Competitive Purchasing of Technology

The intention of state purchasing guidelines is pretty simple – to ensure a competitive bidding process for significant technology purchases (normally over $5000.00). But complying with purchasing guidelines can be time consuming and difficult.

What’s a school to do?

The answer to this question varies with each financial manager. And sadly we have seen a few clever attempts to circumvent purchasing guidelines as we have bid competitively on posted items. But for purposes of this article, we will assume that your brother-in-law is not part of the equation, that you are not getting kickbacks from favorite vendors, and your IT provider has an arm’s length relationship with your financial manager. With few exceptions, we have observed great integrity with the charter schools and managers we have had the pleasure of serving.

However, the sheer volume of purchasing in a school can lead to unintended purchasing that is less than compliant. Here is a suggestion that we have found to be pretty simple and complies with the intent of purchasing guidelines.

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to know every states purchasing guidelines and this may technically not comply with the rules of your state. Check with your local state office of education.

First, let’s illustrate an important concept and consider a story of two guys selling watermelons.

Two men formed a partnership. They built a small shed beside a busy road. They obtained a truck and drove it to a farmer’s field, where they purchased a truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. They drove the loaded truck to their shed by the road, where they sold their melons for a dollar a melon. They drove back to the farmer’s field and bought another truckload of melons for a dollar a melon. Transporting them to the roadside, they again sold them for a dollar a melon. As they drove back toward the farmer’s field to get another load, one partner said to the other, “We’re not making much money on this business, are we?” “No, we’re not,” his partner replied. “Do you think we need a bigger truck?”

What does this have to do with technology? More than you might imagine.

Margins for most technology purchases are razor thin and the marketplace is very opaque, meaning you can in an instant determine the best price for nearly anything digital. Just do a quick search on Amazon or eBay. By taking this small step, the chances of overpaying significantly for technology is reduced greatly. Know what it is you are purchasing.

So why not purchase from an online venue such as eBay, Amazon, or others? Good question; and the answer is you just might! Especially for the occasional one or two items that are primarily consumer electronics/technology. However, using eBay or Amazon becomes more problematic when you need a specific type of technology, a specific quantity (often large), and with the manufacturers warranty included (or extended warranty if you choose).

Furthermore, it is a little difficult for most schools to actually specify the correct solutions, they need. That is presumably why you have technology managers in your organization. The biggest mistake we see with respect to purchasing is what to purchase rather than how to purchase, or from whom. And then there is the installation and management of that technology going forward.

But I digress…

One of the simplest ways we have found to provide our schools with a competitive bid is to take three simple steps:

1. Identify clearly what technical solution is required (this is the most important step).
2. Utilize a technology distributor that represents a large variety of vendors.
3. Arrange for a cost plus, or percentage of invoice markup for your purchases.

Let’s look at an example of how this works:

 

Assume that a school administrator comes to us with a requisition for new desktops for all staff members. Specifications are agreed upon in advance and would include features such as form factor, operating system, memory, and storage requirements. Added to that feature list is a general idea on the budget available.

 

Our next step is to provide our distributors with those specifications and obtain competing quotes from their list of vendors. Now if you are dealing with a single vendor, your purchasing program will break at this point. So be sure you deal with a distributor’s representative, not a single vendor’s representative.

 

We work with two of the largest technology distributors in the US and, with few exceptions, receive a wide variety of products that match the required specifications. We then select based primarily upon price (all other considerations being equal). The school is then presented with our recommendations and the PO is obtained, the invoice is marked up the agreed upon amount, and the items are ordered.

This simple process provides our partner schools with a fair and competitive bid for items requested. The cost plus markup scheme can be easily audited to verify fair pricing and we provide the interface for warranty claims, service, etc.

 

One of our competitors claims to sell hardware at cost to their customer schools. Perhaps this is to offset the high fees charged for services, or perhaps they just need a bigger truck!

What are the practical limits of Windows Multipoint Server?

One of our favorite vendors (hint: starts with an H and ends with a P) recently discontinued a popular line of specifically designed hardware components for Windows MultiPoint server. This included both the Multi-seat server and Zero Client components.

We were very surprised and a bit disappointed!

I called to speak with the HP product champion at our distributor and was told that although the product had been quite popular, the overly optimistic hardware specifications published by Microsoft had caused the unraveling of the product line. Apparently there were too many schools out there attempting to install the maximum allowed zero clients onto an underpowered server at a ratio of 20:1.

And when the system (with 20 students trying to do online gaming) slowed to a crawl, the buyers got upset. Go figure…

As one wise military commander told me many years ago at Officer Training, when asked about the wisdom of doing a particular thing; “You can, but you may not”. This pretty much sums up the wisdom of the aforementioned scenario. Perhaps it is better stated that while you CAN attach 20 Zero Clients onto a modestly provisioned MultiPoint Server, you may in fact not WANT to do so.

