EDTECH: Where does your school district fall on the cloud journey?
Pen: If we modern curriculum, We've moved almost 100% to the cloud. If we're talking about business applications, it's probably 50%. Five years ago, we had between 130 and 140 servers. We're up to 50 Windows servers up and running Microsoft To move 40 of them to Azure. Once we move it, we won't have any local application servers. We will have five to 10 local servers networks Equipment, print servers, electronic door locks and Security cameras.
Dixon: It's about 90%. We have moved your email to Microsoft 365. Most of our resources are in Azure, in terms of infrastructure as a service. We have moved Financial Data and PeopleSoft to Oracle Cloud. We've also moved our building management, student information, and library distribution systems to the cloud.
Related to: Why K-12 schools are modernizing with hyperconverged infrastructure.
My rice: Maybe 30%. We're migrating a library application, so it'll probably hit 40% in the spring. We started five years ago when we migrated our web presence to… Amazon Web Services. We use Azure Stack HCI for hyperconverged infrastructure, so we connect on-premises infrastructure to Azure services. We're a Microsoft Store, so we use Microsoft 365 and Entra ID. We use the cloud for disaster recovery. We also test data models and use a cloud-based data warehouse.
Brinkman: About 90% of our enterprise applications have been moved to the cloud. We use AWS and some Azure. ERP is our last major core application to move to Oracle Cloud, so we'll be hitting 95% soon. We will always have a small local presence, mostly for the network, but there are also some smaller applications that control refrigerators, air conditioners, and security.
Express: We've definitely seen an uptick with Independent schools Moving to the cloud in recent years. I can tell you anecdotally that more schools have realized that cloud providers can provide more robust security, access, and uptime than they can achieve with on-site IT staff.
EDTECH: What are the biggest benefits you've seen from the cloud?
Express: For charter schools, the ultimate benefit is enhanced security. Accessibility is another key feature, allowing faculty, staff, and students to access applications and data from anywhere. It also reduces the IT burden, with less maintenance and fewer updates to manage. Finally, it provides cost efficiencies through predictable subscription pricing, reducing the need for significant capital expenditures on hardware and software licenses.
