Moving to the cloud

[detjo]

I'm posting this in the hope that some can actually understand what I'm going on about (because I don't), and offer some help.

In short, the statement "Let's get the school into the cloud" has been uttered!

 

So at the risk of making myself look dumb, I'm asking "What does that actually mean?"

 

 

In my mind, this essentially means -

Onsite:

Physical/VM servers, Shared drives on a server, MS Office installed (or already O365)

Move to cloud:

Azure AD, Onedrive for documents/shares, Office365

 

That is it in its simplest form.

The question is, how right/wrong is that? And does anyone have a sort of generic 'prerequesite checklist' that I can look thru and say "I need to do this and that before migration to the cloud can even be considered."

 

Further, does anyone have a 'cloud migration project plan' they might be able to share, that I can then tweak to suit my case?

 

I hope all that makes sense. Feel free to correct everything that's wrong (all of it?) and straighten out my thinking.

[mavhc]

Ask them "why?" surely they're not just suggesting something they heard once without any knowledge of what it means.

[TechMonkey]

I'm afraid it is one of those things, it means what you want it to.

The purest form is to have the bare minimum of resources on site. So this could be just network infrastructure or a couple of servers for network services.

 

What most have done is moved file servers (home drives into OneDrive and Shared drives into SharePoint/Teams) and email to the cloud and try to go with cloud first for new resources and systems. So a cloud based MIS for instance.

 

Don't have a migration plan sorry as all the ones I have done have been a bit ad-hoc and fluid. Basically give your self a lot of time, take it slow and give people plenty of warning. For example, shared areas I would set up the new area and tell staff they need to get resources transferred. After a year lock the old area to read only and tell staff they have one year to retrieve anything they need. Turn off the area after the year and keep for another year. Takes a while but makes sure nothing important is left behind and staff don't feel rushed.

[rogerdnixon]

We do this the Google way but the basic idea is the same. Our schools typically have a firewall appliance (which does DNS/DHCP), cloud based filtering and MIS. All devices cloud managed. Other than the firewall all there is onsite are switches, access points, copiers and display kit. We do run little print appliances - so a little fanless NUC industrial PC that runs local Papercut - although if Papercut Hive might kill those off.

 

We have a fairly well oiled migration plan for new schools coming into the Trust - but as its Google Workspace and not O365 - not really relevant to you.

[KK20]

I can give you our thought and planning process.

 

*) we decided that we wanted easier access to files from outside the school. At the time we were using home access plus for pupils to access their documents. A few shared files and homework were submitted via our VLE. Most shared files were onsite file shares

*) A1 365 gave free storage

*) looked into hybrid with azure ad, onedrive, sharepoint file libraries

*) trialled users using onedrive, trialled moving a small fileshare to sharepoint library.

*) Reviewed findings and shortcomings. Moved desktop office from 2016 to 365 with relevant licensing. Also purchased P1 premium azure for 2FA and password writeback.

*) moved larger file share to sharepoint libarary

*) covid hit. Moved everything that was left to sharepoint library. People encouraged to use onedrive more. Teams was established at the same time (this was a very fun April for me)

*) school return, reviewed findings. Installed "cloud drive mapper" to map sharepoint libraries to a drive letter - mimicking the previous share notations. This is to be phased out (from Sept this year)

*) reduce "my documents" quota so that all new changes are to be saved to onedrive. users encouraged to use onedrive

*) small file share onsite retained for media and movie files - not practical to work with gb+ file sizes for editing on sharepoint. Not practical to use CDM with media.

*) my documents phased out.

*) future planning - currently trialling 365 only devices, i.e. no onsite AD replication for 365 devices. Looking to move to user devices enrolled and controlled with autopilot/intune/Microsoft MDM only. Expected to start rolling out 2024

 

we already had cloud filtering in place. I do not yet have a reliable printing solution in place, we are in early stages of "offsite" 365 only devices - we use papercut at the moment.

 

For us it was use case: better external access of data was the driving factor. Dont forget your backup solution, this needs to adapt with your data location. Now we are looking at replacing our aging gen4 i5's fleet of desktop PCs to a device-per-person (and potentially BYOD) solution. This would mesh better with a 365 only presence. Some shared devices to remain for our art and design studios (with higher powered devices).