For the record, MultiPoint, as of this writing is not going away. Nor has it been an unsuccessful new product, not by a long-shot. It is working very well in the schools we have installed it when a reasonable effort to design the system has been employed.
And not to worry, there are still plenty of vendors supporting the technology and the required Zero Clients that are required to easily roll it out. But you may want to curb your optimism just slightly as you do system design and engineering. A reasonable allocation of server resources, client connections, and bandwidth utilization will help you make MultiPoint the home run in your school.

Here are three specific suggestions that will ensure your project does not get bogged down:

1. Determine the purpose of the MultiPoint installation
2. Start with a properly specified server
3. Calculate the Server/Client Ratio conservatively

Determine the purpose of the MultiPoint Installation

 

There are widely divergent requirements for a MultiPoint installation. Some are managed with the strict control of a well-organized teacher leading a discussion and managing the student sessions. Others are a free-for-all student study hall where anything goes. And on occasion (at least a few times each year) there will be standardized student testing where workstations are configured precisely for a sterile testing environment.

 

As you design you MultiPoint installation, start with the designated purpose. And if you can’t ensure that designated purpose then design conservatively. You will be happier in the long-run (although your financial managers may not share your entusiasm).

 

In our rather unscientific, but thorough testing, we have found that a ratio of 5:1 with a reasonable MultiPoint Server is a very solid place to start. And on the upper end of the scale, we have found that exceeding 10:1 under most conditions is not going to deliver the needed performance for anything more than casual web-browsing.

 

Start with a properly specified server

 

It has been said that “Common sense is not so common”. But it makes sense in this scenario to have a Multi Core processer (more is better), as much RAM as you can afford, and a fast Hard Drive with at least 500GB of space. Additionally, the server needs to have the capability for rendering graphics. This is normally accomplished by installing a graphics card in one of the open slots if it is not built into the mains system board.

 

And while there are many different connection configurations for MultiPoint, we have had the best luck using USB. Accordingly, you will need to have as many USB ports on the server as you plan to have zero-clients. This might require you to purchase a USB card and install it in your server.

 

Some manufacturers design servers specifically for the MultiPoint Server Operating System, but a bare box system is fine. Other than what is mentioned above, there is nothing special about hardware required to run MultiPoint. If it will run Windows7 or Windows Server 2012 standard, it should work fine with MultiPoint Server.

 

Calculate the Client Server Ratio Conservatively

 

The ratio of clients to a single server is the last thing you should determine. We simply call it the client/server ratio. Microsoft advertises a ratio of 10:1 in Windows MultiPoint Standard and 20:1 in Windows MultiPoint Premium. With few exceptions these numbers are (characteristically) hype.

 

For hard core computer lab workstations, keep the ratios low. For occasional browsing of the library collection or standardized testing increase the ratios accordingly.

 

One other aspect of determining ratios is the simple matter of logistics or layout. Depending on how the rows or clusters of workstations are configured in your lab, you may need to adjust your ratios purely based upon space and distance. The USB cables included in the HP Zero Clients were 25’ long. Distances greater than that may not work well. Check with your specific vendor for the lengths of included cabling (if included).

 

Summary

 

Windows MultiPoint Server is a great technology that will dramatically reduce the cost of provisioning a computer lab at your school. Not only do you save tons in buying hardware, but you nearly eliminate one of the more costly components of your technology budget - technical support. And you will see a commensurate reduction in both electrical and heating/cooling costs.

 

You will also have a much, much quieter computer lab (not counting student noise!).

 

But don’t be ridiculous, while you CAN connect 20 clients to a single MultiPoint server, you MAY NOT have a good experience in doing so. Good advice for me back then and for you today…

 

If you need assistance in designing your MultiPoint Server project, give us a call.

Help Desk Perspectives

A recent experience over the use of a help desk caused me to revisit the subject, with a little more insight. It went something like this:

After completing a major upgrade at a small (25-30 users) organization, we were anxious to get feedback about improved performance and user experience. So I instructed the office manager to provide a list of issues which would help us to quickly identify individual PC’s that might be having problems.

And this was not a casual effort without communication infrastructure. The manager had direct access to me via Instant Messaging, with presence, using Lync 2010, email, and my cell phone. We conversed about other matters routinely, in fact on a frequent basis I asked about any upgrade issues specifically and the response was “thumbs up”.

Unaware to both of us was a collection of little slips of paper, post it notes, and torn off pieces of yellow note pad pages accumulating on the bulletin board next to the refrigerator in the break room. Neither I nor the office manager had the slightest idea that a major problem was causing a significant slowdown for a large number of users.

That experience did not end well, but reinforced an important lesson about how not to manage your help desk. For a review about the benefits of a help desk, please see my earlier post here.

