessary for most day to day operations, and in traditional Capita style (10 years behind everyone) they are moving it to web anyway.

 

We are a large secondary so we have technical people onsite, it's probably different for primaries who rely on LA support.

[enjay]

In my experience here, if you pull all the Windows stuff out and replace it with G Suite, you'll have mutiny. But, if you run both in parallel for a couple of years, many people will naturally make the progression anyway. Our teaching staff all have iPads too, so the need to have documents accessible from multiple devices in school and at home became even more critical. Coincide the introduction of G Suite with a management-led crackdown on memory sticks (under the banner of data protection concerns, which were genuine).

 

You will still need a bit of Office knocking around for SIMS reports, but you might be able to find a company who would host SIMS for you along with a few Office licences, that you way can generate the Excel sheet in the hosted environment then copy-paste the contents into your Google Sheet.

 

Google Classroom has driven a big move into G Suite too, possibly less relevant in primary though.

[jmak]

Just thinking it through further....

 

I presume I'd need something to run dhcp and DNS - but even a Linux noob ought to be able to manage that with a couple of years to get my head around it, right?

 

I've been slipping various bits of Google Suite in for the last couple of years and have a strategy in my head. I just want to have solid answers on how everything would work before I put it in front of SLT and governors. Not buying a new server and not paying for server licences will be a big item in the pros column. But at the end of the day, the school has to function efficiently.

 

Our SIMS is already hosted by the LA and accessed via an rdp session, so that could work in the same way. The office licencing that covers that is based on the teachers being licensed on the machines which belong to the school, so I'd need to investigate how that would work in the future. If we didn't have Office, would SIMS just output a file which we could open in Google Suite afterwards or does SIMS need Office installed on the machine that's hosting SIMS?

[enjay]

I presume I'd need something to run dhcp and DNS - but even a Linux noob ought to be able to manage that with a couple of years to get my head around it, right?

 

Yes, although a single basic server just issuing DHCP and DNS wouldn't be that expensive, so maybe stick with the known and supportable for that - cost of teaching yourself how to do this with Linux and continue to get suitable support might not be worth it. Before the Linux fans jump in and say the support community is great, I'm sure it is, but I don't think Leadership would accept "I'll posted on a forum and wait for a response" to be an acceptable Disaster Recovery Plan.

 

Just thinking it through further....

Our SIMS is already hosted by the LA and accessed via an rdp session, so that could work in the same way. The office licencing that covers that is based on the teachers being licensed on the machines which belong to the school, so I'd need to investigate how that would work in the future. If we didn't have Office, would SIMS just output a file which we could open in Google Suite afterwards or does SIMS need Office installed on the machine that's hosting SIMS?

 

SIMS can only output in proprietary Office formats, not .rtf and .csv, so you would need Office on the machine hosting SIMS, but could save from there into something Google-friendly, especially so if you can have a web browser in the hosted environment. When we had LA hosting for SIMS, we had a full remote desktop so could run a browser (also useful for testing filtering problems, as the hosted environment was obviously outside our network!), but since moving from them to a different hosting company, we can't as there is no longer a usable Start Menu in the hosted environment.

[2ilent8cho]

If we were to go for hosted SIMS would we need full fat Microsoft Office applications? Just going through things that are currently hosted on a Windows server

 

Why not dump SIMS? Get something web browser based like iSAMS?

[enjay]

Why not dump SIMS? Get something web browser based like iSAMS?

 

The staff re-training costs would be massive. Plus we have various things which feed out of SIMS (Salamander for user management, library catalogue, School Seating Planner, Room Booking System) which would also need changing, or have manual processes introduced if they couldn't interact with SIMS.

[jmak]

Yes, although a single basic server just issuing DHCP and DNS wouldn't be that expensive, so maybe stick with the known and supportable for that - cost of teaching yourself how to do this with Linux and continue to get suitable support might not be worth it. Before the Linux fans jump in and say the support community is great, I'm sure it is, but I don't think Leadership would accept "I'll posted on a forum and wait for a response" to be an acceptable Disaster Recovery Plan.

 

It's not the hardware cost - what I've seen from MS so far suggests that server licences will be unaffordable for us after EES expires. Maybe I need to look at Azure AD, which I believe doesn't require on premises AD now and that's where the pricing discounts are going to be.

