that you have highlighted -- 24/7 access, no backup or hardware issues, =
no worries about ensuring currency of solutions. We moved to Finalsite =
last year and Veracross a couple of years back. This summer we are =
moving away from a hosted Microsoft Sharepoint portal to Finalsite =
portals. We had an inhouse Maintenance tracking system and have just =
subscribed to Maintenance Direct from Schooldude.com. We are exploring =
the use of Veracross for our asset tracking needs so we can eliminate in =
house maintenance/support. We have a Google Apps domain and use google =
docs for all our collaboration work -- docs, spreadsheets and =
presentations, and next year will be exploring the use of Google sites =
for online student portfolios. We also use Wikispaces and love it! I =
believe we are being able to actually use technology in creative ways a =
lot more because we aren't limited by in house expertise in solutions.=20
=20
Shabbi=20
=20
American School of Bombay
________________________________
From: A forum for independent school educators on behalf of Derrel =
Fincher
Sent: Thu 6/12/2008 3:36 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Eliminating Servers Re: Best Platform for a New School
1. We just turned on our new website, hosted by FinalSite
2. We are converting from SASI internally for student information to =
Veracross and they only do hosted solutions. Access by most (including =
faculty, parents and students to their portals) is through a browser; =
heavy users (admissions, registrar, etc.) also use a client.
3. Veracross also can host the full financial needs of a school, but =
that's "in the future" for us because of language issues.
4.We have Moodle hosted by a Moodle partner in the US
5. Our school help desk system is hosted.
6. Our antispam is hosted and, if I had the bandwidth (incredibly =
expensive here) I would move email off campus.
7. Next year, I intend to use Wikispaces private label for providing =
wikis.
We still run Novell with it's e-directory and associated overhead but we =
are an "established" school so anything else we move to is a conversion. =
A new school could start with modern tools for file sharing and =
exchange. Novell does provide us a single point of authentication with =
LDAP for our hosted services, but you can get that from any number of =
systems. We do have an Aruba wireless system installed so students can =
bring their personal laptops and authenticate to the student portal. =
That just gives them Internet access and printer access, but all of our =
file servers can be accesses through WebDAV or through a browser =
(NetStorage).
We do still have an IIS server for test sites, but our reliance on that =
is rapidly falling.
For all of our hosted services, I don't worry about backup, 24/7 access, =
hardware, or finding experts in all of those arcane systems to keep them =
running and updated.=20
Derrel
>>> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 6:30 AM, in message
<45d35f0a0806120230l5793b65ei1bb5522780aba27b@mail.gmail.com>, Norman =
Maynard
<nmaynard@thorntonfriends.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 3. Plan on eliminating all servers. Difficult, if not impossible, =
but go
>> in with the ideas that you don't need them. Instead, look for hosted
>> solutions (ASP) for your needs. Most are designed to be accessed =
through a
>> browser for most functions so the platform for the majority of your =
users is
>> irrelevant. For the few power users that need a client instead of a =
browser,
>> buy whatever the client supports. (Hosted may look like it costs =
more, but
>> you don't need IT people with really deep skills--you need those with =
broad
>> skills).
>>
>
> This is intriguing.
>
> Any specific examples?
>
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