Connecting Schools

[danselvey]

Hi All,

 

I'm looking to connect multiple sites (2 small-medium secondaries initially - 650 students each, shared sixth form of 150 students).

 

I'm trying to figure out the infrastructure, getting prices etc. My current options are:

- VPN over the broadband.

- Direct fibre connection between the sites (through the exchanges), one site only with an actual internet connection.

 

The latter would most likely mean both sites sharing a single 100mb internet connection, but having a 1gb link between the sites. The former would mean both having 100mb internet connections and using them for intersite communication (increasing overhead). My initial thoughts are leaning towards having a faster inter-site link as it may be more suited what i intend to do (domain, backups, frs/dfs, shared apps/servers/infrastructre, etc, etc..)

 

So far, it's looking like the pricing is pretty much the same between both solutions.

 

I guess my main questions are, am i missing another way? What's everyone else doing in this scenario?

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

We do option 2. It is much cheaper than buying Internet, Firewalls, Filtering etc for each site plus you have the added bonus of having a fully private routable network.

[Sibrows]

Option 2. Consider the other benefits of faster connection between sites (centralised services, off-site backup etc...)

[nicholab]

This does limit the design if you take on more schools and may have less value as we move towards the cloud.

[danselvey]

This does limit the design if you take on more schools and may have less value as we move towards the cloud.

 

I'm not sure how? I think both options are scaleable to a certain degree, could even mix and match thinking about it, if i ran out of fibre coming in.

 

As for the cloud, you may have to elaborate a bit more there. I personally think cloud services (i.e. storage) are a little way off being ready for school environments, a few more years and maybe.

 

 

Thanks everyone for your answers so far.

[LytchettNM]

Have you spoken to your ISP?

Having worked in the industrial a few years ago there are things as ISP could do, it’s got to be worth asking the question.

Personal I would want to look at each site having it’s own internet connection so that all sites are not affected by the main site in the event of a problem.

I can provide you with contact details for a service provider that might be able to help.

[snagrat]

We do this through both Azure and ISP.

 

Some schools out of our 12 are connected on a VPLS and the other are connected via Azure servers.

 

The VPLS is free, the Azure stuff costs £700 per year

[danselvey]

Have you spoken to your ISP?

Having worked in the industrial a few years ago there are things as ISP could do, it’s got to be worth asking the question.

Personal I would want to look at each site having it’s own internet connection so that all sites are not affected by the main site in the event of a problem.

I can provide you with contact details for a service provider that might be able to help.

 

Yes i have spoken with the provider. The VPN is their suggested option, as if we are both sites are on the same supplier they can manage the connection/routing at their data centre. Which has its upsides and downsides.

[danselvey]

We do this through both Azure and ISP.

 

Some schools out of our 12 are connected on a VPLS and the other are connected via Azure servers.

 

The VPLS is free, the Azure stuff costs £700 per year

 

VPLS, so networks on top of networks, which might bring me back to the pros and cons of VPN in this instant? Which Azure stuff are you referring?

 

Thanks

[LytchettNM]

Yes i have spoken with the provider. The VPN is their suggested option, as if we are both sites are on the same supplier they can manage the connection/routing at their data centre. Which has its upsides and downsides.

 

If your ISP can or should I say is prepared to provide a VPLS solution, each site would connect at the speed you chose for that site and the ISP would then provide the internet connection to the virtual network so maybe 200 meg pre large site and 100 for the smaller with a 100 pipe for all to share.

If you current ISP can not, I’m sure there are others that can, we looked into our options should we become a MAT and one options was the VPLS and another was to have our ISP host our firewall at the London data centre and all of our site connect to the green side of our firewall.

[danselvey]

If your ISP can or should I say is prepared to provide a VPLS solution, each site would connect at the speed you chose for that site and the ISP would then provide the internet connection to the virtual network so maybe 200 meg pre large site and 100 for the smaller with a 100 pipe for all to share.

If you current ISP can not, I’m sure there are others that can, we looked into our options should we become a MAT and one options was the VPLS and another was to have our ISP host our firewall at the London data centre and all of our site connect to the green side of our firewall.

 

I'm just reading up on VPLS, which i am unfamiliar with. I'm with Schools Broadband at the moment at one of the sites, other site is currently up for renewal, so i will drop SB a message get some more info if its available from them.

 

Thanks

[Wave9_Lee]

Hi Dan,

 

some of this is down to what your future plans are, where your key resources are going to be hosted, what applications and service you are running, so I don't think there's a perfect solution without knowing those things. Your service architecture should define your network topology. You can then look at risk appetite and cost.

 

In simple terms, a link between the two sites is relatively low cost, but creates a dependency on your main site - if your internet or router goes down, you take out both sites. If each site has their own internet, then one of the sites can continue to operate. An outage at you main site will have greater impact as you bring on more sites.

 

I would generally advocate an internet facing P2P VPN (or P2MP) design as this gives you the most flexibility. You don't need to do this at ISP level, you can do it with equipment at each site so that it's network agnostic. This way you are not tide to a single ISP or technology. For instance, if you have a school on a separate ISP, you can connect them to your core services pretty quickly even though they might be in contract for a year or two more than is ideal. Multiple schools will have staggered contract dates and often different technologies available, so flexibility is key.

 

regards

 

Lee

[nathan]

I'm just reading up on VPLS, which i am unfamiliar with. I'm with Schools Broadband at the moment at one of the sites, other site is currently up for renewal, so i will drop SB a message get some more info if its available from them.

 

Thanks

 

SB will certainly be able to help, we haven't done much other than having all 12 of our primaries on the same VDOM. I'll be looking at other options in the next year as we migrate to a more joined up approach.

[SchoolsBroadband]

I'm just reading up on VPLS, which i am unfamiliar with. I'm with Schools Broadband at the moment at one of the sites, other site is currently up for renewal, so i will drop SB a message get some more info if its available from them.

 

Thanks

 

If we already do two of your sites then yes at the moment we do VPLS setup for free. So both schools on the same Fortinet VDOM (so one firewall for two sites) and we link them together into it creating a VPLS network so both sites connect to each other privately. You don't have to do any configuration at all yourselves meaning it's easy and we do all of the management.

 

I'd suggest starting with that and if it doesn't suffice then look at doing the point to point link. You can also monitor your current traffic usage on portal.talk-straight.com which should give you an indication of it you're starting to hit peak capacity on your lines as well as latency, jitter etc.

 

We can do the point to point link for you too and already do this setup for some other schools. You can take the point to point link managed or unmanaged, it's completely up to you.

 

I'll drop you a PM and get one of our technical consultants to give you a call if you like to talk you through options?

 

Thanks

 

Dave