ICT Infrastructure Management

This part of the operational documentation is to a greater extent about technology. The other chapters about service support and service delivery, is about work processes and procedures. Infrastructure management, about planning, design, deployment, and ongoing maintenance of ICT systems. The purpose is to provide ICT solutions adapted to the organisation's needs, which can be operated over time to a cost one can afford.

Good planning, administration, and management are the key to ensure a well-developed ICT service, and that the service can be adapted to changing organisational needs over time. It is about using resources well and having skills and competences required to offer a good ICT service.

Although with a good developed infrastructure, one must expect 60-70% of the cost to the operation, ie service support and service delivery. Anyway, infrastructure constitutes around 20-30% of the total costs, and one must take this part just as seriously as operations. The infrastructure chosen also affects largely what the operation will cost and what systems are able to deliver.

Most people associate infrastructure with roads, water and sewage, and power supply. Building a house requires infrastructure in place if we are to have a certain housing standard. In the computer world infrastructure is often associated with the data network. This was in the 1980s. Over the next two decades infrastructure extended to networks, computers, software and maintenance. So in this part of the documentation is all network hardware and significant portions of the software part of the infrastructure.

Even here we focus on practical planning and implementation. We have gathered concrete planning data from different municipalities with good ICT plans by budget reductions and procurement. We go through design and planning, deployment process, operation process and support. It is important to keep in mind the difference in operational terms of what Service Desk does with, for example. support, and the support operations does via, for example. network cables to school. It are basically four processes that recur at infrastructure management:

<ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"> <li><p>Design and planning process</p> <p>Development and maintenance of ICT strategies and processes for deployment and implementation of appropriate solutions in the ICT infrastructure of the organisation.</p></li> <li><p>Deployment process</p> <p>Concerns implementation and deployment of activities and / or ICT solutions designed and planned with a minimum of disruption to the organisation</p></li> <li><p>Operating process</p> <p>All activities and initiatives to deliver and/or maintain the desired use of ICT infrastructure.</p></li> <li><p>Technical support process</p> <p>The development of knowledge for evaluation, support and quality assurance of all current and future infrastructure solutions.</p></li></ol>

Design and planning

Design and planning is about providing pervasive strategic guidelines for the development and installation of an ICT infrastructure to the institution's needs. It applies not only to infrastructure networks, computers, and applications. Also basic processes must be in place to get the technology to work. It applies to both Service Desk and processes for service management.

To avoid scheduling, or to cut corners, are of great risk. Therefore it is often wise to spend a little more time and effort on planning, which will reduce risk and provide significant benefits during the implementation. Most projects strand due to lack of planning. To put in place an ITIL process in the organisation is entirely dependent on the preparation and planning, and effective use of people, processes, and products (tools and technology).

It is very important to communicate with and talk to every part of the organisation while planning ITIL. In Norway this is regulated the workers law

The objective is to deliver the right ICT solutions for your organisation. These must be easy to maintain and adapted to the school's needs. The solution must be reasonable a long time, also when the systems expands. During a design and planning process should one relate generally to a steering group and a reference group. A good project ensures to have skilled people in the steering group and people who contribute to the reference group. A good planner is clever to use these groups and other employees to bring up the good solutions.

We created a check list over activities and deliveries in a infrastructure project.

Feedback

Processes

Deliveries

As you can see extensive planning is carried out for an infrastructure project. An ICT project for schools in the municipality can quickly reach several million NOK (hundreds of thousands pounds) should one deliver 500-1000 computers with power, computer networks and software. With such amounts, it is important to have good and feasible plans with realistic budgets.

There are several examples of municipalities have underestimated the need for funding for ICT in schools. They have installed lots of nice equipment remaining unused. May be software is missing. The network may be of poor quality or it lacks power connectors. The municipality gets too fast an additional expense of 2 million NOK (around 165 000 pounds) if 800 machines in 10 schools should have computer network and power connectors.

Good development plans are made to avoid surprises. Plans are also made to ensure a proper level of ambition with a realistic budget.

Deployment

Definition:

In the plan project one will have made up status for what schools have of equipment, and how much is available. From this, create a plan to roll out new equipment, or replacing equipment at each school, and at the central operating service.

This is about placing the equipment where it is to be used. PCs to be set at the tables and connected to the computer network with a network cable. The contact is set in the electric outlet. The screen should be connect and you should put network cables in the correct switches.