How you identify, communicate, prioritize, assign, and account for technical support issues makes all the difference in the world with respect to how well technology works in your school. And there are a large number of help desk systems available for you to choose from. Here are the features that I would look for in a help desk system:

Universal Communication Medium

Help desk issues need an agreed upon standard communication protocol organization wide. The most practical is email, but only if you have a robust email system that provides you synchronized messaging anywhere on any device.

Email is accountable, easily distributed, actionable within automated ticketing systems, and universally used in most schools. Little post it notes (or big ones) probably won’t meet this standard, and have you no (eco-green) shame.

Filtering and Consolidation Mechanism

With the capacity to easily fire off an email to help@yourschool.com, any help desk solution will quickly be overcome with redundant and sometimes ridiculously simple support requests (computer unplugged, network cable disconnected, etc.). So there needs to be a way of collecting daily support requests in some sort of queue, in order to quickly evaluate and act upon requests.

If fifteen teachers report that a crucial website is being blocked by your content filter (for example), then it is entirely counterproductive to think about creating fifteen support requests, or even creating a single trouble ticket for that matter. In the span of time required to create a trouble ticket, you could easily log-in to the firewall and resolve the issue. Then happily delete all fifteen emails reporting the issue!

The most common mistake in designing a help-desk system is the requirement to create a support request (case, incident, ticket, or whatever you choose to call it) for each and every issue. Where a simple notification and action request exists, most ongoing support requests can be resolved as a matter of course.

This is especially true when you are fortunate to have daily onsite technical support resources.

Escalation Process

Any technical problem can be solved with sufficient resources, co-ordination of effort, documentation of actions taken and proposed, and feedback. But, complex or persistent issues may require escalation to a more experienced team member, or an outside vendor. This is not something you can do effectively with a post-it note, or even a three ring binder.

The capacity to resolve complex support requests requires documentation that is available to all parties involved. This includes desktop support technicians, network engineers, software vendors, and most importantly – the end user.

At a minimum, the documentation should include date and time stamps, priority, resolution status, technician assignment, and notes for those involved documenting steps taken and subsequent actions required. An enormously helpful feature would be automation and integration with your internal communication systems, this will facilitate status updates, expected resolution timeframes, and resource requests.

Knowledge Base and Performance Metrics

The accumulation of knowledge about your infrastructure is an important by-product of a well-designed help-desk. Issues that repeat infrequently can be more easily resolved by referring to case notes of a previous support request. Knowledge bases can also be made available to your end users and encourage more self-support in their daily activities.

Performance metrics really speak to the effectiveness of your technical support staff. The most equitable way to measure the effectiveness of your technical support team is through the reporting that comes from the very system they use to resolve your technical support issues. If one of your technicians routinely resolves a significantly larger number of support cases (or queues) in a specified period of time, you might want to consider giving him a promotion!

Summary

Getting frustrated about the difficulty in using a help desk is understandable if it is too cumbersome, complex, and available to only a few individuals. But don’t give up, the benefits of a rational help desk are significant and worth the investment of your time and resources. It can pay big dividends.

Find a simple and reliable communication method (we recommend email) that can be used by anyone having a support request.  Incorporate a practical filtering and issue consolidation process that helps you assess priorities, gauge relative impact (many or few users), and provides a working list for your support staff. Then develop a time or severity based escalation process that formalizes support requests and starts the documentation to resolve and account for more serious issues. And finally, look more long-term at the reports coming from your help desk to assess the effectiveness of your support staff and technical support organization.

And if you really just can’t give up your yellow post it notes, do your support team a favor. Place them in a prominent position and don’t scold them when they miss the support request posted to the bulletin board in the break room next to the refrigerator they never use!

Let us know if you would like to explore ideas about how you can improve your help desk experience.

Virtualization - Part 3: Solving the Computer Lab Conundrum

In the two previous articles we explored the concept of Shared Resource Computing, termed virtualization, and described a few ways to deploy virtual machines in your school. Let’s get a little more practical and focus on the benefits of using virtualization in your computer lab.
A computer lab is the one common denominator in virtually (there goes another pun) every school we have managed.  Computer labs come in all sizes, shapes, and conditions. Although universal in usage, they vary widely in functionality, ranging from a collection of mostly broken, outdated computers donated to you after the end of their useful life to a collection of brand new ‘out of the box’ desktops.

Regardless of circumstance, there seems to be 5 universal challenges associated with computer labs:

1. Cost to acquire the hardware, network, and installation
2. Cost to maintain the high usage in a semi-hostile environment
3. Noise and heat levels that can distract students
4. Distractions of an endless variety  (as in the internet) during instruction
5. Consistent computing environment, especially during testing

Managing your computer lab may in fact be the most time consuming technical support requirement in your school. That tends to be the case in schools with higher grade levels (see my previous article about managing computers in a hostile environment). So in addition to reducing upfront costs, reducing ongoing costs will also be of great benefit.

