4 Schools to become Shared IT Service

[mukz]

Hi All,

 

Need some help and advice here.

We are four schools in London who have 4 Separate IT Teams but have to work with each other in one way or another due to SIMS PX, Shared Data services and we are a consortium.

 

The plan is to maximise use of the IT Knowledge in the 4 schools to become 1 big team.

Does anyone have any plans for setting up Shared IT Services? (Pros, Cons)

Redundancy's are paid by the local LEA so no need to worry about this.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Mukesh

 

NB: please move if this is in wrong forum

[john]

*mod note moved to "how do you do it...." forum as its more what do you do if your in a MAT / Group etc...*

[Dos_Box]

I suppose a starting point would be to find out the following:

 

 

• What IT services do all sites use/provide in common?
  
• A list of all server OS's as you'll probably (will) have to look at integration
  
• Any critical services used in each site which is unique to that site with a view of either retaining or combining them with other services
  
• Licensing. If all systems are to be managed by one organisation then you would have to find out what you have and how to start managing them centrally
  
• Contractors/suppliers/purchasing. If each school uses differant providers (internet, cabling, systems etc.) then chanmmces are you will have to estabish some commanility with them i.e. one cabling contractor and internet provided by a single company
  
• Procedures. Backup and data retention/protection policies would have to be the same across all sites for example
  

 

TBH, there is a lot to factor in but I am sure there must be a few here who have been involved in such projects and can give more in-depth advice.

[6Foot2]

...I am sure there must be a few here who have been involved in such projects and can give more in-depth advice.

We are in a Consortium, and we had shared our networks, but we went our separate ways again (as far as the networking goes) The schools seemed to want different things from their networks and were pulling in different directions.

 

Re: The setup: I wasn't really involved to any great extent, but it was simplified by the fact that we all had the same ISP (and stayed with the same ISP) and we had the same network provider to start with when linking the networks (Viglen Classlink7) The network we ended up with was entirely in-house and was felt to be a bit clunky at end-of-life. If I were given the choice I wouldn't do the same again. I am sure that there are other consortia with much more positive experiences of shared networks, though.

 

I hope it works for you.

 

[mukz]

I suppose a starting point would be to find out the following:

 

 

• What IT services do all sites use/provide in common?
  
• A list of all server OS's as you'll probably (will) have to look at integration
  
• Any critical services used in each site which is unique to that site with a view of either retaining or combining them with other services
  
• Licensing. If all systems are to be managed by one organisation then you would have to find out what you have and how to start managing them centrally
  
• Contractors/suppliers/purchasing. If each school uses differant providers (internet, cabling, systems etc.) then chanmmces are you will have to estabish some commanility with them i.e. one cabling contractor and internet provided by a single company
  
• Procedures. Backup and data retention/protection policies would have to be the same across all sites for example
  

 

TBH, there is a lot to factor in but I am sure there must be a few here who have been involved in such projects and can give more in-depth advice.

 

Hi Dos_Box,

 

Thanks for that.

We all pretty much use the same supplier for MS Licensing, BackupExec is used across all 4 sites at the moment - i know most of the things everyone does because i have helped to install most of the networks in the 3 schools too.

Wireless is the only thing which we dont agree on. Two of the 4 schools now have Ruckus in place.

Internet is provided by LGFL at the moment and as all schools are in contract until 2019 this will be beneficial as we are all part of a WAN.

 

Agreed there is much to look at when joining forces.

[mukz]

We are in a Consortium, and we had shared our networks, but we went our separate ways again (as far as the networking goes) The schools seemed to want different things from their networks and were pulling in different directions.

 

Re: The setup: I wasn't really involved to any great extent, but it was simplified by the fact that we all had the same ISP (and stayed with the same ISP) and we had the same network provider to start with when linking the networks (Viglen Classlink7) The network we ended up with was entirely in-house and was felt to be a bit clunky at end-of-life. If I were given the choice I wouldn't do the same again. I am sure that there are other consortia with much more positive experiences of shared networks, though.

 

I hope it works for you.

 

 

Hi DaveP,

 

That sounds interesting. At the moment, 2 of the schools, ourselves and another always join up to BUY things e.g door access control, wireless.

We pretty much have a like for like setups.

The other 2 schools are way behind in the 2000's! one is running RM and the other is managed by SITSS. - this is where they also need a complete network overhaul as they are still running 1GB Core Switch which 10gb access switches which defeats the purpose.