The term rollout is used both for placing the equipment, and for installing software and setup on many machines. One could call it rolling out software for release management. But the word rollout is short and fine, although one should emphasise for you are talking about hardware or software, which requires totally different procedures.

Rollout management is about implementing what has been planned and designed in the release process. Getting out the equipment where it should be is often harder than we think, and takes considerable time. This is because many parties are involved either to deliver the equipment, or being among the many to receive it. In a way you could say that rollout is the same as a wheel bolt that holds the vehicle wheel in place on the shaft.

It is totally dependent on much coordination to get everything in place. One must make good tactical planning, which involves both change management and project management. One must make sure that the roll out is associated with the design and planning process.

One danger may often occur by underestimating how deployment affects existing systems. Taking in use new solutions or upgrades will affect or change the organisation. Work routines are changed and one gets new ways to solve tasks.

In school all the change means introducing ICT tools in school subjects. This is new and different for teachers. Many are unfamiliar with how the equipment can be used in teaching. At the same time an operating and maintenance service be in place to give schools a safe and stable ICT solution. This leads to changes in the organisation, which must be planned and requires resources. Therefore it is important to take this into consideration both under planning and rollout..

Roles during rollout

To build an IT infrastructure can be likened to building a house. When building a house one has readily need an architect, builder, owner, masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians and one or more supervisors (foremen). This is also the deployment of infrastructure. We have summed up the roles recommended as part of the operating standards ITIL.

As we see rollout touches many parts of the organisation. Technically are configurations and versions of software and equipment affected. Also influenced are the process of change and how work is done at the service.

One must think a bit before seeing to that people get the tasks these roles proposes. Even if one has a full in a rollout project to several hundred thousand pounds may a person has multiple roles. But it is not sure it is necessary to give the same person multiple roles, because in a rollout project it is demanding to follow up both suppliers and receivers of the equipment.

For minor upgrades and adjustments roles may soon be too many. For example, one need not to have a project manager to place a new server, or replace a switch. This is part of the infrastructure, but is very close to the operation and maintenance. The important thing here is to distinguish between a rollout in infrastructure, and operational services. Operating department will not take over the equipment before it operates as agreed. In other words, you have a transfer document where one acknowledges that the equipment is delivered as agreed.

Operations

Definition:

Operation of the equipment is about having tools and machines in place as the basis for delivering the agreed upon ICT services. Operation of the equipment has a strong focus on technology. This supports all other activities being done with ICT systems. Often operations are seen as support tucked away in an office in the end of the corridor. As a hygiene service" .First when something goes wrong, operations personnel are contacted. A good operational service is still crucial for ICT tools to work properly. Without good operation one accepts the loss of time and that tasks cannot be solved. For example can a school get problems when using tests done with ICT tools.

One may ask whether one needs operation. Needing people to operate in today's high tech world? Is there no one who has found a way to solve operational tasks automatically? Why should you have people in operation? The answer is usually that balancing between what is done automatically, and what people have to monitor An important realization is that most people want someone to talk to when a problem occurs. They want the error should be fixed, and they want feedback that everything goes smoothly. This type of error correction is not particularly easy to replace with machines.

A good operations department chooses to automate where possible. Simultaneously one need people to monitor and keep control of the automated solutions. The automation must be further developed. There are also situations where automation is insufficient. Equipment breaks, and applications crashes. You need someone who is handy and can rectify errors, or obtain substitute for what cannot be repaired.

A disorganised operations service makes a lot of working time with the firefighting and manual procedures which could have been avoided with automation. Spending time automation may soon pay off because you may release time. This is time to be used to improve our support, provide more services and raise the quality for users. To get a permanent fix of errors may sometimes people have to delay upgrades or remove services for temporary repair. This is to make time to fix the problems properly without taking any time of monitoring the system manually.

Operation is largely about preventing errors, or correct equipment with reported errors. One is often not entirely familiar with causes of an error. One must troubleshoot to find the fault. Good operations employees have flair. They use past experience to uncover errors. Then they go almost right on problem solution and correct the error.

Configuration item

A configuration element called Configuration Item (CI). It is part of an infrastructure. A configuration item often describe a wish for change or a question. May be to put in place a new service, or make adjustments to the services you already have in production. Often it is a question of upgrading some equipment, or obtain something new.