 

There are many virtualization solutions available that address computer desktops (as opposed to servers), but don’t invest a lot of time exploring them.  In my view there is only one solution that adequately addresses the specific challenges associated with the computer lab in education.

 

That solution is Windows MultiPoint Server 2011, a computer operating system designed specifically for the computer lab at your school. It is the only solution that addresses the above listed challenges completely.

 

Let’s look at each one:

 

1. The cost savings experienced is directly proportional to the number of multi seat sessions you provision per server. We have tested 5:1 (five computing session to one server), but Microsoft advertises up to 20:1. Even at 10:1 you are only buying a fraction of the computer hardware.
2. There are no moving parts in the T200 Zero Clients we recommend, no hard drives, cooling fans, disk caddies, etc. Far fewer parts require far fewer repairs. Your administrative costs for the lab will plummet.
3. Put 25 – 30 computers in an average sized room and you are going to have heating and cooling issues. And the noise level of that environment has never been conducive to instruction and learning.
4. Having tried to instruct adults in technology training with the internet staring them in the face is a challenge. With kids it is nigh unto impossible. With MultiPoint Manager you control access to the internet, and point all computing sessions at once to where you want the students to go.
5. Testing preparation becomes a breeze. You simply sign in differently on testing day and the students are presented with a sterile testing environment, with appropriate controls in place to insure testing integrity.

A worldwide study conducted by Forrester Research concluded the following with respect to Microsoft MultiPoint Server technology:

 

• Teachers and students report that using a Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 station is as good, in terms of speed and performance, as if they were working on a traditional personal computer. 
• Overall student energy and enthusiasm is boosted when more students have a modern computing station to work on, instead of sharing an older machine and dated operating system amongst their classmates or having no computer access in the classroom at all.
• Teachers very much appreciate the administration and monitoring capabilities of the new MultiPoint Manager, with which they can direct and control class and individual students' lessons more effectively. The console is reported to be easy to learn, even for non-English speaking and non-technical instructors. 
• A Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 system is relatively easy to set up and deploy, according to interviewees. This is especially valuable for schools in remote areas where IT skills are scarce.
• Power cost reductions are important in the many areas of the world where electricity is a large line item in the school's budget — assuming it is available. 
• The overall cost savings compared to a traditional PC environment is substantial and analyses of these costs comprise the bulk of this study.  All schools reported being able to re-allocate these savings to other assets for enhancing the education of their students.

So there you have it. A three part series about what you need to know regarding Virtualization. For most of you, the sweet spot will be your computer lab(s). Using virtualization will reduce both the initial and ongoing costs of the computer lab, improve the learning environment, and simplify life for your teachers.

And I will virtually guaranteed (my final pun) you will love it. Our early adopters are already coming back for more.

One final note; in order to use MultiPoint Server 2011, you will need to address your Microsoft software licensing. See my earlier article about this subject.  After all, you don’t expect Microsoft to allow creation of all those virtual computers without licensing them!

Virtualization - Part 2: Which Virtualization Solution Should I Use

Wading through the vast array of virtualization solutions is a challenge and frankly it will mostly be a waste of your time, until you focus on a specific solution needed for your school. I emphasize “specific”, because sometimes the process associated with the high tech virtualization strategy is a very low-tech and practical need to just get something done without an army of Network Engineers and a couple of hours on the phone with technical support.

You can virtualize servers, if you have a need to either consolidate physical hardware or add another server for a specific application. You can virtualize desktops and launch them in thin client sessions to create a sterile computer lab environment (such as required for testing). Or, you might want to use virtualization as part of your backup strategy for mission critical applications, such as computers running your financial software.

Whatever your circumstances, be sure you have a solid business case for implementing a virtualization strategy. Don’t get sucked into the IT department’s love affair with virtualization without a compelling solution attached to it. The one certainty about virtualization is that it will virtually guarantee (another intended pun), that your IT team will be on the payroll for as long as you keep that virtualized environment in place. This is a pretty complex solution, even for those of us in the business.

Here are three very specific examples of where we have used virtualization to the benefit of our school partner:

VoIP Management Server: Due to growing pains, one of our schools needed to setup a remote administration office to accommodate temporary office space during new facility construction. They did not want to spend on infrastructure that would be replaced within a year, and space was very limited.

The VoIP system they setup for the temporary offices required a server for the call manager (PBX functionality).

Using Microsoft Hyper-V technology, we created a VM (Virtual Machine) which had the sole purpose of running the call manager software. There were specific system requirements that differed from the configuration of the host server, otherwise we would not have needed a VM in the first place.

It ran flawlessly for the period of about 24 months (ever heard of construction delays) and then we decommissioned that VM and moved to the new facilities. Mission accomplished.

The business case for this virtualization was temporary computing requirements with the least amount spent on hardware, software, and electricity.

