Spring 2014

ConnectedMaking the most of Cloud Computing

Put simply, ‘the cloud’ can be translated as being a remotelylocated group of computers where data can be stored andprocessed and then accessed over the internet. Where the actualterm ‘the cloud’ comes from, nobody is 100% certain, but manysuspect that it was partly derived from the schematic diagramthat was (and still is) often used to represent the internet!

Unlike the use of the internet, cloud computing is still at acomparatively early stage which might explain why few of usreally understand it. It has been forecasted to revolutionise the way we access, store and use digital information in thefuture and the European Commission has already developedan EU-wide strategy that will help to facilitate its growth overthe next few years.

Cloud computing brings with it a bounty of advantages fororganisations; schools and businesses alike. The hardware and storage devices that would normally be housed on sitecan now be held in the provider’s data centre and are paid forby the provider. This means that schools no longer need toinvest in bulky hardware that would need to be maintained,stored and more importantly, paid for by the school. Cloudstorage is sized to fit the needs of the users and can beadjusted at the click of a mouse, meaning that schools onlypay for what they need and IT support, services and expertiseare all included in the package so admin is significantlyreduced....... More Inside

Countdown to Bett 2014!With only two weeks to go, we’re busy packing up ourboxes in preparation for the 30th annual Bett show to beheld at the London ExCel. Last year was the first time thatwe exhibited at Bett and we’re really excited to be goingback this year!

We’ve moved our stand position for 2014 and we’ll now be rightoutside the popular Bett arena where you can hear from some of theworld’s most exciting speakers. This year’s line-up welcomes SirRanulph Fiennes, who’ll be sharing his experiences of his impressivecareer and explaining how 43,000 schools were linked to his finalexploration ‘The Coldest Journey’.......More inside

Cloud computing – it’s the latest buzz word that techies seem to be banding about with increasingregularity, but what does cloudcomputing actually mean for us?

In 2011, an IDC survey produced for the European Commissionrevealed that for 80% of organisations, a move to cloud computingwould reduce their costs by 10-20%, which is a significant saving at a time when public sector budgets are being squeezed and theeconomy is still in recovery. Having all resources stored centrallymeans that teachers and students no longer have to rely on storagedevices to transport data from one location to another. This decreasesthe risks associated with security. Plus, when all the information isstored on a central server, users have everything they need to be ableto work at home, in the library or at conferences; a necessity at a timewhen many schools are moving towards learning with mobile devices.

What about the other benefits? Well there's also the positive impacton the environment. The more efficient use of hardware will help to reduce emissions from manufacturing and building data centresthat use low energy servers and green energy will reduce emissionsfurther. According to some estimates, large companies in the UScould save $12.3 billion annually in energy consumption byswitching to cloud computing. Furthermore, the education sectorcould also save millions by reducing its use of paper and printercartridges by using online resources to replace the traditional printedlearning materials.

Through its reduced energy consumption, cloud based computingcould also provide the foundations to build better lives for those indeveloping countries. Sunlight can provide enough electricity for low-powered NetBooks which can access the cloud via 3G. According toseveral presentations at Digital Africa, there is strong evidence thatwith each 10% of any population in Africa having access to mobile orInternet technologies, there is a corresponding 1.8% increase in that

nation’s GDP. Simply bringing the Internet and education to the ruraland unwired population will improve the nation’s wealth andquality of life.

We have reached a time where cloud computing is now stable andreliable but there is still much to be done before we can exploit it toits full potential. The European Cloud Computing Strategy, which waslaunched in September 2012 and is part of The Digital Agendaforms one of the European Union's seven flagships for achieving itsten-year growth strategy. It has laid down 3 key actions it will take toencourage cloud computing; standardisation, safe and fair contractterms and the launch of a European cloud partnership, all of whichshould be ready in 2014. To find out more about the strategy, visithttps://ec.europa. eu/digital-agenda/en/european-cloud-computing-strategy

The Schools Broadband stand will also take on anew look this year, making it open plan and ourpresentation area will move to the front of thestand. We’ve got a complete program ofpresentations lined up which will includedemonstrations from our partners Fortinet andLightspeed Systems. We are also honoured towelcome guest speaker Rachel Hopper from theInternet Watch Foundation (IWF). She’ll be joiningus on Friday to give visitors a guide to the work ofthe foundation and their achievements over thelast year.