Configuration Item is an important part of configuration management when it comes to the equipment and infrastructure. Often manages configuration item if systems shall:

Technical support

Technical support shall ensure we have people with the right skills to support services provided in the computer network, a well as the people who work at the Service Desk. As part of the technical support one should have in depth documentation with technical advice. The advice should provide information, guidance and examples of rollout activities, and for the support and maintenance of all parts of the ICT service. To achieve this, the staff know, or be able to obtain information about the technologies, processes and documentation. As seen from the list technical support consists of a series of activities that must be made:

Design and planning

As an example of how infrastructure can be made, we have taken significant portions of the ICT plan for schools in Nittedal 2005-2008. We have made some adjustments, so it becomes more general, and can more easily can be copied by others.

Background for the plan

In its "Programme for Digital Competence 2004-2008" sets the Ministry of Education and Research objectives for the use of digital technology in the Norwegian school. "By 2008 we will have an infrastructure, an organisation and a culture that makes our school system to one of the world leaders when it comes to development and educational use of ICT in teaching and learning." they said.

Being able to use digital tools is defined as a basic skill for all 13 school years. Pupils development of basic skills are to be given priority in all subjects. The new curricula will mean that students must increasingly make use of digital tools when learning. Pupils should be able to use the same technology in their works, which form the basis for the final assessment, as they use when learning. When the examination is carried out using digital tools, this provides better coherence between the learning process and the final assessment.

A national survey shows computers to a limited extent are included in the subjects in primary school and computers are used little of the pupils at school. (Skolenes digitale tilstand 2003, ITU, feb. 2004)

This plan builds on "Competence Plan for schools in Nittedal (2005-2008)" and is a concretising of the national competence curriculum objectives for digital knowledge into Nittedal's schools. In addition, this is a plan for investment and resource requirements associated with the operation of our Linux network.

Expectations for ICT tools and services

We have different objectives for different groups in the school and to the different aspects of ICT commitments. Short formulated are our targets:

Through these main objectives we will achieve:

Skills needs

To build and maintain the infrastructure you need a collaboration between many different professionals. As an example, we show what equipment areas you need expertise. This is equipment areas are included as part of the infrastructure in a regular school.

Besides the different professionals needed to build the infrastructure, you will addition need:

Organisationally, this will look like this

Organisational part

Tasks

Reference group

shall represent users of the system. They will advise on measures to promote a good and everyday ICT solution for schools.

Steering group

whose mission is to ensure the project has enough resources and that project management get carried out the rollout according to the plans. The group will consist of skilled professionals who are well acquainted with project implementation, system solutions, and the use of ICT tools in schools.

The project

has the task of building the solution. The project usually consists of many sub-projects, which deliver their part of the solution.

Investments

To meet a new curriculum schools must have sufficient computers available for their students and staff. This investment plan has included the actual costs of increased fleet at schools to reach national objectives. Minimum of equipment is a client machine or pc per fourth student. Probably it will in a few years be added further requirements for more equipment, so we add up to a PC workplace for the third student. All teachers should have access to a computer in their daily work at school.

Today the school net consists of servers and thin clients at the schools, and a shared server for backup in the municipality. Since we can use used computers as client machines in our network, are not the users' computers the most expensive (we buy used equipment and receives donated equipment from industry). The major costs lie in increased need for power outlets in classrooms, and possibly an increase in electricity prices in the schools.

Since the number of concurrent users increases will also give an increase in support and operational costs. There will also be a need for tables and chairs for the new PC workplaces. In addition, all schools received a fixed expense to a broadband connection. Furthermore, we highlight the total cost doubling the equipment.

Status for pc coverage 01.06.2005 is:

  1. 8.9 students per computer in primary schools
  2. 4.4 students per computer in secondary schools.

Objective for students:

Each student group (formerly called classes) should have access to at least five computers, plus the school should have a computer room with a minimum of 15 PCs. In addition the school needs some special equipment for video editing, special education and reading/writing.

Objective for teachers:

All teachers should have access to a computer in their daily work at school.

