Template User Instructions iii
Microsoft Technology Blueprint for Primary and Secondary Schools
Published: May 2007
For the latest information, please see www.microsoft.com/education/blueprint.mspx
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Contents
Overview 1
Chapter Summary 1
Who Should Read the Blueprint 2
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Blueprint 3
Infrastructure Optimization Model 3
Self Assessment 5
Chapter 2: Educational Institution Objectives 7
Raising Academic Standards/Lack of Visibility into Student Progress 7
Business Management: Inefficient Operations and a Lack of Insight into Where Money Is Spent 7
Communication and Access to Information for Parents and Students 8
Curriculum and Lesson Sharing Among Educators 8
Chapter 3: Basic Optimization Level 9
Raising Academic Standards/Lack of Visibility into Student Progress 9
Business Management: Inefficient Operations and a Lack of Insight into Where Money Is Spent 9
Communication and Access to Information for Parents and Students 10
Curriculum and Lesson Sharing Among Educators 10
Basic IT Infrastructure 10
Moving to Standardized 10
Chapter 4: Standardized Optimization Level 21
Raising Academic Standards/Lack of Visibility into Student Progress 21
Business Management: Inefficient Operations and a Lack of Insight into Where Money Is Spent 21
Communication and Access to Information for Parents and Students 22
Curriculum and Lesson Sharing Among Educators 22
Standardized IT Infrastructure 23
Moving to Rationalized 23
Chapter 5: Rationalized Optimization Level 39
Raising Academic Standards/Lack of Visibility into Student Progress 39
Business Management: Inefficient Operations and a Lack of Insight into Where Money Is Spent 39
Communication and Access to Information for Parents and Students 39
Curriculum and Lesson Sharing Among Educators 40
Rationalized IT Infrastructure 40
Moving to Dynamic 40
Chapter 6: Dynamic Optimization Level 43
Raising Academic Standards/Lack of Visibility into Student Progress 43
Business Management: Inefficient Operations and a Lack of Insight into Where Money Is Spent 43
Communication and Access to Information for Parents and Students 43
Curriculum and Lesson Sharing Among Educators 43
Dynamic IT Infrastructure 44
Links 47
Resources 47
Case Studies 51
Acknowledgements 55
Overview
As the world becomes more dependent on technological advances, planning for and managing technology become more and more essential. And although prudent management of technology is important to business and governments, it is perhaps even more critical to educational institutions, which frequently have very limited resources so that the cost of failure can be extremely high.
The Microsoft Technology Blueprint for Primary and Secondary Schools provides guidance to assist educational institutions in fully utilizing their current technology and migrating from their current state to a more efficient and effective institution. Because each school has unique issues, priorities, and resources, no Technology Blueprint can be expected to address the specific needs of all schools. Although educational institutions have very specialized requirements, many lessons that have been learned in the business world can apply to the needs of educational institutions.
Chapter Summary
The Blueprint is comprised of the following chapters:
· Overview. The overview provides an introduction to the Blueprint and describes the topics that each chapter covers.
· Chapter 1, Introduction to the Blueprint. This chapter provides an introduction to the Infrastructure Optimization (IO) Model and describes the four levels of technological maturity on which the Blueprint focuses. In addition, the chapter describes the five capabilities that are required to build a more agile IT infrastructure.
· Chapter 2, Educational Institution Objectives. This chapter describes the technical challenges that educational institutions face and summarizes the objectives upon which the Blueprint focuses.
· Chapter 3, Basic Optimization Level. This chapter provides an introduction to the Basic level of the IO model. It describes some of the tools that schools at the Basic level use to address technical challenges. In addition, the chapter describes some of the processes and advantages of moving from Basic to the Standardized level.
· Chapter 4, Standardized Optimization Level. This chapter discusses how schools at the Standardized level address technical challenges and describes some of the advantages of moving from Standardized to the Rationalized level.
· Chapter 5, Rationalized Optimization Level. This chapter describes how schools at the Rationalized level integrate tools and processes to address technical challenges. It also provides a high level description of the advantages of moving from the Rationalized level to Dynamic.
· Chapter 6, Dynamic Optimization Level. This chapter introduces the Dynamic level and describes how schools at this level integrate tools and processes.
· Links. This section provides URL links to all of the resources and case studies that the Blueprint references.
· Acknowledgements. This section lists the people who contributed to the creation of the Blueprint.
Who Should Read the Blueprint
The intended audience for the Blueprint includes school IT professionals, consultants, and systems architects, who are responsible for the planning stages of application or infrastructure development of a schools. Although written primarily for these roles, the Blueprint may also be helpful to the school educational leadership (Board Members, Superintendents, Ministries, etc.)
Feedback
Please direct questions and comments about this guide to .