Once again we’ll be running our prize draw whichis open to both existing and non-customers andgives you the chance to win free broadband foryour school for a year. We’ll also be serving hotdrinks throughout the day, so if you’re coming toBett, why not pop by and see us for a cuppa?

Countdown to Bett 2014!.....Continued

Making the most of Cloud Computing.......Continued

Schools Broadband Stand F238

Not yet registered for this year’s Bett show? Visit www.bettshow.com to book your place.

Countdown to Bett 2014!.....ContinuedWednesday 22nd January

1.00pm - Introduction to the Fortinet ™Unified Threat Management system(UTM)

1.30pm - Lightspeed Systems mobilelearning solutions (Web Filter/MDM)

2.30pm - Introduction to My BigCampus

Friday 24th January

11.30am - Introduction to the Fortinet™ Unified Threat Managementsystem (UTM)

12.00pm - Presentation from theInternet Watch Foundation.

1.00pm - Lightspeed Systems MobileDevice Management

1.30pm - Introduction to My Big Campus

2.00pm - Introduction to the Fortinet™Unified Threat Management system(UTM)

2.30pm - Presentation from the InternetWatch Foundation

3.30pm - Lightspeed Systems web filter

Management

Thursday 23rd January

12.30pm - Introduction to the Fortinet ™ Unified Threat Managementsystem (UTM)

1.00pm - Lightspeed Systems MobileDevice Management

1.30pm - Introduction to My BigCampus

3.00pm - Introduction to the Fortinet ™Unified Threat Management system(UTM)

3.30pm - Lightspeed Systems web filter

Saturday 25th January

1.00pm - Lightspeed Systems mobilelearning solutions (Web Filter/MDM)

1.30pm - Introduction to My BigCampus

Not yet registered for this year’s Bett show? Visit www.bettshow.com to book your place.

Back to School withDavid TindallCompany director, Dave Tindall

took a walk down memory lane

when he went to visit his old

school, Prince Henry’s Grammar,

back in November.

Dave, who’s originally from Otley, WestYorkshire, was thrilled when PrinceHenry’s chose Schools Broadband toprovide their new broadband service.Together with other schools in the Leedslocal authority, Prince Henry’s faced adecision earlier in the year aboutwhether they would stay with the LeedsLearning Network or choose a new

provider. Chris Marshall, the IT NetworkManager explained why they chose us:

“For us, Schools Broadband was thenatural first choice when we werelooking for a new provider. Having made the transition from LLN to Schools Broadband at a previous school I knew we could trust them to install our system promptly andwithout any problems”

As a medium sized secondary school,Prince Henry’s chose a leased line andare now fully up and running on our new cloud system which includesLightspeed System’s content filtering. To mark the occasion, Dave met withheadteacher Janet Sheriff at the school.

Dave outside the new annexe of theschool with IT manager Chris Marshalland headteacher Janet Sheriff

Back at the old part of the school – t

his is the building

that I remember. That was my old fo

rm room up there!

The school canteen - I remember coming here for

dinner every day from being 11 to 18. It’s a shame

that lunch is over as the food was actually quite good

(what, really Dave?)

Ah – this is where I feel most at home, in thecomms cabinet. I’ll just make sure ourbroadband’s working properly.

Dave meets some ofthe school’s year 9

students.

“We’ve been lucky that we’ve had a specialist schoolsbroadband provider right on our doorstep” said Ms Sheriff.“We are keen to support local businesses and I was pleasedto discover that David is a former pupil and that his companyhas done so well at a time when many local small businesseshave struggled. Bringing employment to the area is reallyimportant, particularly as more and more young people arefinding it hard to find work after leaving school”

Dave has agreed to go back to the school to talk to the sixthformers about his experiences of setting up and running abusiness. “I think Dave could be a real inspiration to ourstudents and I hope they’ll take the opportunity to learn as much as they can from him” said Ms Sheriff.

If you've called our technical support line recently you'llhave noticed some changes in how we manage our calls.

Call volumes have increased significantly over the last fewmonths and to ensure that all callers get to speak to anengineer, we have installed a call waiting system. Whilst we understand this is not the most customer friendly ofsolutions, we do ask our customers to be patient during this busy period as things will get better.

Having a call waiting system means that we can treat all ofour customers fairly and it will help us monitor the volumeof incoming calls and plan resource more effectively.