Total number of machines:

Status per 01.06.05

Need 2008

Server status

Clients

Laptops

File servers + thin client server:

Clients

Laptops

Holumskogen

1

25

5

2

68

15

Ulverud

1

35

5

2

111

15

Slattum

1

44

8

2

87

15

Rotnes

1

35

5

2

80

15

Sørli

1

31

5

2

60

15

Kirkeby

1

31

5

2

94

15

Hagen

1

7

5

1

46

15

Li

2

70

5

2

130

30

Nittedal

1

55

20

2

110

30

Hakadal

1

45

5

2

52

30

Sum

11

378

68

29

838

195

We envisage a combination of thin clients, diskless clients and laptops. Schools should have an infrastructure making it possible to roll out thin clients in every classroom. Here students can write, calculate, using the internet and make presentations. In addition the school will have the opportunity to lend laptops to different groups. In this way students get close to full PC coverage in certain work situations. The laptops are connected to servers in wireless networks. In this way teaching becomes more flexible.

Pupils

We recommend an investment providing at least one client computer per third student, something the government has stated its goal of ICT tools in schools. To achieve this we need closer to a doubling of the number of client machines.

Status and objectives

To reach our target we need to increase the machine park from 506 to 1033 machines. This is an increase of just under 600 machines. (thin clients, diskless clients and notebooks).

Costs

We have counted with these prices, which may b e subject to price change:

Newer used equipment has more performance than the machines that were available for 3-4 years ago. Have the users machines 256 MB of memory and 800 MHz processor these fit as diskless clients. This simplifies support for using the CD / DVD player, audio, USB stick and similar.

2006

2007

2008

Total

Thin clients and diskless workstations

130,000

130,000

130,000

322,000

Servers

500,000

500,000

1,000,000

Monitors

80,000

80,000

80,000

230,000

Laptops

340,000

340,000

340,000

1,020,000

Other: switches, cables,

150,000

150,000

150,000

450,000

Power plug/cables

290,000

290,000

290,000

870,000

Tables/chairs

190,000

190,000

190,000

570,000

Increased resources, operations

700,000

Licence costs on portable machines

40,000

40,000

40,000

120,000

Broadband agreements

100,000

100,000

100,000

300,000

Sum

5,582,000

Other purchase options

There has been a growing interest from both politicians, parents and teachers to go over to laptops in secondary schools. Portables and wireless network will give schools a completely different flexibility in room layout and teaching.

The problem with only focusing on laptops is:

Roughly this option a price tag for a total 12 million NOK, just over 1 million pounds. (This does not include insurance costs)

Teachers

Each teacher should have access to a client machine at the school.

Status and objectives

Status: Schools today has approximately 65 PCs divided among approximately 266 employees. This gives a pc coverage on 4 teachers per PC.

We want to give advantage to the teachers in Nittedal. The new curriculum sets high requirements for teachers ICT skills. It will be necessary to ensure that all teachers in Nittedal have access to a computer. Today's teacher plans and implements teaching on and with data. They document and report, write weekly plans, work plans, annual plans and IEPs. More and more teachers use e-mail for contact home/school.

Schools have already arranged to buy computers to their staff. This has led to the number of computers varies from school to school. We wish that all teachers should have access to a computer in their work.

Here we outline two options to achieve full PC coverage for teachers in Nittedal.

Costs

Option 1: Thin clients in combination with portables. This will give each teacher access to a thin client + that 3.3 teachers share access to one laptop.

cost

Total cost

Alternative 1

Thin clients

140,000

Monitors

100,000

Laptops

640,000

Other: switches, cables,

80,000

Tables, chairs

140,000

Power outlet/cabling

400,000

License costs

40,000

Total

1,540,000

Additional for flatscreen

200,000

Totally with LCD

1,740,000

The advantage of the thin clients to teachers are the low cost of procurement. We can also expect a longer lifetime of the thin clients compared to laptops.

But reused equipment are often without flatscreen. Cabinet to client machines can be large, giving space shortage in the workplace for teachers. Should we obtain a flatscreen to all teachers, one must triple the cost of going from 500, - NOK ( 43 £ ) to 1500, - NOK. The total cost would increase by 200,000 NOK. Overall equipment to teachers cost 1.74 million NOK ( 150,000 £ ).

Other purchase options

Option 2: Portables to all teachers

cost

Total cost

Alternative 2

Laptops

2,128,000

Wireless switches etc.

80,000

Power plug

75,000

License cost

117,000

2,400,000

The problem we see is the actual location of the thin clients. Teachers have little work desks often in large common rooms. A thin client per teacher with old type monitors will create a space problem in all schools. The problem is greatly reduced if one chooses flatscreens.

The advantage of portables are that they require little space. Teachers can easily bring their work home. The disadvantage is the lifespan of a portable, around half compared with stationary equipment. It is reasonable to assume that the maintenance of the laptop is twice as expensive as desktop PCs, and three to four times more costly to operate than the thin or diskless clients.

