Strategic management of infrastructure using technology

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Strategic management of infrastructure using
technology John Potter, Manager RSC South
EastKevin Hickey, Advisor RSC NW
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Key Considerations
What are the key considerations to ensure the
strategic management of college infrastructure
using technology?
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Strategic planning with InfoNet Rohan Slaughter,
Head of Technology at Beaumont College Andy
Stewart, Information Manager at Jisc InfoNet
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Moving to the Cloud Patrick Biggs, CIS Officer
at Doncaster Deaf Trust Paul Wakefield, Account
Manager at Janet
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What are the key considerations for an ISC
college to ensure the strategic management of
college infrastructure using Technology?

• Patrick Biggs
• CIS Officer
• Communication Specialist College Doncaster
• patrick.biggs_at_cscd.ac.uk

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ISCs are too small to do ICT effectively

• Many ISCs dont have dedicated technical staff
• Those staff that they do have tend to be jack of
  all trades
• Cant offer high availability, redundant data
  centres
• Cant keep up with the most recent software

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ICT Infrastructure
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ICT services

• Word Processing
• Spread sheets
• Presentations
• Safe data storage
• MIS (Databridge and e1)
• Internet access
• Email
• Telephony

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Services from the cloud need less internal
infrastructure
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Streamlined Infrastructure
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Google Apps for Education

• Google docs for Word Processing
• Google sheets for spreadsheets
• Google slides for presentations
• Google Drive for safe storage
• MIS (e1 is cloud based Databridge is not)
• Chrome for Internet Access
• Gmail for email
• Google Voice for Telephone?

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What is Google Apps?
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What did we do?

• Two years ago I had a problems
• Old fileserver nearly full
• Old email server nearly full
• Two choices
• Renew both servers hardware, backup units, UPS,
  software, etc.
• Go to Google Apps

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Year One

• All students onto Google Apps for Education
• Created Google Apps accounts
• Copied all their email across and deleted their
  account from our email server bought myself
  another year.
• Closed all their z drives and gave them Google
  drive instead.
• Saved about 2,500

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Year Two

• Put all staff onto Google Apps
• Switched off the old email server saving 5000
• Moved 150 people in two weeks.
• We now have over 350 users.

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Year Three

• No more Moodle Use Google Apps instead
• No more new PCs Use tablets instead
• No more new servers
• No more new network switches and structured
  cabling
• Invested in faster JANET connection
• Dropped second ADSL connection
• Invested in improved WiFi provision

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Lessons learnt

• It is probably easier to move everyone at the
  same rather than having a scaled change over.
• Having two system causes a bit of confusion
• Google Calendar is awesome, miles better than
  Outlook.
• Gmail search capabilities are much, much better
  than Outlook
• Though it is different people adapt really well

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More Lessons Learnt

• Change everyone onto Chrome before the roll out
  to make transition quicker.
• Get users to understand Google sharing and Google
  groups. This means they can set up their own
  groups, maintain them and share their own data.
  They dont need administrators to set up email
  groups for the and to set up shared folders and
  security groups

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Elephant in the Room
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Security

• Google servers are anywhere in the world so you
  have to tell the Information Commissioner that
  they are outside of the EU.
• Google look at your data but you dont get
  adverts.
• The US government may access your data.
• The DWP FIPS 140-2.
• Policies and training

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Limitations

• This has prevented me from completely eliminating
  our own fileservers, I still need somewhere to
  store personal information that cannot be stored
  in the MIS system.

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Summary

• Google Apps for Education will save you money
• Infrastructure
• Technical Assistance
• Migrating to Google Apps is easy
• I can do it for you remotely.
• Couple of training days with staff
• Remote administration from my desk.

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Thank you

• Patrick Biggs
• patrick.biggs_at_cscd.ac.uk
• 01302 386740
• 07530 723040

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Management of Tablets, mobile devices, BYOD and
licence issues David Dalby, Head of College
Development at National Star CollegeBetty
Willder, Legal Information Specialist at Jisc
Legal
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Data Management Systems Gordon Milner, RSC
Advisor RSC E Midlands Sal Cooke, Director Jisc
TechDisJohn McKenzie, Manager RSC South West
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Discussion