District Administration - November/December 2011 - (Page 26)

L cio Students in the Lee County Public Schools in Florida, above, use an interactive whiteboard, and right, desktops and a projector, for lessons. Such classroom technologies require a strong IT infrastructure behind the scenes. District ee County PubLiC Schools in Fort Myers, Fla., performed a full migration of its data center, complete with new storage solutions, more than three years ago. With a $500,000 budget for the conversion—one-third of what surrounding districts had spent for similar initiatives—Lee County couldn’t afford bells and whistles. The old system couldn’t recognize and eliminate redundant files, creating a growing storage capacity headache, says Dwayne Alton, director of information technology support. Moreover, the 93-school district needed a reliable data center that could withstand severe weather and be reliable. “We needed to design something that was rock-solid,” he says. “We were able to focus on core needs” around power stability and redundancy. The district purchased and remodeled an old shopping mall to consolidate what had become a sprawling patchwork of offices around the county, locating everything except maintenance and transportation in one facility. it needed central information technology as well, and the data center housed finance, human resources, compliance, security, student information, old emails and documents. The district also has tightened its focus on virtualization, which began before the data center move and saved about $130,000 the first year. The data center is now 90 percent virtualized, and all secondary schools are running in the “cloud”. Prior to the migration, the district had three storage area networks (SAns) of different generations. but during migration, CDW-G helped it merge the SAns into one, much more manageable SAn. if you’re trying to provide service on a budget, virtualization, storage and eliminating redundancies are “the big ones,” he says. Three-Step Process During the economic hardships of the past few years, school districts across the 26 November/December 2011 How to Update Your Districts learn shortcuts in building an infrastructure that country have faced similar situations and sought also to build a strong infrastructure that keeps up with the demands for new technology and the storage needs that go along with it. CDW-G typically recommends a three-step process, starting with a high-level network assessment, figuring out how to most economically broaden bandwidth, and then “Virtualize, virtualize, virtualize,” says Joe Kurtz, CDW-G’s director of sales for K12 education. The network assessment, Kurtz continues, “can range from device-level assessments that account for all equipment used within the network, ensuring that access controls are properly set, to data roadmap assessments that capture metrics and provide an overall assessment of the health of the network.” This will reveal to what extent a district’s data center is straining under the weight of all it’s being asked to do. “What’s running well? What’s putting a drag on your network?” he says. “it shows you what your options are with limited resources. it could be an annual assessment, like going to the doctor.” Depending on what new technologies a district has added to its plate, Kurtz says, broadening bandwidth might make sense. This can take anywhere from one to four months. using the analogy of a garden hose, he says that bandwidth essentially equates to how much water can go through the hose at once. to add bandwidth, one can increase the number of internet lines—add hoses—or change the type of line, to a hose with a wider circumference. “We work with a lot of districts to look at what they’re using, what might be wasted, and whether it makes sense to potentially broaden the bandwidth to allow for more efficiency,” Kurtz says. A virtualization strategy can help reduce the costs associated with a new server and reduce network demand from desktop and notebook users without keeping anyone from accessing content. “They can do more with less,” Kurtz says. “Virtualization is about efficiency, which is why—whether it is computing or data storage—districts recognize cost savings.” Virtualization offers multiple efficiencies that can provide savings on hardware and support costs, including power and maintenance, he adds. District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - November/December 2011

District Administration - November/December 2011
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Inside the Law
Administrator Profile
District Profile
CIO news
How to Update Your Network on a Budget
The Importance of IT Team Unity
Creating an Anti-Bullying Program With the Resources You Have
The Ultimate Empowerment Program for Parents
Taking the Helm in Cheating Scandals
Readers’ Choice: Top 100 Products
New Directions
Professional Opinion
Problem/Solution
Going Mobile

District Administration - November/December 2011