In the period 2005 to 2008 we put up the following recommendation for an IT infrastructure at the schools.

Number

Article

Cost

600

Thin clients or diskless workstations including all infrastructure

5,582,000

200

Thin clients or diskless workstations with flatscreen and all infrastructure

1,740,000

800 client machines in total

Total

7,322,000

Software, learning platforms, and services

Where software runs, depends on infrastructure and capacity of the network. It's fine to operate all installations on schools from a central location, for example from ICT services in the municipality or a centrally located operation.

One must take into account that network capacity to schools can provide limits to how much schools can download at the same time, or where it is most optimal to place servers if you want full functionality of the equipment. There is a big difference whether a single teacher downloads a film from for example NRK, or about 30 students doing this simultaneously. If the shool has 1.5 Mbit/s broadband capacity, it is not possible for 30 simultaneous users to download the movie directly from NRK. Then you must have buffers in place at the school.

Check list centralisation

UNINETT ABC has made a document with recommendations <<FootNote(Recommendations of UNINETT ABC: http://www.uninettabc.no/?p=veiledning&amp;sub=annet )>> related to the centralisation of ICT operations. It gives advice about the placement of servers and which operational tasks that may be centralised from the available capacity of the bandwidth to the school.

General measures to improve the operation of clients and servers

Thin or diskless clients against local serversLockdown of thick clientsLocal server machines

Remote operationCentralisation of some functionsLocal server machines

Server machines regionally/nationallyCentralisation of all operations

Capacity on the schools' network

Low bandwidth (ISDN)

Medium bandwidth (ADSL and the like)

High bandwidth (fiber and the like)

Software

In the new curriculum (L2006) is the use of digital tools highlighted as one of the "basic skills". We wish that the use of ICT should not only include teaching, but increasingly be an educational and administrative tools to support learning activity, new forms of learning and provide easy access to knowledge. Making experience with the use of digital learning platforms, is one of the objectives of competence plan. The aim was that one or more schools tried out this in 2006.

Research shows limited use computer equipment to learning in school. Data usage has stagnated and in some subjects gone back research shows (ITU Monitor 2005). The use of ICT in schools is often individualized, students learn to become consumers. One has learning methods that prevent the sharing of knowledge in school. Few teachers use ICT daily. Internet and text-related services are the most important forms of computer use in schools.

Simply said, teachers focus too much on teachers using tools for office administrative work such as MS Office or OpenOffice.org. What they ought to focus on was the use of simulations, editing pictures, audio and video communication on the Internet, and games.

Home use is often quite different. At home students are producers and use ICT mostly collective and communicative. They put together and send each other pictures, exchanging content, using the major opportunities for recording, editing and sharing of movies which is possible with today's computers with broadband. Children and young people also play video games more at home than at school (ITU Monitor 2005).

Scientists say that video games are one of the main leisure activities of children and young people are concerned. Every fourth child playing every day (Youth Agency 2006). Video games are a social activity. In the wake of the games occurs both virtual and physical community, from playing together on consoles to participate in gatherings where young can play.

An important task is that the school development contributes to update general education perspective in the general part of the curriculum. Allowing digital judgement or digital education developed in relation to steps and learning strategies, as stated by the national Research and Resource Centre for ICT in education.

To get all the equipment more in use, requires considerable effort by the teacher. They must be continually educated in new forms of learning to use the new ICT tool in their teaching. There must be more emphasis on the youth's actual use of media and forms of communication. It is not enough to provide a learning platform and e-mail. You should have the tools fully support the new forms of media use.

To achieve this, the equipment must be adapted to the software and online services teachers and students use in their schoolwork. The browser is arguably the most important program students use in learning. Many will also be surprised that office program OpenOffice.org or MS Office is very relevant in lower grades. Then it is simple program to write a paper, drawings, communication, simulations and music forming apply. So what is important in the choice of software is to provide good access to the Internet and support for active learning using ICT tools relevant the school subjects.

With diskless clients you get full support for multimedia, film and USB stick and more. The advantage of thin clients are getting reusing from as far back as 1995. At that time the machines did not have capacity to video. The USB standard was not fully developed. Computers from 2000 and later usually have a much higher capacity. Such machines can fine show clips video from NRK, DVDs, and one can play games.

