November 17, 2015 at 10:00 AM - Technology Committee Meeting

Discussion:  Call to order at 10:00 AM.

Discussion:  Staff: David Ludwig, Scott Isaacson, Rhonda Eis, Deb Hericks Guests: Ron Cone

Discussion:  NOC Meeting was held last week and continue to have discussion around the NE Cloud Tech Plan. Four service areas/layers: Data Center, Infrastructure, Platform, and Software. This will help provide a common language across the state. A Sub-group of the NOC affiliate was created to work on the common language. The NOC affiliate will also work on an informal needs assessment across the state. There are state-wide needs, regional needs as well as individual ESU needs across the state.

Discussion:  Scott Isaacson gave an update on the progress of work being currently done on Tech Plan. Some of the new hardware has been delivered and starting to be installed.

Discussion:  Portal implementation continue to work on putting in staging environment. The EAP (Early Adopter Program) pilot schools are currently putting their information into the staging area. Illini group has grown to include other states. These states will bring other areas of need to the group. There has been a Gates Foundation grant provided that will allow this group to gather and look at software needs across all participants in Illini Cloud. LOR (Learning Object Repository) Committee continues to meet and discuss needs to help provide a LOR of the state of NE. This group is hoping to provide a solution in early 2016. The Nebraska titles are currently being tested to streamed through the Learn360. LMS (Learning Management System). ANGEL will be sun setting this summer and schools are aware and working to move to a new solution. SMS (Student Information Management System) Canvas, Power School, ESU #3 SIMS are currently working on information in staging environment. SRS hardware is currently running on our oldest hardware. Working to move this to new equipment. Working on importing and exporting processes in the current system.

Discussion:  Seven district and one ESU connected to the staging single sign on environment. ESU 3 will continue to help add people to the environment. Have a webinar demo of process to connect schools to dashboard. Canvas and Powerschool are working on syncing issues with dates for assignments.

Discussion:  On review of the storage area network (SAN) component of the hardware purchase, the vendors discovered a flaw in the configuration of the unit as originally proposed. Additional disk drives and licensing are needed to achieve the performance and redundancy expected. The attached quote addresses these issues and results in an increase in the cost of this component of $6,558.55, from $24,200.40 originally quoted, to $30,758.95 as in the attached quote. While the cost of this SAN has increased, the project overall remains under its original budget amount of funds received from NDE.

Discussion:  It appears there is interest from multiple ESUs and the ESUCC's own backup needs to pilot a statewide COOP backup service by placing a storage and backup server in Omaha at ESU 3 that is open to all ESUs and their school districts. ESUCC would provide the base system, and implement a cost recovery model for the storage used by the ESUs and districts. One option is to contract for the equipment with IlliniCloud, who would provide the base system for $15,000. Usage under this plan would be $2/GB/year for full backup agent services with the CommVault software. This was discussed at the NOC meeting on November 12th, and the members have additional questions and suggestions for comparing similar solutions. Scott Isaacson will prepare this information for the NOC and bring their recommendation to this committee for future action.

Discussion:  Table until a later date.

Discussion:  The BlendEd Pilot is in partnership with NCSA. Put together plan that shows what the schools are signing up for and longevity of plan. Beth Kabes to present the pilot project to the Tech Committee or a webinar that could involve anyone interested. Two schools per each ESUs.

Discussion:  Scott's report through out agenda.

Discussion:  IMAT has been looking at different resources including OERs (Open Education Resources). Not looking at individual titles. Learn360 is rolling out a new platform and LOR committee will be looking at the new platform along with other possibilities. BlendEd, DEAC, IMAT and TAG will have a joint meeting on January 28, 2016.