ICT Tackling school IT budget shrinkage
bracing themselves for a budget cut for the first time in a couple of decades. The survey revealed that 82% of schools expect to see funding reduced in real terms over the next fiscal year, and 84% pointed to budgetary constraint as the main concern influencing the provision of IT.
Data measures A
ndy Walsky, VP of EMEA Sales at Overland Storage, tells Education Today how smart thinking and a willingness to share could provide a way around the ever-decreasing IT budgets within the education sector. “Recent news that a triple dip recession looms and reports of the budget deficit heading back up isn’t the best of news for the IT channel. This, combined with the fact that the next general election is getting closer, means that the coalition continues to impress the need for cuts to public spending. So, I expect that we will soon see public sector IT budgets squeezed yet again. Rumors were already rife at the education technology event, Bett, in February, with one report citing that most schools are
The need to store and retrieve data is one of the biggest technology challenges facing today’s education institutions. So, what do you do when you upgrade your storage infrastructure, but then reach the allocated budget limit before a disaster recovery solution has been finalised? For one school in Plymouth that we are working with, the answer is to look to a neighbouring school in need of a similar system to share with. Plymouth based secondary schools Marine Academy and Stoke Damerel Community College both faced similar challenges: rapidly growing data volumes and tightening budgets. Both, independently, upgraded their storage systems before hitting a problem: they each needed a disaster recovery solution, but their budgets were just not available to buy a second storage device.
An extreme solution
After some serious discussion and analysis with IT reseller Net Ctrl, the schools have decided to
Essa Academy deploys over 2,000 Apple devices on Meru wireless network
E
ssa Academy in Bolton has become the first school in the UK to issue every student and teacher with an Apple device, including iPads and
MacBook Airs, running over a Meru Networks Wi-Fi network, based on its Meru Education-Grade (MEG) wireless platform.
The Academy has adopted a 1-1 mobile device programme across the school, enabling students to use mobile devices for both school and homework. One of the key requirements for the implementation was reliable, high- performance wireless that covered the entire academy, enabling fast, seamless Wi-Fi access anytime, anywhere for thousands of devices simultaneously.
Abdul Chohan, Director at Essa Academy, comments: “The Academy’s goal is to ensure every pupil has access to 21st century learning resources. Our vision means that technology will become embedded as the foundation upon which all teaching and learning takes place.”
The academy is also running all of its voice connectivity over Wi-Fi. All voice runs over the wireless network to the Apple devices.
The network, deployed and managed by Meru partner Northgate Managed Services, includes AP320i access points and a MC4100 wireless controller.
u01344 393055
uwww.merunetworks.com/industries/education.html
8
www.education-today.co.uk An A* for Toshiba-TEC
Toshiba-TEC’s market-leading range of multifunction printers (MFPs) have recently been installed at Harton Technology College as part of its ongoing efforts to enhance its reprographics activities, while improving efficiency and reducing waste.
Energy efficiency and waste reduction form a major part of Harton’s ethos and in an effort to reduce its printing costs, its Head of Reprographics, Richard Scott, called Toshiba-TEC and its main dealer, United Carlton Office Systems. Once United Carlton outlined the options available, Richard chose 16 Toshiba-TEC e-STUDIO 2330C and two e-STUDIO 5520 MFPs to form the basis of a biometric based system incorporating P-Counter print management, which allows him to track and log how printers and copiers are being used and by whom.
14 of the school’s e-STUDIO 2330C machines have biometric functionality. In order to print, students place a forefinger on a small fingerprint reader and in seconds the system matches the pattern to the student’s information. The system plots points on a grid that correspond with the fingerprint’s ridges to achieve positive identification. Students and staff can print out using any one of the e-STUDIO 2330Cs.
For Richard, one of the main benefits of the system is that if something hasn’t been printed within three days, it is automatically removed from the queue.
uwww.toshiba.co.uk March 2013
take the radical step of using each other’s solution as their back up strategy. This could help save money but still provide both schools with access to the latest technology. Each school will have its own data stored on a SnapServer DX2 server, and then they’ll replicate the data to each other’s devices, via a secure VPN link, on a weekly basis for a full back up. The SnapServer DX2 is partitioned to keep the two schools’ data completely separate which will ensure the data is securely locked down to prevent access by the opposite school. This negates the need to pay an external company to collect and store their data offsite, meaning that, in the event of a disaster, back up data will be held just five minutes up the road, rather than 100 miles away. It also means that the recovery of data and resumption of service will be greatly reduced. Combined, the two schools will have access to a second solution providing a disaster recovery strategy to resolve any storage issues and have cut both back up window and management time.
So, whatever the coming months hold for IT budgets within the education sector, it would be worth remembering that tough times often call for smarter measures. It's a valuable lesson that other schools could benefit from.”
uwww.overlandstorage.com
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