Brand New School, which MIS?

[vikpaw]

SIMS have a hosted options and some LAs do host. For a single site, you can just host your own, it's no different to having a non-cloud solution in house and then whacking your own sharepoint on the front!

[skunk]

Hi @john, have considered it, but what if the local exchange goes down...........We may talk to our ISP to see what they can offer.

 

On the other hand, BT are installing superfast fibre broadband in the next couple of years, so maybe they can offer an alternative.

[localzuk]

Hi @john, have considered it, but what if the local exchange goes down...........We may talk to our ISP to see what they can offer.

 

On the other hand, BT are installing superfast fibre broadband in the next couple of years, so maybe they can offer an alternative.

 

You can only reasonably prepare for downtime. Most exchanges have very little downtime. What downtime would your own server have, if you hosted it onsite? Or power outages? etc...

[GREED]

Ok let me wade in here and answer some excellent points made!

 

I WANT to be that guy, happy with my MIS, but alas that is not currently the case............ :-(

@GREED I was going to call you last month for a demo, then our Internet connection went down...............for a day. The thought of not having access to our MIS for a day has sent my thoughts scurrying back to upgrading our server kit.

 

I think it is worth us having a chat still as there are several options open to you, contingencies and the likes that might mitigate such issues. Upgrading the internet line, having at least one redundancy there is critical for schools these days, not just for MIS but for general day to day use, email, VLE etc etc.

 

One critical component for any cloud-based business critical application is not in the application itself, but in having a tried and tested failsafe Internet connection as a just in case measure. This applies to everything from Aspen to Google Docs.

 

+1 for that! It is the way everything is going now, including the use of VDUs throughout schools up and down the country, so even more is taken away from the local school.

 

Anyone have room for a small datacentre on campus?

 

Whole datacentre is a bit much, just a couple of higher end servers will do us nicely...

 

Although, with all these cloud technologies cropping up I wonder if anyone has approached LEA's about hosting them internally for the whole county/borough? I was involved with that for SLG at one point before I moved on.

 

*cough* *cough* *smiles* just keep watching

[john]

Hi @john, have considered it, but what if the local exchange goes down...........We may talk to our ISP to see what they can offer.

 

On the other hand, BT are installing superfast fibre broadband in the next couple of years, so maybe they can offer an alternative.

 

True, but as someone else has said what if you get a campus power-cut your in a similar position just a different type of issue unless you put large UPS's on all electric in the building so whatever we do with The Cloud you have to accept some element of risk.

 

Also I would think with the Internet angle your connection will be on different kit if you used ADSL as a backup in the exchange so that could give some resilience still doesn't stop some dodgy contractor digging up your car-park taking out the duct work to site and all the copper and fibre to the buildings so you have a risk then of that.

 

We felt that the ADSL link gave us the confidence we needed, we will retain basic emergency contact details for students on the yellow pupil folders locked up for real emergency's but everything else was fine in the cloud, it was accessible off mobile phones and is fully tested on any modern mobile phone and as we have 3 or 4 contract phones in school already felt should an emergency need it we would use them and exceed the data allowance but in an emergency more £ to EE for data isn't going to be the end of the world if it means the difference between life and death.

 

Someone said bout LA's hosting, yep that has always been on the list of options for Serco Progresso that LAs could look at hosting it within the LA Data Centres if they wished, don't know if that has launched to them but they have always said for those that wanted it would be available for LAs to host, so if your part of your RBC / LA WAN provision that could be a good tool but as many schools look elsewhere and LA's dispand WAN provision for various reasons not for debating on this thread such options may look less and less favorable.

[matt40k]

but not free

 

Maybe... Bedford have free licenses, but they don't use SIMS. LA might have spare licenses if say a school closures or converts to an academy (assuming your an LA school), either way, you might just have to pay the annual maintainance. I'm sure someone will correct me shortly

 

Cambridgeshire host SIMS for most of their schools, it works really well from what I've heard (both from the end-users at the school and the LA). The benefit too is lets say the internet pipe gets damaged and it's going to be months before it can be repaired, you can move the database onto the local schools server. I think this point is key.

[GREED]

The benefit too is lets say the internet pipe gets damaged and it's going to be months before it can be repaired, you can move the database onto the local schools server. I think this point is key.

 

We can all do that mate

 

I say all, I know we can!

[matt40k]

Not 100% sure how easy it would be. I understand it's a single database rather then SIMS which is a database for each school entity, so not sure how easy it would be to cut it out into a separate database. Also how to sync it to the master - ie B2B. Be interested to find out - from a geeky point of view.

[GREED]

Not 100% sure how easy it would be. I understand it's a single database rather then SIMS which is a database for each school entity, so not sure how easy it would be to cut it out into a separate database. Also how to sync it to the master - ie B2B. Be interested to find out - from a geeky point of view.

 

The extraction process is, from our guys perspective, easy, as the database fields are tagged and related, and processes have be built to identify every piece of information required to extract.

 

As for the syncing, think that is a 1-2-1 conversation

[andyturpie]

Don't just jump straight for SIMS - that would be illegal..

 

Could you please expand?I thought you should only tender if the value if over a certain threshold which is very high (a lot higher than SIMS would cost?).

[localzuk]

Could you please expand?I thought you should only tender if the value if over a certain threshold which is very high (a lot higher than SIMS would cost?).

 

No? You can tender at whatever level you want - you're the one buying. We've tendered for £1000 worth of work before here, due to politics over the companies involved wanting to accuse everyone of impropriety.

 

My last school had a £5000 tender level.

[GREED]

I think the word tender is a little general in this context. You still need to look at 3 quotes, regardless.

[DavKellyPro]

Hello all,

 

Quick disclaimer - I work for Arbor! Just to pitch in quickly, I think that deciding on an MIS is just about asking the right questions - making sure that your school's unique needs are fulfilled as far as possible. We've created an unbiased 'questions to ask any supplier' document to help free schools with the decision, which I'm happy to share with anybody.

 

Dave

[vikpaw]

Hello all,

 

Quick disclaimer - I work for Arbor! Just to pitch in quickly, I think that deciding on an MIS is just about asking the right questions - making sure that your school's unique needs are fulfilled as far as possible. We've created an unbiased 'questions to ask any supplier' document to help free schools with the decision, which I'm happy to share with anybody.

 

Dave

 

Sounds good Dave, can you send me a copy please, and we can drop a version onto the sticky thread which has similar resources.

[DavKellyPro]

No worries - the DfE have been giving it to free schools to use when speaking to suppliers, but it would come in handy for any school looking for a new MIS.