The advantage of diskless clients is they provide the same performance as so-called thick clients or computers with most of the software installed locally. At the same time one get the same low operating costs with diskless clients as with thin clients. This is because all the software managed central server machine.

Today it comes over 50 the school relevant programs in Skolelinux. In addition, browser, email client and OpenOffice.org with 8 different office applications. This is much more than what comes with Microsoft which mostly offers browser, e-mail and 5 current office tools.

With Debian Edu, it is also relatively easy to customize menus for the various stages of education so that we can reduce the number of educational programs. Especially since some applications are introduced in 4th-5th grade. While programs may be popular at first or second stages of education will be too easy when students have gotten older and learned more. In addition, there is an increasing number of educational programs on the Internet. This is software working on any platform. So you can use the programs at home on Apple or Windows, and the school's Debian Edu. Students handle this just fine.

Learning platforms

Various digital learning platforms are found on the market. Some cost money, others are free. Common for all are offering teachers and students an area where they can share and store documents, send and receive information.

Product

Price example:

Digital learning platform

It`s learning

3300,- NOK per school per year

School network

Free

Online services

Regardless of bandwidth following functions can be centralized:

Checklist for services that can be centralized or replicated. For example can backup be centralized. The same applies to the user database with a central directory server (LDAP) with replication to each school.

Services

Description

Local

Central

Apache

Webserver allows all users to create a website

CUPS

Print server. The aim is that it will also manage print quotas

DHCP

Automatic connection of computers in the network

DNS

Name server

LDAP

Directory server containing user data for logon, file sharing and group information

LTSP

Thin client server

NFS

Network file system

NTP

Clock server so that all machines have the correct time

SMTP/IMAP over SSL

Email to everyone locally at the school

SSH

Remote control over encrypted connection

Squid

Cache for web sites (to save bandwidth)

Webmin

System management via the web browser

User administration

Simplified user administration

Backup

Backup (should be done on a separate machine)

SMB

Samba for connecting Windows-computers

cfengine

Automatic control of the system setup

Host and service monitoring

Monitoring the health of the server machine

Appletalk

Connecting Macs

SQL-server

Supplied (not set up)

Use of resources to operations

For the daily operation of the schools computers each school has an ICT contact. ICT contacts have from 2 to 4 hours allocated to this work pr. week. In addition, the municipality has an ICT tutor in 50% position working with, among other things, competence and operations. The operation of the Linux network would gradually be transferred to the municipal ICT service in the school year 2005-2006.

On behalf of Debian Edu, Kapp næringshage (business park) made a calculation program which stipulates the use of resources for ICT in schools. Today we operate schools network with over 3000 users of 2.1 FTEs. (Schools ICT contacts has allocated a total of 1.6 FTEs for their work, and 0.5 FTEs in the municipality). When Kapp næringshage calculates our resource requirements on operation stipulates the current needs to be 4.6 FTEs. This shows that the school has managed much with few resources.

Increased resources must primarily be placed in schools, because the schools ICT contacts are getting busier when the number of pcs go up. Increased number of pcs means increased use, and increased need for guidance in educational use of ICT tools.

The maintenance will increase in relation to multiple simultaneous users, but the machine maintenance will increase almost linearly with respect to the number of machines. We want to focus more on the educational use of the equipment, and that most of the increase is inserted on the use of ICT tools in school subjects.

There will also be a somewhat greater need for increased resources on the municipality's ICT service, but because. economies of scale, the increase here will be small.

Today it is difficult for schools to prioritize hours to an ICT contact. Both because money for this must be taken from an already stressful school finance, and because schools have lacked guidance on what and how much ICT contacts at schools will perform.

Operations' roles

The duties of ICT contact at each school:

From experience, we calculate these tasks to a minimum of 4 hours a week job for a school with 50 thin or diskless clients on a school. Has the school a smaller number of machines reduces the number of hours a bit. With increased number of machines, for example. 150 machines, requires the local ICT contact at each school around a 30% position to easy technical maintenance.

If the school can't set aside a sufficient number of hours to the ICT contact, must duties in the work list above be removed, and the opposite if the school may use more hours.

Tasks beyond this, for example updating a website, be instructor (beyond normal collegial guidance), must be agreed individually for compensation/taking time off.

ICT supervisor recommends the following tasks for ICT and ICT service supervisor.