Edited June 7, 2023 by KK20

[Chris_Cook]

I think I'd start with an audit of what software is getting used across your organisation, and then look at your cybersecurity implementation. Also your internet connection.

 

Unless your currently stuck with o365, then its worth looking at the apps across the other platforms - especially Googles offerings.

 

Some apps might not play nicely with cloud storage. Our finance has no end of issues with google drive and offline MS office for example. But most staff found google apps easier that the online word etc that we were using at the time (this has almost certainly improved, but worth checking).

 

The more cloud you go, the more you need to invest in things like 2fa, and password complexities.

 

You need a reliable (and redundant) internet connection these days. This is really a general requirement though.

 

Its worth taking your time over, and getting potential cloud systems in front of actual users is critical to good take up of the systems. Don't just ask power users and the Computing department, as they can probably make anything work, or might pick a more powerful system over the easier to use system.

 

Its also worth looking at your MIS as a related but separate project.

 

There are big gains to be had with cloud in terms of collaborative working and the ability to support multiple hardware/OS platforms. But it all needs to support T&L and the admin/leadership needs of the school(s) - otherwise you will struggle to get staff off the old reliable system.

[TIOAOA]

@rogerdnixon Would you be willing to share a redacted version to give us an idea of the tasks involved please.

 

TIA

[Roberto]

I'm posting this in the hope that some can actually understand what I'm going on about (because I don't), and offer some help.

In short, the statement "Let's get the school into the cloud" has been uttered!

 

So at the risk of making myself look dumb, I'm asking "What does that actually mean?"

 

 

In my mind, this essentially means -

Onsite:

Physical/VM servers, Shared drives on a server, MS Office installed (or already O365)

Move to cloud:

Azure AD, Onedrive for documents/shares, Office365

 

That is it in its simplest form.

The question is, how right/wrong is that? And does anyone have a sort of generic 'prerequesite checklist' that I can look thru and say "I need to do this and that before migration to the cloud can even be considered."

 

Further, does anyone have a 'cloud migration project plan' they might be able to share, that I can then tweak to suit my case?

 

I hope all that makes sense. Feel free to correct everything that's wrong (all of it?) and straighten out my thinking.

 

Mahvc's point is very relevant. The Why matters. How will success be measured? That starts with understanding the why. You've heard about SMART goals for people management right? Project requirements like this could use the same SMART methodology. The 'why' is why generic plans may not be helpful. A MAT looking to reduce captial expenditure on central services shared across all its schools may have a very different set of reasons and success criteria for running a cloud project to a single school looking to reclaim a server room to be a office or something. I'm going to talk about Microsoft services below as those are the ones I'm more familiar with and you mention them yourself, but alternatives are available.

 

You've also hit on a major point in your description so you're doing quite well. "Migrating to the cloud" should mean using appropriate cloud services instead of simply forklifting on-prem servers into Azure or AWS or whatever. Looking at moving file shares to Sharepoint Online/Onedrive rather than a file server that you've set up in an Azure VM, migrating email to Office 365 (vs. installing an exchange server of your own in Azure) is already a good model. And one that passes quite a lot of people by.

 

You're going to need to spend a fair amount of time doing discovery - making sure you know exactly what apps are running on your network and what those apps will and won't work with. Looking at file shares as an example, its easy to imagine a legacy app that wants to write to a file share and won't play nice with a sharepoint document library or whatever. You may be able to work around that with Azure file services or it may be that you end up with a few servers still on-site for legacy apps.

 

You may have some areas (e.g. if you have a class that does video editing) that needs fast storage and won't cope well with the latency inherent in a web connection. These again may need to be an exception.

 

Lastly, don't forget to get "must be compatible with our cloud solution" inserted into any current and future software and services contracts your org has. You can't do much about old legacy stuff that simply won't work with a modern platform but you can make sure you don't buy anything new that won't work for you!

Edited June 8, 2023 by Roberto

[detjo]

Thanks for your thoughts and input guys, it's much appreciated.

[ConceroEdu_Brad]

Fully Funded Microsoft Intune Consultancy and Training (edugeek.net)