Server Migration: A rather old and inefficient server at partner school needed replacing. Simple enough, right? Well yes, except the school financial system was installed on this server and the orders were to not to interrupt it. It also did after hours synchronizing with a district system, which required point in time coordination.

Quick is not something that can be guaranteed with a single network engineer managing an entire school on one day per week (our model). So we employed a virtualization strategy.

The solution was to configure a VM and work through all of the network connection issues, configuration, and testing. Then at a pre-appointed time we quickly took a snap-shot (image) of the operating server and virtualized it. This VM then ran for a period of several weeks giving us plenty of time to install and configure the new physical server, without pressue on our part or interruption on theirs.

Why did we not simply keep running the financial system as a virtual machine? Good question, although it could have in theory been easily done. There were ownership (as in the district’s property) and licensing issues that drove the decision.

The business case for this virtualization was a time critical server migration. Not just the length of time it took, but the point(s) in time requirement as well.

Computer Lab:  A thoroughly trashed computer lab at one of our partner schools needed replacing, but budgets were very tight. We needed to find a way to refurbish/replace the computer lab for well under $10, 000 with the specific requirement to make them easy to use for state mandated testing.

If you read between the lines, what the administrator was trying to avoid was that very stressful “day of testing” computer problem nightmare you have all experienced.

Our virtualization solution in this situation was Windows MultiPoint server connected by HP Zero Clients. Using MultiPoint server, we were able to reduce the cost of the lab by 75% (we set up in a conservative 5 – 1 ratio) and provide a sterile computing environment on testing day.

The setup was easy, because MultiPoint Server 2011 is designed specifically to recognize and configure the HP Zero Clients. And after downloading the states thin client setup utility, we were able to quickly boot into a “Sterile” testing environment. That is where all computer sessions are identical, locked down, ready for testing, and capable of being administered by a proctor.

The business case for this virtualization was not only cost, but in delivering a sterile computing environment, (as we defined above).

Summary

Virtualization is a mature and well adopted technology used worldwide in a variety of circumstances. It may indeed be appropriate for you to consider. Before doing so, identify a specific computing problem and desired outcomes and a budget before calling your IT provider.

Hopefully your IT provider is wise enough to guide you in selecting your virtualization strategy, software provider, and configuration to accommodate your business case. And if you have a requirements for a temporary, time critical, or specific computing environment; then virtualization is likely a good choice.

And that’s virtually all I have to say about it… until next week. We’ll look a little deeper at virtualizing your computer lab.

Virtualization - Part 1: What is Virtualization and do I need it?

This article reminds me of a little boy who went to his father with a question, to which his father replied "Son, why don't you go ask your mom?" Knowing all too well this outcome, the little boy answered in exasperation, " Because, I didn't really want to know that much!"

The buzzword of "Virtualization" may just be this kind of subject for you. But more and more service providers are doing some kind of virtualization, so you might want to at least have a conceptual view.

In all honesty, I think some service providers virtualize infrastructures to make them so complicated that the school is held virtually captive (pun intended) and fearful of trying to manage the systems for fear they will disappear into thin air. Which, come to think of it, is actually quite possible...

Let's try to reduce the concept of virtualization sufficient to enable a decision about the technology and if it is right for you. Be patient this will take a few articles.

A virtual computer is a digital representation of another fully functional computer (the guest), which resides inside of a physical computer (the host). Wikipedia defines it thus: A virtual machine (VM) is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system".

Virtualization evolved from a fundamental economic requirement to reduce the cost of buying, housing, powering, and securing (think backups) of computers; mainly server class computers. It has been an exceptionally profitable undertaking.

I recall visiting one data center, and this was not a small single story building, with floors and floors of nothing but server computers. On a given floor there were rows and rows of racks filled with stacks of server computers, probably numbering in the thousands of actual physical servers, normally in a "blade" form factor so they could put more servers in a given rack.

There was an entire staff of network engineers moving through the rows doing some sort of maintenance, upgrades, or complete replacements. It was actually quite impressive, along with being very noisy and uncomfortably warm.

If I were to revisit that facility today, I would expect to see 75% less space being used to accomplish the same mission. Instead of thousands of servers, there might be hundreds. But, each of those servers would be running 10 Virtual Servers, delivering an equivalent in computing capacity.

Virtualization allows companies to dramatically reduce the cost of real estate, hardware, electricity, heating and cooling, and administration of data centers - (roughly in that order of savings). It is a mature and well established industry, with a few key software companies owning most of the market share. The solutions of which I am familiar are VMWare and Microsoft.

What is really cool, if you are a Geek, is that you can actually store an "image" of a virtual machine on a computer hard drive and launch it into action at a moments notice. When you do so, it's like magic - "poof"; and another fully functional computer appears on your network. This Virtual Disk Image (VMWare) or Virtual Hard Drive (Microsoft) can be moved easily to any host capable of powering it up.

