firm. Yet, he foresees a rapid change in those numbers. Noting how fast the demand for cloud-based services has grown, Civitella says, “Remem- ber, that number was about zero five years ago.” School-bus contractor Student
Transportation, Inc. (STI) uses the cloud, for example, to manage its on- board surveillance video. “It’s just been in the past three years that the use of cameras has absolutely exploded. Tis stuff has to be stored and stored securely,” adds Keith Engelbert, chief technology officer at STI. “We follow varying on-board video retention policies, we work with many of our districts to educate them on a global retention policy for the full lifecycle of the video.” When it comes to working with the majority of districts that have yet to jump onto the cloud bus yet, Ci- vitella says his firm avoids distracting and potentially overwhelming jargon about the latest bells and whistles. “We don’t even talk about technol-
ogy. We ask the questions: What is your biggest challenge? What keeps you awake at night? Ten we talk about how cloud computing makes life easier for clients,” he explains.
Last Shall Be First In broad terms, cloud-based services
are all about reliability and accessibility, according to John Lavazzo, Versatrans’ vice president of operations. “You don’t have to worry about waiting until your district’s IT guy gets into the office to fix a problem when you’re trying to move kids in the morning,” he says. “Tat is the appeal of the cloud: It is a very attractive option for people who need high reliability and really want to reduce their own IT costs.” Asked if their transportation de-
partment has a dedicated, in-house IT manager/computer support, 51 percent of STN survey respondents replied “yes,” while 49 percent an- swered, “no.” File sharing and back- up was cited as the most common uses of the cloud. Respondents said they store everything from trip and route sheets, to maintenance reports, to driver correspondence in the cloud. Te technology is also useful for collaborative work on documents
and accessing information while out of town. Meanwhile, 85 percent noted their
departments receive IT support from their school district, while 14 percent said a private contractor serves them. When asked if their IT department plays a role in purchasing decisions related to transportation technology, 58.5 percent said “yes,” nearly 38 per- cent said “no” and almost 4 percent “didn’t know.” Lavazzo notes that private firms
provide much-needed support for neglected transportation departments and overburdened IT staff. “Transportation departments are
very often not at the top of the list for the district IT department to support. Tey’re the last ones to get new computers and support. Hosting on the cloud allows the IT depart- ment to offload that responsibility and overhead while not needing to worry about security, maintenance or updates,” he explains. “Transpor- tation departments enjoy the better level of service they get, and their IT departments are on board because it is less system to maintain.” Te division reflected in the STN
poll also is reflected in the acceptance for cloud-based services that Engel- bert sees in the field. “Usually, there’s a district IT
liaison who works with us somehow, someway. Tose guys definitely ‘get it,’ and it’s just a matter of apply- ing it to their world,” he explains. “Te transportation director says, ‘It sounds and looks great, but I have to make sure about security.’ Tey may see it as friend or foe — the jury is still out for some. Obviously, I’m advocating for the ‘friend’ side.”
Big Cost Advantages Greg Marvel, president of routing
software company TransTraks, notes cloud-based services and routing sys- tems provide other financial advan- tages, too. He cites huge price breaks for districts that would otherwise be forced to pay thousands of dollars for online map services. Private firms are also able to provide more robust software programs without accompa- nying hassles. “Complexity comes with robust programs. Most clients don’t need
complexity and don’t have the time or capacity to manage it. Complexity is like trying to kill a mosquito with a shotgun,” Marvel explains. Civitella says the savings for Trans-
finder’s clients comes in sharing costs that would otherwise be prohibitive. “Tere’s a huge shortage of (tech-
nology experts) in this country. When you can’t afford the best of the best, you can’t pull off everything (private firms) can. You don’t have to worry about hiring those people. I’ll hire them and we can share them,” he says. STI works with EarthLink and independenceIT, an Allentown, Pa., applications developer and its flag- ship offering, the Cloud Workspace Suite. Te product is considered one of the industry’s most compre- hensive channel-only Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solution to support STI’s in-house technology needs, and meet the needs of more than 100 client districts. Essentially, DaaS eliminates the
need for software on an individual’s computer. Instead, the software is accessed via the Internet. When in use, however, it looks no different than a regular desktop with typical office applications. It also offers more virtual desktop software that back up all data and applications via the cloud through traditional, central redun- dant maintenance systems. If a user’s device or hardware is lost,
for example, the restore is much more straightforward and simple because it’s stored in a separate place — the cloud. As a result, all of the person’s computing needs will be present at login from another device. In addition, there is less chance that any critical data can be retrieved and compro- mised because no data was saved to the user’s device in the first place. STI’s relationship with inde- pendenceIT has reduced the bus company’s technology budget by 73 percent, saving millions of dollars in infrastructure and personnel costs. “Trough our channel partners, their customers can leverage our Cloud Workspace software so they no longer need on-premises servers,” explains Seth Bostock, indepen- denceIT’s president and COO. “If you look at companies of similar size, most spend between 3.5 and 4
Pat Jensen, director of transportation at Del Norte County (Calif.) Unified School District, says the cloud has led to more efficiency and less need for help from the IT department.
Virtual desktop computing solutions offered in the cloud by Student Transportation Inc. CTO Keith Engelbert (top) and independenceIT president and COO Seth Bostock are driving down IT costs for customers.
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