Redundant SIMS Server Options

[speakercon]

As we have now moved to Arbor I'm thinking about what to do with the SIMS VM. We still need access to it for data retention purposes and a couple of staff still use it from time to time to look up historic data.

 

To be honest I'd quite like it off the network both for security reasons and it seems a waste of server resources to have it there when it is seldom used.

 

I'm been thinking about how I can bring it offline but still allow it be accessible by a couple of certain staff if needed.

 

Has anyone else been thinking about this or have come up with a good solution?

[jthompson]

Would a good starting point be to simply shut the VM down, but leave it in place so that you can fire it up again if needed (perhaps with any NICs disabled on it as well for good measure)? As time passes, you'll be able to batter guage how much it's still needed.

[timbo343]

Our SIMS is on a VM and has been turned off for 4 years now since we moved to Bromcom. I have the database backed up and the install files along with installation guides incase anything happens.

 

I'm not sure what we need to do with it. I keep thinking we should be able to delete it but something is telling me that we need to keep it until the latest intake on SIMS for 25 years.

 

It barely gets used and we had a SAR one year for a student who was going into the forces and needed to access the SIMS database.

 

Honestly, im not sure what the retention period is on old MISs.

[LeMarchand]

We've just shut the VM down and it can be spun up on request (which isn't often).

[PotNoodleTech]

I'd run it as a VM with no network connectivity and if anyone needs data they ask you to spin it back up again.

[DrCheese]

Yeah, I would make sure its off - That way you don't have staff using it without you knowing, then when you eventually kill it they'll get upset.

 

Least this way you can control/be aware of when it's needed. We do similar with our old VLE server.

[mthomas08]

Would a good starting point be to simply shut the VM down, but leave it in place so that you can fire it up again if needed (perhaps with any NICs disabled on it as well for good measure)? As time passes, you'll be able to batter guage how much it's still needed.

 

Yes - this.

 

We already had to pull info out of SIMs some time after switching to Bromcom.

[dmj]

What does the licensing say about running SIMS 'but not using it'?

[timbo343]

What does the licensing say about running SIMS 'but not using it'?

You can run it but not having the license means you don't get the upgrades to the database or the support.

[dmj]

You can run it but not having the license means you don't get the upgrades to the database or the support.

 

I'm surprised it's that straightforward, you would think schools would just club together for a single license and share the updates.

[FN-GM]

Wouldn’t it be better to migrate the data into your new MIS so you can completely blow SIMS out of the water? Having this unsupported system that you will still need is I use (even on occasion) is a risk. If you choose to keep this it should be added to the risk register.

[Boredguy]

It depends on the MIS you migrate to.

 

For example, on Bromcom's Migration Scope for a SIMS migration, it says "A standard migration includes five academic years’ worth of data. This is usually the current academic year, plus four previous years" but you can pay for additional years.

It might be more cost effective to switch the SIMS server to be a non domain server and have it completely offline and just turn it on to access any information requests for 6+ years ago than transfer 10-15 additional years of data over.

 

It entirely depends on what limitations on the migration the supplier your moving to has and what the school wishes to move over.

[speakercon]

It is mostly shutdown, same as most here it is turned back on when requested.

 

We have migrated as much information as possible I believe there were a few things that would not come across.

 

My thought are on the security side of things, in the event the network is compromised it could be turned back on and nics re-enabled which is why I'm thinking of a more completely offline solution.

[LeMarchand]

You could export the VHD to an encrypted location. Easy enough to mount with the key, but an attacker would need that (plus SIMS credentials for access).

[dmj]

One option I thought of is to use Google's bigquery. Data ingress is free and for a tiny storageset like SIMS (most of which is probably transaction logs) so would be really quite cheap. 500GB is about £7 per month IIRC. Most of the data you could strip anyway and the first 10GB is free. The downsides of bigquery is that you pay per query, which is where they get their money back, but if you only need access once in a blue moon it would be super cheap to host there and staff could access the data they need directly from google sheets.

[Boredguy]

One option I thought of is to use Google's bigquery. Data ingress is free and for a tiny storageset like SIMS (most of which is probably transaction logs) so would be really quite cheap. 500GB is about £7 per month IIRC. Most of the data you could strip anyway and the first 10GB is free. The downsides of bigquery is that you pay per query, which is where they get their money back, but if you only need access once in a blue moon it would be super cheap to host there and staff could access the data they need directly from google sheets.

 

That might not work for SIMS though unless you were planning on attempting to view the raw data only (and want to put the time into trying to work out the relationships between all the tables to understand that data), as the client expects to be talking to a MS SQL server, plus even at £7 a month thats still going to add up over time for something you might not actually need to access.

 

Having a VM thats shut down and only turned on when needed is still likely to be a more logical and time efficient option.

[dmj]

That might not work for SIMS though unless you were planning on attempting to view the raw data only (and want to put the time into trying to work out the relationships between all the tables to understand that data), as the client expects to be talking to a MS SQL server, plus even at £7 a month thats still going to add up over time for something you might not actually need to access.

 

Having a VM thats shut down and only turned on when needed is still likely to be a more logical and time efficient option.

 

Yeah you're probably right here. It would need some unpicking to deal with the raw tables. I mentioned it as I'm working on a BigQuery project at the moment. Sometimes the fastest and least hassle solution is the best one.

 

Although I must admit, accessing live databases directly from spreadsheets is kinda awesome

[speakercon]

Thanks for the ideas all.

 

I quite like the idea of a bitlocker encrypted partition on a hyperv server host, and exporting the VM there, with the drive only being unlocked while the server is in use and then locked again after.