We have also recruited two new people to the team over thelast 2 months; Scott Caley and Abdul Nawabi and arelooking for two more to join us. This will mean that we willhave doubled the number of engineers on technical supportin just under a year.

David and Tim, our company directors would like toapologise to those customers who have had to wait for longperiods of time to have their call answered. “The last thingwe want is for our customers to feel let down by our serviceand we sincerely apologise to anybody who has feltfrustrated by having to wait for longer than expected to havetheir call answered. We are aware that this is an issue andwe are currently putting plans in place that will help us see an improvement by the end of January”.

The plans include 4 60” TV screens that will be positionedaround the office so that everyone is able to view the callwaiting time and number of callers waiting to be dealt with.This means that we can ensure every engineer is in place toanswer calls during our busiest periods.

News fr m Technical Supp rt

You may remember from last term’s issue that we informed you of our plans to migrate schools from their existing

on-site Fortinet security to our dual cloud hosted solution with Lightspeed System’s web filtering. Things are well underway and we now have 81

schools on the cloud. Migration packs for secondary schools have already been sent out and this will complete the first stage of our migration project. Primary schools packs will start

to be despatched in April. If you’re keen to move to the cloud before your migration pack arrivesthen your account manager can arrange this for you. Please give us a call on 0113 3 222 333 to speak to them.

Moving to the cloud?

Our Technical Support team. Left to right: Abdul Nawabi, Luke Watson (Technical Support Manager), Rob Mason, Carl Marsden. Bottom: Scott Caley, Dan Jackson

You'll remember from our last issue that we launchedan e-safety poster competition. So that we can giveschools a greater opportunity to enter we have nowextended the entry period until the end of Februaryto tie in with Safer Internet Day.

Safer Internet Day (SID) is organised by Insafe in February ofeach year to promote safer and more responsible use of onlinetechnology and mobile phones, especially amongst childrenand young people across the world. The strapline for thisyear’s campaign is “Let’s create a better internet together” andthe date is 11 February.

To help increase awareness about how children can stay safeonline, we are looking for students to design a poster that canbe put up in school.

Some themes that students could cover in their posters are:

• Can you be sure that the person you’re talking to onlinereally is who they say they are?

• Be careful about the amount of personal information andthe photographs that you share online

• Only use websites that your parents or teachers have saidare safe

• Know how to block and report messages from those whohave scared or worried you

• Understand that what you say online can often be read bymany people, not just your friends

The winner of the best poster will have theirs printed and thiswill be sent out with our summer term issue of Connected. We are also offering a prize of an e-safety workshop for yourschool run by creative education company, One Day. There isone prize for secondary schools and one for primary.

To enter, you can send your posters by post or these can bescanned and sent via email to info@schoolsbroadband.co.uk.If you choose to email your entries, please keep the originalsas we will need a paper copy of the winning poster to be ableto print it for distribution.

Update on our E-safety competition

Terms and conditions1) The prize is a day's e-safety workshop provided by One Day Creative Ltd, that will be held at your school. This is designed for an average class size of 20-30 pupils. No cash alternativeswill be offered. 2) There are 2 prizes available, one for a UK primary school and one for a secondary school. 3) The competition is open to any school in the UK for pupils aged between 7and 15 years. Schools are not required to be Schools Broadband customers. 4) Only one entry per pupil is permitted. 5) Entries will appear on the Schools Broadband website and theSchools Broadband Facebook Page. The school will be listed but names of pupils will be withheld. 6) The deadline for the receipt of entries is Friday 28 February 2014. The winning schoolwill be notified by post or by telephone by Wednesday 12 March. To receive notification of the winning school, please send a SAE to Schools Broadband e-safety competition, Talk StraightLtd, Suite 4, Dalesway House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 9LA. 7) The workshops must be booked by 1 June 2014 and must take place between 2 June and 31 December 2014. 8)Workshop dates are subject to availability at the time of booking. 9) The school and pupil agree that their poster will be reproduced to be distributed with the next issue of Schools BroadbandConnected and that the name of the school will be listed. 10) The Promoter is : Schools Broadband (Talk Straight Ltd), Suite 4, Dalesway House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 9LA.

Produced by Schools Broadband, a division of Talk Straight Ltd. Talk Straight Ltd, Suite 4, Dalesway House, Ilkley, West Yorkshire, LS29 9LA011 33 222 333 www.schoolsbroadband.co.uk info@schoolsbroadband.co.uk

Issue 2. Spring 2014.