Operations:

Skills:

How much of central operating resources being required, depends much on which client types you have selected. Operation of workstations is almost twice as expensive for the operation of diskless clients.

Operation and support costs

The definition of operating costs:

We have described what is a realistic operating environment, considering a moderate level of service with proactive operation. The Norwegian "Program for digital kompetanse" is the basis for our assessments.

Proactive operation is to discover and rectify errors before they touch the users. An example of proactive operation is to update laptops with new disk images once a week. When teachers log in the morning the day after, all the machines are reset so the school will have it.

Operations get messages about defects in the system before it goes wrong for users. Defects are rectified and bugs fixed before users notice anything. A system example that provides messages used to proactive operation is disk store. They can notify when a hard disk is defective, or if the disk cache is full. Operations can also get information if the computer network is available, or whether processes must be terminated when users logs out.

When we expand the fleet at schools this must have an impact on both ICT contacts' working resource and municipal ICT service for schools.

To quantify the need, we have estimated increased resource requirements in some of our investment options:

Investments

Servers

The number of clients/portables

Users

Stipulated resource needs in 2008

Today's real resource:

Today's need 2005:

11

506

More than 3000

4.6 FTEs (man-year)

2,1 FTEs

Pupils in 2008

29

1033

More than 3000

6,9 FTEs

Teachers in 2008

Alternative 1

280

266

4,3 FTEs

Alternative 2 (laptop)

266

266

5,9 FTEs*

Costs for operation of all computers for students and teachers. We expect from Option 1 with the thin clients for students and teachers, and some laptops.

Year

Number of PCs

Central operator

ICT guide for the entire municipality

ICT-contact at each schools (average)

In total

2005

506

1/2 FTE

1/2 FTE

8,5 % FTE(3:30 hours per week)

2,1 FTEs

2005

Personnel costs for operations*

NOK 980 910,-

2008

1333

1 position

1/2 FTE

100 % FTE(26 hours per week)

11,5 FTE

2008

Personnel costs for operations*

NOK 5 400 00,-

Alternative 2 with laptops for every teacher:

Year

Number of PCs

Central operator

ICT guide for the entire municipality

ICT-contact at each schools (average)

In total

2008

1333

1 + 4/5 FTE*

1/2 FTE

100 % FTE(26 hours per week)

12,8 FTEs

2008

Personnel costs for operations*

NOK 6,000,000.-

Training costs for students and teachers is roughly the same with Windows and Linux, the surveys done in schools in Norway and the UK show. This is because the training is related to the use by end user programs in everyday school life.

We included additional training costs for Linux. When all teachers have one day going through the Linux desktop option, the transition to the new system goes easier for those who think they only can Windows. The cost for displays like LærerIKT and similar are not fitted in, as we have done in the cost overview from the municipalities in this survey.

Summary of the options

To achieve the objective of one computer per third student and one pc per teacher Option 1 is recommended. This option requires over 800 additional computers compared to current coverage of 506 client machines. Overall, we will then get just over 1300 client computers with emphasis on thin and diskless clients. Some machines will also be portable to provide additional flexibility in everyday school life.

Alternatives

Cost over 3 years

Option 1: Development of 800 clients

NOK 7,322,000.-

Option 2: Portable to all teachers + Option 1.

NOK 12,000,000.-

Operating costs:

Alternatives

Yearly costs

Alternative 0. Administrating 506 client machine

NOK 1,000,000.-

Option 1. Increases with 800 to 1300 PCs

NOK 5,400,000.-

Option 2. Portable to to all teachers*

NOK 6,000,000.-

Option 3. Portable room layout*

NOK 8,000,000.-

The large increase in operating expenses from current option 0 to option 1 due investment in ICT contact at schools. This increases from 10% to a full 100% FTE. The maintenance ICT contacts do today is around 10% FTE. This will probably increase to 20% with a doubling of the number of client machines. On increase to a full-time position, 80% will be used to support the educational use of ICT tools in school subjects. This means that principals at school must allocate resources for this, so that one follows the national curriculum from 2006.

Recommendation

Alternative 1:

Type of cost

Amount

Of this is operation of 1300 client computers:

NOK 2,000,000.-

Annual investment in three years:

NOK 2 440 667,-

Support for educational use of ICT tools:

NOK 3,400,000.-

Annual cost for Option 1 with investment and operations:

NOK 7,841,000.-

Attachment

Many schools have developed an activity plan for the use of ICT in the school. This should be included as attachment.