EmBM

Visibility on BYOD / mobile devices is a great idea. I'll have a look at the iOS SDK and see what's possible. I believe several 3rd party MDM solutions exist for iPhones, iPads, etc, so it seems like this lower level control should be possible to some extent. I know Android has "Device Administrator" permissions for apps like this, I wonder if iOS does something similar. Do you have any thoughts as to whether a cloud solution would make sense in your situation, or give you any added benefits that aren't currently offered by NetSupport/RM Tutor? Thanks!

Thanks - I'll take a look at GoGuardian. I think the biggest challenge will be comprehensive platform coverage - it seems like even using some sort of multi-platform language (eg: Java) will be somewhat difficult, due to the tighter integration needed with the OS (eg: locking the screen, disabling mouse, etc on Windows), so it may be a case of supporting a number of codebases for different platforms. I think initially it would make sense to target Windows due to its widespread use, and then possibly a mobile platform or ChromeOS, followed by MacOS (in my, somewhat limited, experience, MacOS tends to be deployed less widely than Windows in education environments).

Group membership would be a simple way to start off at least, and would allow you to see things on a class-level, if it works as I'm imagining it.

Thanks for your input - it's really helpful. So it sounds like integration with Azure AD / the Google equivalent from a cloud perspective would be beneficial to those who now use some sort of cloud provider in tandem with an existing on premises AD install? Would you envisage a teacher logging and seeing information for the current class they're teaching (I guess this would be the ideal scenario), or simply being able to search through a filtered selection of students which contains those they teach? We've never done an MIS integration, but this seems to be a sensible step to take to allow "class" views. I'll take a look at some of those 3rd party solutions to see if it'd be possible to integrate through them, rather than a MIS directly like SIMS. Do existing solutions do this (well)? We're hoping to make a product that's extensible and configurable remotely (GPO, script, however) to minimise manual intervention in setup and management. Deploying a VM seems like a sensible way to achieve this on-site, I know ESX supports things like appliances which might fit this bill, I'm not sure if HyperV has an equivalent. Thanks again!

This would be the biggest caveat with pursuing the cloud-based software route, the software would become hobbled in the event of the internet connection being lost. I'd envisage that in the event that the school loses connectivity, the clients fallback on some configurable behaviour, perhaps trying to contact some sort of onsite failover (although this would somewhat negate most benefits of having a cloud-based solution in the first place), and preferably revert any obstructive action like locking a screen. I'm happy to hear any ideas you might have on how to gracefully handle this scenario. In the case of an on-premises solution, the web console would be hosted on the school's internal network - presumably in the same place that the server the clients connect to is hosted, so losing connection to the internet wouldn't affect the application's performance. Thanks!

Hi all, I run a software development company, and we're looking into the possibility of developing a network/classroom management tool, aiming to provide similar functionalities to existing solutions like LanSchool, Impero, so on and so forth. With this in mind, where do you feel that current, existing, solutions fall short? This could either be in terms of missing features, or a feature that is implemented poorly. We're also particularly interested to hear how you deploy these solutions across your network, and whether you feel this process could be improved? (For example, do you currently use configuration management tools like DSC, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, to ensure that software is installed across your machines, GPO, etc) - which of these would you like to see support for? Nothing is set in stone, but we're currently thinking that use and management by teachers and staff would be done through a web portal, rather than through software installed on their machines - do you see any pitfalls with this idea in your environment? Additionally, what are your thoughts on an on-premises server vs a hosted service in the cloud? We're wondering whether admins will have qualms about data protection issues if a network management service is hosted in the cloud, but we're happy to go that way if the desire is there. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.