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Blueprint
The Microsoft Technology Blueprint for Primary and Secondary Schools is designed to help IT support staff and education decision makers plan for IT upgrades for the schools. In addition, the Blueprint provides a means for the staff to identify gaps in their environment that prevent them from moving forward with plans to increase the use of technology in schools, as well as to identify where additional technology gains can be made with the existing deployments. Finally it provides the foundation for a scalable, safe computing environment upon which the school can build additional services.
The Blueprint uses the Core Infrastructure Optimization (IO) Model for as its basis. Although the Core IO model has multiple levels, the majority of the Blueprint focuses on moving from the Basic level to the Standardized level and from the Standardized level to the Rationalized level. Studies suggest that the majority of schools are at the Basic level. The Core IO model is comprised of the following levels:
· Basic. Schools at the Basic level rely on manual, localized processes, have minimal central control, and lack enforced IT policies and standards for security, backup, image management and deployment, compliance, and other common IT practices.
· Standardized. At the Standardized level, schools maintain standards and policies to manage desktops and servers, to control the way computers are introduced into the network, and use Active Directory to manage resources, security policies, and access control.
· Rationalized. At the Rationalized level, the costs involved in managing desktops and servers are at their lowest and processes and policies have been optimized to play a large role in supporting the school.
· Dynamic. The Dynamic level is characterized by IT systems that are self-managing and dynamic. When educational institutions reach this level, IT teams capture and use knowledge to design and deploy manageable systems and automate ongoing operations using system models.
The Core Infrastructure Optimization Implementer Resource Guide: Basic to Standardized provides significant detail about what is required to move an organization from Basic to Standardized. The Core Infrastructure Optimization Implementer Resource Guide: Standardized to Rationalized provides significant detail about what is required to move an organization from Standardized to Rationalized.
NoteAdditional guides are planned to address the movement between other optimization levels. As they become available, this document will be refreshed to reflect those new guides.
Infrastructure Optimization Model
The Infrastructure Optimization (IO) Model helps customers realize dramatic cost savings for their IT infrastructure by moving toward a secure, defined, and highly automated environment. Security improves from vulnerable in a Basic infrastructure to dynamically proactive in a more mature infrastructure. IT infrastructure administrative and managerial processes change from highly manual and reactive to highly automated and proactive.
Microsoft and its partners provide the technologies, processes, and procedures to help customers move along the infrastructure optimization path. Processes move from fragmented or nonexistent to optimized and repeatable. Customers' ability to use technology to improve their business agility and deliver business value increases as they move from the Basic level to the Standardized level, the Rationalized level, and finally to the Dynamic level.
The IO Model has been developed by industry analysts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), and Microsoft, derived from experiences with its enterprise customers. A key goal for Microsoft in creating the IO Model was to develop a simple way to use a maturity framework that is flexible and can easily be used as the benchmark for technical capability and business value.
The Core IO Model defines five capabilities that are required to build a more agile IT infrastructure:
· Identity and Access Management. Describes how customers should manage people and asset identities, solutions that should be implemented to manage and protect their identity data, and how to manage access to resources from mobile users, customers and/or partners outside of a firewall.
· Desktop, Device and Server Management. Describes how customers should manage desktops, mobile devices, and servers as well as how to deploy patches, operating systems, and applications across the network.
· Security and Networking. Describes what customers should consider implementing in their IT infrastructure to help guarantee that information and communication are protected from unauthorized access while at the same time provides a mechanism to protect their IT infrastructure from denial of service attacks and viruses while preserving access to corporate resources.
· Data Protection and Recovery. Provides structured or disciplined backup, storage, and restore management. As information and data stores proliferate, organizations are under increasing pressure to protect that information and provide cost-effective and time-efficient recovery when required.
· IT and Security Process. Provides proven best practice guidance on how to cost-effectively design, develop, operate, and support solutions while achieving high reliability, availability, and security. While rock-solid technology is necessary to meet demands for reliable, available, and highly secure IT services, technology alone is not sufficient; excellence in process and people (skills, roles, and responsibilities) is also needed. This capability is comprised of two processes, Security Process and ITIL/COBIT-Based Management Process, each of which is addressed separately in the Blueprint.
Core IO Model Capability Requirements
The following image lists the requirements for each capability to advance through the optimization levels.
Figure 1. Overview of Core IO Model Capability Requirements
Self Assessment
Prior to implementing any of the recommendations within this document, IT staff should perform a self assessment of the environment to see where they fall within the IO model. They may find that they do not have to implement all the recommendations to move to the next optimization level because they have implemented them previously.
Microsoft has a simple online self-assessment tool that IT staff can use to determine the optimization level of the organization. The tool asks a series of “yes” or “no” questions and based on the responses produces a Web page that outputs the results. The following graphic shows an example of the simple chart that the self assessment tool produces.
Figure 2. Self Assessment Results Chart