tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post4722884194467746512..comments2024-02-12T10:55:56.164-08:00Comments on Shift to the Future: Future of IT Services – Part 2Brian Kuhnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565982072371979984noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-49642399437908599862010-01-20T09:04:24.941-08:002010-01-20T09:04:24.941-08:00I found this post: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/c...I found this post: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/cole/fully-clouded-by-2012/?cs=38781#cf that reflects my thinking here. It's a little more aggressive in the timeline "2012" but similar thinking.Brian Kuhnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12565982072371979984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-31280340546295887682010-01-09T14:34:54.953-08:002010-01-09T14:34:54.953-08:00My concern today around privacy with any of the ed...My concern today around privacy with any of the education hosted services is changes in terms of service. Google recently changed their TOS to include any publicly shared document in google apps would now be included in their indexed search results for the unwashed masses. Think about this one for a second.<br /><br />Lets say that I had just moved there. We are a small district, 2400 student, 190 teachers, another 300 staff. A teacher goes and uses google apps to make a small classroom related website and posts several documents there so students can access it online from any terminal. The documents were not indexed by the search engine (name, or contents) as this was desirable. Now the change in the TOS comes through. It comes with the other 80 emails that come per day to a generic adminstrator. The admin reads it, understands what it means, and sends an email out to all the teachers. The few teachers that actually understand this take steps to secure their documents, and start getting their students to sign in everytime they need access to something. No big deal.<br /><br />But, you get the some who don't understand what this means. The ones who cause trouble with their own ignorance. This simple change in privacy turns into a massive issue and a headache I don't want to deal with. It becomes a distraction from education, a distraction from the job, and a distraction to all our teachers who are now questioning the security of their stuff.<br /><br />One person is easy to reason with. An ignorant trouble maker can take a TOS change and run with it for months. That one ignorant user turns into an unruly mob in 60 seconds.<br /><br />This seems to happen frequently with hosted services (Google, Facebook, etc).<br /><br />I'm not sure that for someone delivering services if its worth the headache.<br /><br />Ironically the *exact* same thing could happen in house. But it wouldn't make the news, it wouldn't get the masses stirred up, and instead the action of notifying folks of the change with recommendations on what to do would be seen in a trustworthy light. <br /><br />Anyways, those are my 7am thoughts. TDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-89358052709731102222010-01-09T14:32:42.617-08:002010-01-09T14:32:42.617-08:00I'm very interested in your research on the pr...I'm very interested in your research on the privacy question around using Live@EDU and/or Google. I am considering moving Student email out to Microsoft for free as a starting point but haven't done the research yet on privacy.Brian Kuhnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12565982072371979984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-74093760160818621012010-01-09T14:31:27.502-08:002010-01-09T14:31:27.502-08:00Its interesting the timing of your question about ...Its interesting the timing of your question about what services we might deliver in 5-10 years. We are currently in the process of selecting a replacement for FirstClass, and we have both Microsoft Live@EDU and Google Apps on the table. The goal is to move towards something either free, or inexpensive. The biggest issue I see around moving anything to the cloud is lack of control, and future difficulty moving back in house. If the transition was easy both ways this would be an easier decision for is.<br /><br />I also have concerns about privacy, ownership of data, and rights management to moving to the cloud. It does not mean that I (we) am not seriously considering it.<br /><br />What I've really been liking in the public education system is the flexibility we have in combining open source and commercial software to find the best solution for a problem. All our web servers are Linux. Our threat management software is linux, our firewalls are FreeBSD. But if we decide to keep our messaging in house, we are considering both Zimbra and MS Exchange. Both have similar hardware requirements, which is to say very light for 2000 users where simultaneous count never exceeds 200 and typical load is around 40.<br /><br />What I like here is that the educational discounts are so deep that we can pick up MS Exchange for under $200 with 3 years of Software assurance. We get our CALS as part of the MS ERAC bundle. When you compare to Zimbra, to stay within that same price range we end up with a community supported platform that does not have all the enterprise features of the closed source platform.<br /><br />It's an interesting argument.<br /><br />So what do I see coming? I see the cloud being a fad. My crystal ball predicts a bit of a shake up in confidence, and I think the google model might fail. Instead I see a hybrid approach of in-house open and closed source projects ruling the day to day desktop, and the cloud remaining to be niche tools (twitter, facebook, social networking in general) focusing on mobile toys. TDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-85621404435848266722010-01-09T14:28:56.808-08:002010-01-09T14:28:56.808-08:00I'm currently of the opinion that a large reas...I'm currently of the opinion that a large reason for the percieved need for this shift is a lack of understanding what a progressive IT group does on a day to day basis. Moving towards a core ITIL organization I strongly believe is key in not only communicating the services supplied, but more importantly making sure that those services really do get delivered along with appropriate metrics. Tripping over what exactly services are delivered is semantics. TDAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-43355995539276006862010-01-08T18:49:35.861-08:002010-01-08T18:49:35.861-08:00Hi James - your comment about leaving it open to f...Hi James - your comment about leaving it open to figure out later - no choice there, way to hard to figure out now :-) Thanks for your posts and the UBC example, interesting ways to use the web keep popping up all over the place.Brian Kuhnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12565982072371979984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-48720896224348869942010-01-08T14:19:29.008-08:002010-01-08T14:19:29.008-08:00Just found an neat article about Cloud Computing a...Just found an neat article about Cloud Computing at UBC...<br /><br />http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/news/item/ubc_partners_with_documentcloud_on_first_canadian_j-school_investigative_pr/James McConvillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15525273178980214252noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-75146541864675357422010-01-08T13:44:31.811-08:002010-01-08T13:44:31.811-08:00Great questions to leave us with. As far as what ...Great questions to leave us with. As far as what district should run (own) is the one that I'd suggest we leave the most open to figure out later. You mentioned SumoPaint in your post, that is a outstanding example of a program that ever two years ago I couldn't have imagined that would be possible to be web-based after being a PhotoShop user for year.<br /><br />We can't yet imagine the possibilities of what will exist in the three clouds that you describe. <br /><br />The future is exciting!<br />JamesJames McConvillehttp://jamesmcconville.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1668205114513391831.post-21810227246184518152010-01-06T13:08:36.360-08:002010-01-06T13:08:36.360-08:00Good comments. Also good way to view as free, fee...Good comments. Also good way to view as free, fee, internal and role of managing those<br />daveAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com