 

SIMS can only output in proprietary Office formats, not .rtf and .csv, so you would need Office on the machine hosting SIMS, but could save from there into something Google-friendly, especially so if you can have a web browser in the hosted environment. When we had LA hosting for SIMS, we had a full remote desktop so could run a browser (also useful for testing filtering problems, as the hosted environment was obviously outside our network!), but since moving from them to a different hosting company, we can't as there is no longer a usable Start Menu in the hosted environment.

 

Google Suite opens MS proprietary file formats now, if that makes any difference....

[FN-GM]

The staff re-training costs would be massive. Plus we have various things which feed out of SIMS (Salamander for user management, library catalogue, School Seating Planner, Room Booking System) which would also need changing, or have manual processes introduced if they couldn't interact with SIMS.

 

Salamander supports loads of MIS systems, not sure about the others. The new provider might throw training in as a part of the deal.

 

@jmak you could use your switches for DHCP?

[localzuk]

It's not the hardware cost - what I've seen from MS so far suggests that server licences will be unaffordable for us after EES expires. Maybe I need to look at Azure AD, which I believe doesn't require on premises AD now and that's where the pricing discounts are going to be.

 

EES isn't going to "expire" as such, its just getting price increases.

 

They want us to move everything into Azure, but there are just some things that can't yet.

Google Suite opens MS proprietary file formats now, if that makes any difference....

SIMS actually uses Office in the process of generating the reports, so it doesn't help sadly.

[Arthur]

what I've seen from MS so far suggests that server licences will be unaffordable for us after EES expires.

Using Windows Server Datacenter licenses as an example, if Microsoft effectively increase prices by 20% each year between now and 2018 that would only make the cost of each license ~£132 more expensive in 2018 (£299.27 > £359.12 > £430.94).

 

www.edugeek.net/forums/licensing-questions/165618-microsoft-reply-your-mou-questions.html

 

After July 2018 (should there not be a replacement agreement with DfE) Academic pricing and discounts would still be in effect – i.e. they would not pay Commercial or Government rates.

[enjay]

Google Suite opens MS proprietary file formats now, if that makes any difference....

 

True, but SIMS opens Excel when creating the export, it doesn't just pump the data out into a .xlsx file, so you still need Office on the PC which has SIMS (or in the hosted environment if you're hosted).

[enjay]

Salamander supports loads of MIS systems, not sure about the others.

Some do, some don't. Often, they have automated integration with SIMS but if using something else, you have to export to CSV and then import.

 

The new provider might throw training in as a part of the deal.

That would be essential if we were to move. It would still be an enormous commitment of time, and that would cost far more than the training. Also consider the ongoing training; we often find with new staff we can say "do you know how to use SIMS?" and they say "yes". I suspect this would not happen nearly as frequently if we said "we use ISAMS" or "we use Integris" or even "we use CMIS".

[mjk]

SIMS actually uses Office in the process of generating the reports, so it doesn't help sadly.

We found that SIMS only uses Office for some reports (particularly assessment manager). Most reports can be exported as csv or as HTML and copied directly from a browser into Google docs. Some of our staff using this method if they don't need to use the office generated reports.

We have some scripts that pull data from SIMS and generate Google sheets on a daily basis so the spreadsheets are 'live' which is quite handy for admin.

 

It's not the hardware cost - what I've seen from MS so far suggests that server licences will be unaffordable for us after EES expires. Maybe I need to look at Azure AD, which I believe doesn't require on premises AD now and that's where the pricing discounts are going to be.

 

Indeed. Where we need SIMS we now use a terminal server CAL or a third party web client. Our issue is w Chromebooks that use MS DHCP/ DNS. We didn't buy EES due to the cost ( with only 12%-13% of our estate running windows, the EES cost is astronomical ) thus the cost of using MS DNS/DHCP is also astronomical, which (unfortunately) is pushing us further from MS.

[enjay]

We have some scripts that pull data from SIMS and generate Google sheets on a daily basis so the spreadsheets are 'live' which is quite handy for admin.

Ooh, interesting. Could you go into a bit more detail on that? Would you mind PMing me your email address?

[mjk]

Ooh, interesting. Could you go into a bit more detail on that? Would you mind PMing me your email address?

The generate to Sheets bit ?

you'll need a bit of coding, but basically run commandreporter.exe import the xml and use the following method to dump it into sheets:

Core Python Programming: Migrating SQL data to Google Sheets using the new Google Sheets API

[Haptic-Nathan]

Evening All,

@jmak i have PM'd you with my details, would be great to talk about your G Suite use and how we can help.