Here I'll post some stuff that you can use to make your school's IT run more efficiently. Everything I'll post will come from my work with EDMC which is out of business so there's no worries about conflict of interest or confidentiality. There won't be any student or client data but you should be able to take the files modify them and put them to use in your setting pretty quickly.
Business Continuity
Business Continuity: this often gets lost in the mix but it shouldn't. It's relatively easy to do and and from an odds perspective more probable to be necessary than a full scale Disaster Recovery plan. It's likely that you'll be chased out of your campus at some point for a period of time so you should have a plan for how you're going to bug out and return smoothly.
| bcpit.docx |
Virtual Computing
The more things change the more they remain the same. We implemented Citrix in EDMC (which is now defunct) and have implemented VMware here at Collin College (very much still active). In both instances we used the Wyse Thin OS and in both instances we were flummoxed by it! For what its worth WYSE is fine the Thin OS which is just linux is so seductively attractive in its 'simplicity' and in its offer of dashboard control but it simply doesn't work consistently enough. Something like that just has to be bullet proof like VMware itself and it's not. It connects 60% to 80% of the time and there really isn't any rhyme or reason as to why it doesn't connect when it doesn't. So you're left looking goofy to users and staff when the problems start. If you choose to go with a thin client better to go with a thicker one and put an OS on there-the connection is 100% more reliable and you still get the plug and play you're looking for when it comes to reduced support, increased security, and centralized control. I've included our rollout handbook from Ai - seeing the names from back in the day made me smile. What also struck me was the effort we put into the project. The hours, the number of folks invested the resources on the back and front end. Virtualized computing offers all kinds of benefits but reduced effort/dollars oftentimes isn't one of them.
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Campus Computing Evaluation
As a Regional Director with EDMC I would visit each of my campuses and perform campus reviews giving each a score based on the file that is uploaded below. The file was accompanied by an IT Operations Manual giving detail for each item that was written by yours truly which, ironically enough, I don't have a copy of any more. Regardless, the Ops Manual was a function of repeated failure with internal audit and essentially followed the audit step by step. The manual gave our techs direction outside of simply doing tickets for staff and students and when we showed up to do our 'audits' we weren't perceived as nit picky. We simply went down the list and the well prepared techs knew exactly what to expect. It made for much nicer visits for the most part!
| aird_campus_review2.xlsx |