BECTA reports on School MIS and value for money 2010

[matt40k]

I think the solution maybe Azure. I believe you can have it locally or centrally, not sure if you can split it across both.

[Sivadam]

It ain't that long since we had the Sheffield floods.

Our network was down briefly at the start of one day because of the power cuts.

The web was down or unusable for days!

[scholarpack]

Cloud obviously finds it hard to mitigate against natural disasters and only in house tech knowledge/servers can help with that. But a cloud that is down a few days every few years still beats the big costs of an in house alternative. Simple economies of scale.

[Sivadam]

Would the roadworks on the road outside school that cut though our telephone cables be a 'natural disaster' I wonder!

 

One wonders how big and versatile that cloud will be. Our current experiences with Hosting company that cannot deal with the complexity of our systems are not encouraging. How would God, who controls the clouds, ensure that every single eventuallity was covered? Would all our functionality have to be degraded to a common denominator! Every school would want a slightly different setup!

 

Maybe they would employ me! Now that would lead to a few arguments! Wot Fun that would be!

Sorry guys I'll be gone by then!

Edited January 19, 2011 by Sivadam

[GrumbleDook]

This whole need for 99.9999% uptime for *any* service is a golden target ... but for many services within education that is both unrealistic and unaffordable.

 

When looking to choose either in-house or hosted (cloud or otherwise) services you need to also do some risk management. Look at both the impact of the risk and the probability. There are plenty of sites and such which can go through risk management with you so rather than roll it all out here again I would suggest that before people start going on about JCBs digging up cables, etc ... they should make sure they have an answer to the question "So you have done a complete risk analysis then and that is why you don't like x?"

[EdWhittaker]

How much of this cloud vs in-house is less to with rational argument and more to do with the illusion of retaining control? If you host in house, you feel that you are more in control of your own fate, whereas on the web you are more at the mercy of others. This is the reason why I feel safer driving my car than flying in a plane. In my car I feel I have more control over what happens, over my own destiny; in a plane, you just sit there and let it happen. In the plane you think, what happens if ... (insert you own flying fear here). This attitude of mind tends not to be present in the car because you feel more in control. In reality, this is of course an illusion; I can more mitigate against a drunken driver writing me off than I can against coming down in flames from 50 thousand feet.

 

I think a proper statistical survey might show that there is little difference in downtime between web and local hosted solution - but then what do I know? I just work here (or is that an illusion too?

[PhillipHamlyn]

Hi,

 

I see the conversation on cloud and fragility, and wonder what items of essential data would need to be provided in the event that a cloud based system is suddently off-line. As you might have heard during my presentation to the EduGeek Conference, I and my colleagues at Capita think the cloud is probably the future standard delivery mechanism for much of the IT we currently use, but there clearly is a need to provide some essential functions for schools in the event of a connectivity outage.

 

I assume that a fire register would be one of those items, but would anyone like to pitch in with any other safety critical information that would need to remain accessible that isn't already naturally printed out in the event of a connectivity outage ? For instance an outage of a couple of hourse might not disrupt a school or raise any safety concerns, but in the event of "a JCB pulling up the wires" how much and of what type of data, would need be have a local copy somewhere in the school ? What about if the internet was not available for a couple of days or more; would you simply put in a policy of printing out critical factsheets on children, or would you want a local IT store for this data ?

 

Just woolgathering here; my personal working assumption would be that schools already print out anything safety or operationally critical just in case the local network goes down, or there is a power outage/disruption, but I've no experience to back up that assumption.

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[Sivadam]

Hi Phillip

 

From a Safety aspect it is an absolute must that Registers of some sort have to be available - preferably Session AND Class.

We have a duty of care and must be abale to ascertain the whereabouts of any pupil at any particular time - as far as that is possible.

 

It is totally impossible to maintain 50 Reg Group Registers and a myriad of Class Groups Registers without access to the system. Printing Paper Registers, 'just in case', every time there is a Timetable or Group Membership Change is totally impracticable!

 

A record of Cover is also vital as it is another absolute must that a member of staff is in front of every class at all times! (Chris Sherwood will have heard that one before from me quite a few times!). Fortunately we can save to HTML and print a Cover Summary in advance (i.e. tomorrow's!). We now do this as a matter of course but we only print a paper copy one day in advance!

 

Update

There are loads of other areas too but I guess these will differ for different schools.

For example, I still maintain NT4 even though I have been using NT6 since it's inception. Each time I make a change to the timetable I take a copy of the updated NT4 Timetable and load it on to my Datastick. NT4 runs as a satellite installation directly from a datastick, so I always have a timetable available even if the electricity goes down (as long as I can find a laptop with some juice in the battery!)