Virtual machines have opened up all kinds of possibilities in managing technology at your school. But they are not without cost and may not always be practical in your particular situation. Proceed with care and it may save you a bundle, proceed carelessly and it may cost you your job when everything blows up

We'll explore a few of these ideas in the coming weeks.

Note: I am not an expert in either VMWare or Microsoft Hyper-V, leaders of virtual machine technology. This is not indended to be technical document, rather an overview for our many Charter School Administrators who  may really not want to know that much!

Why you should ban USB drives at school

After spending hours restoring desktops recently, which a clever student had booted from a rogue USB flash drive loaded with Malware, it dawned on me that the convenience of these handy little gadgets might just be overrated. And when combined with the benefits of the cloud, specifically the free cloud available to students via the Office 365 (live@edu) service, the risks vs. benefit ratio has clearly tipped towards risk.

I know it seems like such a simple way to transport data like homework, projects, photos, etc, but it also just as easy to transport utilities that can destroy the hard drives on your computers, take direct control of the underlying computer hardware, or modify computer registry errors in a way that is nearly impossible to repair.

You may have the very best security practices in place, such as a perimeter Unified Threat Management (UTM) device, endpoint Anti-Virus protection, and separate VLans (network isolation), and yet be vulnerable to a meltdown caused by a free download from the Internet attached directly onto a PC in your school. It is nearly impossible to guarantee computer security if there is physical access to the device.

Banning USB devices is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce the cost of network administration in your school.

But aside from the security aspects, there are also some real practical benefits of tossing those USB drives. Let’s take a look at the advantages to see if they don’t, in your specific circumstance, outweigh the benefits.

Here are the top 10 reasons why you should ban USB drives at your school, in favor of the cloud:

• 10) Eliminate the cost of purchasing the hardware. At $5.00 - $75.00 ea. (depending on capacity), you could save a bundle of money.
• 9) Reduce the cost of managing the devices – tracking these identical (presumably) looking devices and accounting for them can be burdensome.
• 8) Avoid the cost of replacing the devices – responsibility for replacing the drives when they are lost; placing identity (ownership) upon them is difficult.
• 7) Reduce plagiarism - unauthorized sharing of work is nearly impossible to detect and prevent while using a flash drive.
• 6) Improve collaboration – accountable sharing of work is possible in the cloud, impossible on a flash drive.
• 5) Reduce support costs – time spent unnecessarily managing infected or otherwise misconfigured hardware is a real cost.
• 4) Lower the cost of your infrastructure – spending money on student servers can in most cases be completely eliminated.
• 3) Improving teacher to student interaction – with cloud based services, teachers can simultaneously push information to an entire class of students.
• 2) Increase student access to teachers – individual work can be made available to teachers with no extra effort by the student other than saving the work to their private cloud space.
• 1) Eliminating the excuse of “I forgot my homework, it's on my flash drive!” Homework is always a device away (computer, tablet, phone, etc). Presuming it is done, of course!

There you have it, ten solid reasons to ban flash drives from your school.

Now if you are more gently persuaded, have plenty of resources, and don’t want to offend anyone’s sensitivities, you could adopt a more persuasive approach to the matter by making cloud services available to your students and making flash drives subject to inspection if used on school computers.

Given the chance, smart students will quickly realize the tremendous advantages of using their own private cloud and soon leave their flash drives at home.

Driving Efficiencies in Desktop Administration

Let’s do a quick math test to give you an idea of the time typically spent doing routine maintenance on the computers in your school and then discuss ways you can dramatically cut those time requirements. We’ ll use round numbers to make it easy, starting with the assumption that you have 100 computers to manage.

At least once each month, you should be doing software updates, security patches, and system scans – the routine maintenance that keeps computers in optimal shape. Doing this maintenance will help keep your computing experience consistent, remove unwanted virus’ and spy ware programs, and apply the latest improvements in operating system and software program functionality.

In a perfect world this process would be entirely automatic, but there are a number of reasons why automation fails and part of desktop administration is monitoring and resolving those failures, proactively.

Back to the math quiz….

How much time does it take update 100 computers each month? If you do it the old fashion way and allow yourself 20 minutes per computer (that’s optimistic) you are looking at 2,000 minutes – plus travel time (between computers). That is roughly 35 hours; which approximates the amount of time we normally spend in an entire month managing infrastructure at a typical school. Not a sustainable model because there are more tasks required to manage technology resources than just updating computers.

The way to improve desktop administration is a three point approach consisting of automation, reporting, and remote control. These actions should be taken simultaneously and there are a wide variety of solutions to help you.

