As a voluntary IT consultant for some schools in my area, the subject has often been mentioned as to how to plan a server environment for a school/classroom situation. With the introduction of sophisticated technology being used in the classrooms today we have everything from several desktops in class, to interactive whiteboards, document readers, tablet pc’s and various educational softwares.
This is the first part of a 10 part blog of successfully planning a Windows Server solution for a school and taking it right up to installation
Part 1 – Your Requirements & Understanding What You Need.
Keeping in mind the technology available today and the constant changes in the marketplace, we must start with the all important question of what do we need to (1) create an effective system, (2) leverage that system to its maximum potential, (3) future proof it (to an extent) and (4) ensure it is cost effective.
I like to start this by summarising the goal of the project. What is your goal? What would you like to change or enhance from the current situation.
Often a goal is defined as “The harmonisation of IT across the school site”
Taking that goal into consideration we can understand that the school wishes in this case to ensure that all computers are “singing from the same hymn sheet” and they are uniform across the school in terms of software versions and updates. A nightmare prediciment for the school administration is to have computers in classrooms that do not have the same abilities of those in other classrooms, as a result the teaching staff loose out and more importantly so do the students.
So what next?
Gather the teaching staff and obtain their wishlist. Ask them what they would like to see available on the computers in class. After-all they are the ones who will use them in conjunction with their education plan.
Wishlists also need to be converted to reality in terms of cost and scalability – we will address this in a later blog entry, but for now assume the sky is the limit.
Start with software, what software is used frequently on the computers, most of this will be educational and from various publishers, some of which never heard of network licensing so keep this in mind.
Test the software, examine its capabilities, can it be installed on a server or must it reside on a local PC, does it require the CD-ROM to be inserted while using it and more importantly what are the licensing implications. Extensive conversations with the software vendors and publishers will occupy a significant amount of time during this process. You will be glad to know that this is possibly the most difficult challenge of rolling out any system in a school/educational facility.
From your research on the software, you can then categorise the software into groups, I like to use groups such as, Network Installable, meaning that the software can be installed on a Server and distributed hassle free, Local Machine Friendly, meaning it can be installed on a local PC and does not require any CD-ROM to operate, and the third category, PITBBWRNI which is “pain in in the b** but we really need it” or the short name of “the troublesome 3” category.
Ok so congratulations, we have our software categorised and negotiated any support or license issues with our vendors and publishers.
Next we must look at the infrastructure, meaning hardware such as computers, network, printers, scanners and anything else which plugs into a computer or interacts with it.
If you are lucky enough to plan an environment where computer hardware is identical across all classrooms, then you can pass “GO” and collect $200.00, for those of us that are not so fortunate we must take the following into consideration.
What is the best spec computer in the environment? What is the worst spec computer in the environment? and What is the happy medium. The happy medium is best defined by your software research as to “What is the ideal hardware requirements for all my software to run happily on my PCs”
Take your highest resource demanding software and compare it with your lowest resource demanding software. Use the highest resourse as a system baseline while also considering future expansion and perhaps other softwares that the school may wish to use in the forseeable future.
A good baseline example for today’s classroom is:
CPU – 3GHZ, RAM 3-4GB, DVD Drive, 2 USB Ports (Excluding Keyboard, Mouse), NIC Card, VGA Card, Sound Card
For those computers that do not currently meet the baseline requirements, independantly benchmark the processor (e.g. a 2.8GHZ processor may cut the mustard with some more RAM available)
I personally combine a cost benefit analysis on how to best proceed with Upgrading Components Vs Replacing Computer. This is up to the individual as is how best to proceed.
Cabled networks are often very upgrade friendly except for those still running a BNC based network, in which case, how are you even viewing this blog?
T-10 switches are a thing of the past, while they work great in some cases, most broadband packages have surpassed them by now and are a major bottleneck risk factor for that reason alone. Most schools should now be running T-100 minimum. Some schools currently run gigabit LAN’s with 10meg FC backbones, which is impressive indeed but very expensive. T100 /Gigabit is perfectly fine for now and indeed the forseeable future.
Test your network cables, ensure they are all healthy and working as they should be. Label them if they are not already labeled, this will be crucial for your documentation and any future troubleshooting.
Establish if any of the switches require upgrading to meet your baseline requirements. If so, cost this by obtaining quotes from a few local computer hardware providers.
Printers/Scanners/Other hardware, research the various make/models online via the respective manufacturer websites and datasheets, ensure that you note the compatibility of each with respect to system requirements/operating systems and driver availability. It’s usually a good idea to populate all of this information into a matrix using something like Microsoft Excel. Put the printer make/models in the left column and on the top row put your specs and simply tick each box, it will become obvious where the rubber will hit the road as the tick’s populate in. I like to call this the “Hardware and Peripheral Sweet Spot”. Once this spot meets your baseline hardware requirements, you are all set (keep in mind USB ports for this section, more often than not, this is where we realise that we need several USB ports and a decision is required on PCI bridge USB ports or a USB hub)
In Part 2 we will continue our requirements phase as it applies to user and capacity requirements.
As always comments and suggestions are always welcome.
All the information in this blog is posted to the best of my knowledge, ability and experience. As with everything there is possibilty that some of the information may not be accurate or out-dated. If this is the case please do let me know as I would like to correct it and also learn from it.
Thank you for taking the time to read today!
Martin Evans
Martinevansmcc's Blog 