Edited January 20, 2011 by Sivadam

[localzuk]

Basically, i think most would like it to work by caching all data locally, whilst having the cloud server as the main home of it all. So, even if it went down for a couple of days, the local school would be able to carry on as normal using the local cache.

 

Limiting the access down to specific things wouldn't work as the list is pretty long. Medical data, attendance, contact details, timetables, behaviour, etc... all get used every day, all day.

[PhillipHamlyn]

Sivadm,

 

I think I understand. So a key component of cloud based solutions, in your view, would be the ability to have a locally accessible set of data, and an application (hopefully the same one as works online) to access it ? I can see the need for class registers, but presumably these would be "incomplete"; i.e. an indication of where the child should be, not the actual fully functional register itself ? Presumably you'd need a child emergency contact sheet as well for each pupil, or would that normally be printed off and kept in a cabinet somewhere ? I'm trying here to get a feel for the scope of locally cached data rather than for specifics.

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[PhillipHamlyn]

LocalZuk,

 

I understand your reply, but wouldn't that approach negate any cost savings that might be made from adopting a cloud strategy ? It would seem to me that such a solution "just in case" the internet went down wouldn't be anything different that todays MIS systems, and would therefore have little cost and operational advantages ? (assuming they are they to be made)

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[DMcCoy]

LocalZuk,

 

I understand your reply, but wouldn't that approach negate any cost savings that might be made from adopting a cloud strategy ? It would seem to me that such a solution "just in case" the internet went down wouldn't be anything different that todays MIS systems, and would therefore have little cost and operational advantages ? (assuming they are they to be made)

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

 

One assumes you've never been at the mercy of a RBC internet connection. Over the last few years we have had to endure entire days of no connectivity (and a couple that ran to two or more days).

[Sivadam]

Agreed Phillip. But staff would have to maintain paper registers and then catch them up later!

 

Please see the above Update.

Essential Pupil Data can also be in NT4 on the datastick! It would just need Tel.Nos adding!

Come to think of it, I can even print Group Lists from there as long as I maintain them and I have power to a printer!!!

Clive Stott was/is a magician!

 

Maybe you should retain support for NT4!

Now there's a thought - step backwards in order to step forwards!

Edited January 20, 2011 by Sivadam

[localzuk]

LocalZuk,

 

I understand your reply, but wouldn't that approach negate any cost savings that might be made from adopting a cloud strategy ? It would seem to me that such a solution "just in case" the internet went down wouldn't be anything different that todays MIS systems, and would therefore have little cost and operational advantages ? (assuming they are they to be made)

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

 

Not really. Running a full fledged MIS server in a school requires a fairly chunky system to run it on. Caching something doesn't - it normally uses much lower spec equipment. Running off the cache would be a lot slower, when the connection was down, but it would still be available to use.

 

The fact is, the details stored in the system are 100% necessary all day long, so having a system which could go down at the whim of an internet connection simply wouldn't hold water in most schools.

[The_Windy_Miller]

LocalZuk,

 

I understand your reply, but wouldn't that approach negate any cost savings that might be made from adopting a cloud strategy ? It would seem to me that such a solution "just in case" the internet went down wouldn't be anything different that todays MIS systems, and would therefore have little cost and operational advantages ? (assuming they are they to be made)

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

 

 

Philip - call me cynical, but I'm guessing any "cost savings made from adopting a cloud strategy" may be "pie in the sky"

 

The licensing costs etc. etc. will surely take up any slack....I don't imagine schools will be left with vast sums of money that they currently spend on servers etc.

[PhillipHamlyn]

The_Windy_Miller,

 

From a purely hardware point of view, I'd personally tend to agree; and hardware typically is depreciated over three years before a repurchase is neccessary; however I think the key projected savings would be on infrastructure and software support and all the hassle that goes with it rather than capital costs of hardware purchase. I don't know what the projected savings are from the folk at Microsoft, Amazon etc. but there are several local authorities in the UK who have already found a cost argument to virtualize SIMS.net into Terminal Server farms for instance; so I'm only supposing that trend would continue (but with true "cloud" without the need for desktop virtualization).

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[PhillipHamlyn]

Localzuk,

 

I see your point. Interestingly we initially shipped Lesson Monitor with pre-caching of lesson registers because, at the time, taking the register from a laptop over a wireless connection was not licensed in most UK schools. I seem to remember that the more "breadth" of data we cached the more complex and costly the solution - if almost any current data in SIMS might be deemed essential during an internet outage that definitely gives me some food for thought.