Whatever system you use, and there are several, you should focus on the following three areas:

1. Automation – implementing automatic updates that work within your security model
2. Reporting – providing a centralized inventory of computers and their current status
3. Remote Control – installing remote control tools for efficient technician access

Automation

At the most basic level, you should set your computers to do automatic updates from Microsoft,  but depending upon security settings or user account privileges, this might not work. Finding the right balance between local user access and security of the environment is tricky, but as it relates to automatic updates it can cause the process to fail.

In an enterprise the size of a charter school, the single biggest problem we see (in terms of wasted resources) is having an open desktop security policy, with local install permissions. Managing this is the first order of business when struggling to gain control of computer administration costs.

With no security (access control) in place you will quickly find every single computer in a different state. There will be different backgrounds or wallpaper, butterfly or alligator pointers, and a wide variety of default program settings, browser toolbars, and freeware (accompanied by malware) installed.

The conflict between automatic updates and access control is best managed by a programs such as  System Center Essentials, Windows InTune, or other third party desktop administration tools that provide sufficient security access to accomplish the automatic updates required, with no intervention on your part. The sooner you get control of your desktops – the sooner your support costs will plummet.

In order to measure the success of your update automation, you’ll need some kind of centralized reporting tool.

Reporting

Quickly evaluating the state of your desktop computers is the essential job of a reporting tool. Rather than waiting for a user to call the help desk to address a computer issue, a good reporting tool will notify your help desk well in advance of a pending computer problem.

Applying support resources in advance is almost always more efficient than resolving a problem after the issue has caught the attention of an end user.  And sophisticated reporting tools are both inexpensive and quite robust.

Not only will a reporting tool disclose the state of your computers, with respect to software updates; it will also report impending hardware failures, disk space limitations, device driver conflicts, and other developing problems. And often these are represented in very clear color coded graphs and charts to not only give you a realistic overview of system health, but allow you to drill down to details of a given issue.

Remote Control

Simply stated, Remote Control is the ability for your technical support team to reach across the limitations of physical space and control your computer.  This allows technical support to happen as though the support engineer were sitting physically at your desktop, when in fact they are on the other side of the building, city, or country for that matter.

But there is much more to the advantage of remote control than remote access. Most remote control solutions are Internet browser based and as such, a support engineer can open multiple support sessions at once – as many as a dozen or more, depending upon bandwidth, browser limitations, and the ability to keep track of a large number of simultaneous support sessions. This is the model of efficiency.

In a recent upgrade scenario involving a major Windows Service Pack, we measured the time to do it manually vs. remotely. The time required on site was more than four times greater than doing so remotely.  One significant benefit that is often overlooked with remote support is the ability to provide support services while the class is in session, which is not practical on site.

One of my favorites remote tools is LogMeIn.com, a free browser based program that works well, is easy to install, and can be configured by having end users click on a link within an email message and follow a short installation routine. There are many others that work equally well.

Summary

An efficient desktop management model looks at your infrastructure once each day to view the state of computers. It proactively manages required updates, mostly through automation, but manually if required;  then resolves any computer errors using remote tools that do not interrupt your class.

Our experience suggests that by investing 20 – 30 minutes each day, you can proactively manage 100 computers. That of course does not include repairing intentional damage caused by students, catastrophic hardware failures, or major operating system upgrades, which require physical access.

Want to improve the score on your math quiz stated above? With automation, reporting, and remote administration your total will be a little more reasonable than what you are doing now.  Contact us if you would like a free recommendation on the automation, reporting, and remote support tools that will best suit your situation.

Managing Computers in a hostile computer lab

OK, so the notion of a hostile environment may be a stretch, but hear me out on this one. Jr High and high school students are not always the sweet and innocent models of decorum we would like. But having been there once,  I  understand. Managing computers in a lab can be frustrating, but with a little forethought you can keep your sanity.

Whether it’s showing off, flirting with a classmate, or just plain horsing around; stuff happens in the computer lab. Keys get popped off of keyboards, mice get ripped free of their chords, and the best one I’ve seen yet is a perfectly sized slice of baloney in the DVD drive. Being able to laugh about it is probably a good place to start.

However, if the problems are getting a little overwhelming with your resource constrained staff, here are some suggestions that might help.

Start with the right equipment

To the extent possible, use desktop computers in student labs, rather than laptops. They cost less to buy, are less expensive to repair, and tend to grow legs less often.  For real savings and administrative advantages, see the article about Multipoint Server in a computer lab, it will reduce the cost of the lab by 75%.

Desktops can often be mounted in cages that prevent physical access, which is an important step in your attempts to secure a computer.

Keep the network simple

Whenever possible, use a wired network connection for student labs. The bottleneck of twenty simultaneous You Tube videos will always impact a wireless network more adversely than a wired network. And wired adapters are much more reliable, given the security protocols passwords, keys, etc. that accompany WiFi.

Once configured, wired network devices rarely need management and access to the hardware is less apparent. In fact normal access is preventable through group policy settings. Speed is much faster on a wired network where even the very fastest wireless internet connection is about half the speed.

