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Woodford House in Brief
- School established in 1894
- Occupies 22 hectares in Hawkes Bay
- Has roll of about 320
- Has one student PC for every three students
- Aims to make ICT in classrooms work at the flick of a switch
"One of the things that people forget about schools is that they're actually large businesses."
Robin Hicks, Woodford House IT manager
When we think of ICT in schools, most of us probably imagine that it amounts to a few computers in the back of the classroom where students do some word processing and watch an educational DVD or two. But not only is that picture an inaccurate portrayal of the use computers are put to as learning tools, it ignores the extensive role they play in school administration.
At Woodford House in Havelock North, a 114-year-old integrated boarding and day school for girls, the picture painted above is even more wide of the mark. Woodford House has a roll of 320, and roughly one student computer to every three students, a ratio it believes to be one of the highest of any school in the country.
Far from being the hand-me-down machines of popular perception, they are state-of-the-art PCs that students can have access to 14 hours a day. For demanding applications like graphics and multimedia production, they have highly specced machines at their disposal.
On the administration side of the school, there's a population of about another 100 PCs. Since Woodford House is an integrated school, and partly funded by the Ministry of Education, it has double the stakeholder reporting obligations.
The school has both a Board of Trustees, to oversee the ministry-funded side of its activities, and a Board of Proprietors, that manages the school property and an extensive range of facilities, along with the seven-day-a-week boarding operation. The combination of educational and administrative functions - especially onerous in the case of Woodford House - means that schools are more demanding of IT than a typical business.
"One of the things that people forget about schools is that they're actually large businesses," says Woodford House IT manager Robin Hicks. "The focus is often on providing computers for students, but that can be the easy part.
"We're running a complex business here - a multimillion-dollar business with a large staff - so there are all those aspects as well."
That means the usual suite of accounting and payroll systems, plus a host of specialist applications for a teaching institution. Applications range from school management system Integris, which takes care of student administration, pastoral care, attendance records and parent contacts, to ClickView, a digital video program that allows students to watch archived video on demand.
With about 200 student and staff computers throughout the school connected by a high-speed network, Woodford House needs heavy-duty back office systems to run its applications and store data. For the sake of reliability, it's approach has been to run individual applications -its Exchange email server, for example, and print management - on separate servers, of which it has about a dozen.
Late last year, with demand for more capacity and the need to refresh old machines in mind, it did a review of its server setup. "We were being reactive rather than proactive," Hicks says, and were confronted with a considerable upgrade bill.
So with the guidance of IT supplier Glenn Cook Technologies, an IBM® business partner, the school decided to change tack. Instead of replacing servers on a piecemeal basis, it decided to install an IBM BladeCenter H Chassis with an initial three dual quad-core blades. The Blade Chassis also covers any growth requirements for the school with additional capacity for 11 more servers.
One of the blades is running a trial of VMware, virtualisation software that allows a single physical server to function as multiple virtual servers.
As the school's standalone servers are gradually retired, more blade servers will be added. The benefit of server consolidation could include significantly better performance, reduced power consumption and cooling costs, and simplified system management, says Glenn Cook, whose firm has been supporting Woodford House for more than a decade.
"There were 12 servers all competing for space, all with duplicated metal cabinetry, multiple inefficient power supplies and fans generating a lot of heat and drawing a substantial amount of power," Cook says. In contrast, the Blade Center's innovative design is a greener infrastructure providing the dependability and resilience of a mainframe with multiple layers of redundancy.
Thinning out the standalone server population is a little way down the track. "The next stage will really start to cut into power use, with savings from both the reduced number of servers and the ability to cool the server room more efficiently. A bonus is that we will also be able to rationalise the physical space required, along with major cost savings for us in hardware acquisitions in the future," Hicks says.
Savings on the server side will allow the school to continue to carry out its mission of giving students real-world exposure to IT, a fundamental part of the Woodford House ethos. Hicks like to play a part not just as IT manager, but as an instructor in IT as well. He is a former teacher, with a computer science degree also under his belt.
"This is the first year that I haven't had a class, and I miss it, although not at report time." He still gives occasional lessons, recently advising students on the pitfalls of posting material they might regret later in life to social networking sites like Bebo.
As someone with classroom experience, he knows what counts in ensuring IT equipment is used to best teaching advantage. "IT in the classroom has to be walk in, push the button and it goes, otherwise it doesn't happen.
"I suppose that's our philosophy - we try really hard to make it as available as possible for our teachers, and the same for the students."
Key Business Insights
A close relationship with an IT supplier can have more benefits than just good service. Woodford House has worked with Hastings-based IBM business partner Glenn Cook Technologies for a decade and, while a formal service level agreement is in place, the two have built up an informal rapport.
That means, says Woodford House IT manager Robin Hicks, that he can "shoot the breeze" with Glenn Cook about technology directions. What Woodford House gets out of the arrangement is exceptional IT support, while Glenn Cook gets to implement innovative solutions while managing complexity and risk.
"They understand what we're trying to do and are always prepared to go the extra distance," Hicks says.
As a result, the school has been an early adopter of some technologies. At present it is running server virtualisation software from VMware on a trial basis, with the likelihood that it will be used commercially when the school next has a need for new servers.
"From our point of view we're doing stuff that is quite involved and what I enjoy about working with Glenn Cook Technologies is that they do have the range of expertise that we need."
For his part, Glenn Cook says Woodford House's collaborative approach is much more satisfying than just selling a customer a product. "Our technical team enjoy getting alongside Woodford to complement their in-house support staff. The complex and intricate knowledge of their IT network is shared and that's a benefit and insurance with our partnership.
"There's a really good working relationship where Woodford benefit from leveraging of our technical teams' capabilities while we learn what barriers schools face in supporting a large technology infrastructure."
And with the school situated only about seven kilometres from its supplier, when IT help is needed in a hurry, it's only a matter of minutes away.
Additional resources:
Robin Hicks is a regular reader of the hands-on technology writing of Mark Minasi:
Computerworld and PC World are local IT publications that Hicks keeps an eye on:
www.computerworld.co.nz www.pcworld.co.nz
Interface is a specialist publication on the use of ICT in learning:
The Ministry of Education's Te Kete Ipurangi - The Online Learning Centre - website has useful resources for schools:
This customer story is based on information provided by Woodford House and illustrates how one organisation uses IBM products. Many factors have contributed to the results and benefits described; IBM does not guarantee comparable results elsewhere.
Subject to any rights which may not be excluded or limited, IBM makes no representations or warranties regarding non-IBM products or services.
IBM is the trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. Other company, product and services marks may be trademarks or services marks of others. © Copyright IBM Australia Limited 2008 ABN 79 000 024 733. © Copyright IBM New Zealand Limited 2008. © Copyright IBM Corporation 2008. All Rights Reserved
"Business partner" is used informally and does not imply a legal relationship
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