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[PhillipHamlyn]

DMcCoy,

 

You may have guessed, we dont use a RBC for our connectivity here in the office. Out of interest do you keep a log of outage that you'd be prepared to share ? We are aware outage happens (actually yesterday our Bedford office was running on generators all day because someone on the business park dug up the power cables) but I don't think we in Capita have had any high quality statistical data on how often it happens, and for how long.

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita

[GrumbleDook]

DMcCoy,

 

You may have guessed, we dont use a RBC for our connectivity here in the office. Out of interest do you keep a log of outage that you'd be prepared to share ? We are aware outage happens (actually yesterday our Bedford office was running on generators all day because someone on the business park dug up the power cables) but I don't think we in Capita have had any high quality statistical data on how often it happens, and for how long.

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita

 

FoIA request to RBCs perhaps?

[PhillipHamlyn]

Sivadm,

 

Its true that "there is nothing new under the sun", and remember on first exposure to Google Docs I thought "oh goody, a wordprocessor on a mainframe - theres progress". Architecturally you could consider "the cloud" being the manifestation of a global reach mainframe computer. I take on board the need to locally pre-cache some information for emergencies, but during a school day, would it be particularly important (I am conjecturing here) to an assessment suite, or perhaps the behaviour log ? I am imagining here a scenario where the "internet is down" (reminds me of the old newspaper headline "fog in the channel, Continent cut off") and some tasks could be put off until it was available again; in that scenario there would be some safety critical information that would need to be accessible (by all teachers and staff, or just some ?) but that the vast majority would not need to be immediately available. Is this a valid scenario ?

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[PhillipHamlyn]

GrumbleDook,

 

Are the RBC's a government department ? I thought they were commercial organisations, and therefore don't consitute a public body under the act (I am not a lawyer by any means, so I may have got this assumption wrong)

 

Phillip Hamlyn

Capita.

[PhilNeal]

This thread has gone so far off topic I feel able to contribute!

 

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that at some point in the future the idea of holding data locally will be regarded as being reckless and indeed limiting.

 

I don’t believe that any school or LA offers a more secure location than a data centre that is patrolled 24/7. (I worked in a school on an estate for over 14 years) However today I think there are very real issues with connectivity that make holding data off-site unattractive but this is only a matter of timing.

 

For me any "cloud solution" has to offer much more than what went before. By that I don’t mean cost savings which in my view have been wildly exaggerated as they don’t take account of the life of the existing kit and remote back-up solutions already in use.

 

What I think cloud has to offer is “iPhone” graphical interfaces that are so much slicker to use minute by minute that make software a delight to use.

[vikpaw]

I'm with the localzuk caching argument () . Ideally we'd have everything, but what exactly is that. A backup of the database, and a VM ready to be switched on in case of emergency? That would do assuming you forego access to the doc store at least an up to the minute copy, and that the VM is running the latest version of SIMS (that being the ubiquitous MIS example).

 

Issues i see are synching back the 'used' data when connectivity is regained.

 

In practise, a lot of data is kept on paper, and we can manage without taking class registers for a day or so. Only the sessions are legal requirements. Contact info, and Medical Data are pretty key, but again, a fairly recent copy could be stored locally on disk/paper. In fact most things could be stored on disk, so as not to waste paper.

 

It all depends on the kind of outage, and what backup is in place. If internet goes down, the prime example, couldn't there be a backup? I could use 3G on my phone to access the Schoolcomms website and contact parents. With the new iPhone app, medical data could even be stored offline on my phone along with registers. Schools did run before things went electronic, and some schools out there probably still do only rely on the bare minimum from their MIS systems.

 

I think when things truly move to the clouds, there will be adequate backup routes for the internet, here we have two connections, and a lot of the area to area linking is done via radio, this place isn't cabled up like the UK is. So downtime when it occurs can be for the whole city, but it's not that common.

 

We may just as well talk about power outage at the school, which would affect all systems, water leaks, even heavy snow. When you compare that with internet downtime, it can't be that huge an effect - granted some RBCs can be very patchy. When i was in Northants, quite often you'd hear about the BT pipe in such and such being trawled over, but they'd reroute the connection and it would be slow for a bit. I don't think these things should put us off the inevitable move to cloud - i reckon the sky's the limit

[vikpaw]

There was an interesting departure into the cloud, but to bring things back to earth and topic, just came across this

 

http://www.kenttrustweb.org.uk/communication/ebulletinprint.cfm?startdate=%7Bd%20'2011-04-05'%7D

 

Ctrl+F for 'sims', it's the notice fourth from the bottom.

 

What would be the point of having SIMS if they can't fix the bugs, nor make it compliant with statutory reporting guidelines?!

[CAM]

Is that something related to academies?