Provide Adequate Supervision

Adequate supervision is paramount in a computer lab. And this is the most common challenge we observe. If your staff is unwilling to provide accountable supervision and you as an administrator are unwilling to require it, then you might want to consider a teachers aid or parent volunteer. Even a non-technical individual can readily discern when a student is dismantling a computer.

It makes little sense to assign the task of student-sitting to your desktop or network support engineer. In a well managed environment,  they  are better utilized spending time resolving more complex issues.

Install video surveillance

This may seem  an overreach, but there may in fact be a very good case for this – especially in those schools with high risk populations  or special education requirements. Not only will this reduce vandalism, but in extreme cases may provide a solid defense against litigation. And there may be other very good reasons for videos surveillance.

Just knowing the possibility of videos recording exists can change behavior.

If you elect to use video surveillance, be sure to use digital cameras that are correctly specified as to focal length, field of view, and pixels per foot.  In most cases you can use your existing network infrastructure and Power Over Ethernet to eliminate much of your installation costs.

Summary

Remember that the only way to completely secure a computer is to prevent physical access to the computer.  Even the most hardened computer can be compromised if a student is given access to the physical device. By rebooting a computer with a bootable USB device, a very secure computer can be easily compromised by a clever student hacker.

So start with the right equipment, improve your supervision – either in person or by camera – and be suspicious if you see a student in the lunch room with a baloney sandwich, without the baloney.

Windows Multipoint Server - Reducing the cost of computer labs by 66%

Visualize for a moment a complete room filled with computer equipment that delivers the equivalent computing horsepower that you now hold in the palm of your hand. It probably does not require much imagination, as many of you have witnessed the advances in technology that have made this possible.

But is another exponential improvement in computing capacity possible? Indeed. It has been with us now for several years.

Introducing one of the latest (drum roll): Windows MultiPoint Server! Tah dah…

Okay, so advances in computer technology don’t excite you? Here is something that will. The cost to provision a full computer lab for your school just dropped by 66 percent. The technology that brings this huge cost savings is Windows MultiPoint Server, a new operating system designed for education.  Offered by Microsoft, it is roughly a marriage of Windows 7 Desktop Operating System and the Windows Server Operating System.

Because of the tremendous power in a single desktop or workstation, you can now literally power multiple and unique computer sessions for several students using one computer, with extra keyboards, video displays, and mice of course. This might take a little imagination, so follow along.

Think about a basic desktop computer that has been configured with two keyboards, two video displays, and two pointing devices such as a mouse. Two students sit on opposing sides of a library desk and view their respective computer sessions, which are individual and unique in every sense. They can run programs, browse the Internet, and do everything they currently do on a Windows based computer. The only commonality in their experience is proximity and connection to the same physical PC.

Now let’s stretch your imagination and the library table cited above. Think about four students or more, (up to twenty) all sitting at the same table connected to that single computer each with their own keyboard, video, and mouse. And you now have a conceptual view of Windows MultiPoint Server. And aside from the matter of how to physically connect all of the keyboards, video displays, and mice, the configuration is a function of the Windows MultiPoint Server Operating System design.

Of course there are limits to how many users you can attach to a basic computer workstation. We recommend four, unless you invest in more powerful workstations. Even basic computer workstations now come with four processors (Quad Core) and with memory capacities previously found only in server-class computers. If you provide sufficient memory to accompany the powerful processors, you end up with a very similarly equipped PC that you would find in traditional configurations. The difference is you are only purchasing cables and devices to make the physical connection, rather than an actual computer workstation.

Now let’s start adding up the cost savings: 75 percent savings on computers, annual maintenance, and power consumption, a serious reduction in the cost of cooling a computer lab, and a significant reduction in help desk calls to replace parts or to fiddle with configuration issues.

Some of you with “thin client” experience may be thinking this is just a modern day version of a rather old centralized computing setup of years ago. Not so. While similar in appearance, the essential difference is Microsoft Hyper-V technology. This is an advanced computing concept where computer sessions are created “virtually” and on demand. Each session is just like having a brand new computer with a fresh copy of Windows 7 installed and configured according to the type of user experience desired.

Only specially designed “thin clients” (actually termed "zero Clients") work with Windows MultiPoint Server and they exist primarily to provide a more efficient and cost effective way to connect so many keyboards, video displays, and mice to a single piece of hardware. In fact a “zero client” connection is just one of three supported configurations using Windows MultiPoint Server. You may alternately choose to connect via USB or by adding video cards directly into the host computer.

There is one other cost saving we recommend in this solution. By using a Microsoft Open Volume Subscription for Education Services (OVS-ES) you would have all of the Software required to operate all of these “virtual’ computer sessions. And FYI, the cost savings numbers we quote are not ours alone. They come from a study done by Microsoft. Your savings may in fact be more.