Part 3: IT Strategic Plan

1. Abbotsford School District #34 Building a Strong and Optimized IT Foundation for the 21st Century Part 3: IT Strategic Plan David Ell Educational Consultant IBM K-12 Education Viktor Kvrgic Ba.A.Sc., CNA, MCSE, CCENT Senior IT Architect IBM K-12 Education

2. Executive Summary During the time we spent at the Abbotsford School District #34, we have found them to be a progressive board that is determined to achieve its goals. We observed many initiatives that were intended to assist teachers to better engage students and increase their achievement levels. These initiatives included using many of the latest technologies to which the students are accustom outside of the school environment. This progressive attitude will be a critical component as the district begins to make its next steps through the IT optimization roadmap. Overall, we found that the school district’s IT operations are in good technical shape thanks to their leadership team. The above mentioned initiatives have been implemented to the best of their abilities but they are not nearly as effective as they could be. The end users are not reaping the benefits that they should be, and in fact, are somewhat frustrated from the many unique initiatives. Before the district creates another initiative, there needs to be some fundamental changes. Otherwise, any additional changes are likely to be ineffective. We have found that there is no central plan regarding technology in general and because of this, there has become a disconnect between the various initiatives. This will need to change. As long as the time is taken to action this report, we are confident that School District #34 can repair the issues identified rather quickly and then continue on its journey of being a leader in its use of technology in the education of its youth.

3. Summary - The guiding principles for a Strategic Plan The guiding principles for a 3 to 5 years Strategic Plan: • Empower teachers with the necessary tools and resources needed to improve students’ academic achievement. • Increase teachers technological competency. • Increase availability and accessibility to electronic resources and knowledge base resources for students and teachers and staff members. • Empower the IT Staff to accomplish necessary tasks with proper tools, education and direction. • Consolidate and streamline your enterprise IT Infrastructure (Servers, Storage, as well as the Admin and Curricular Networks). • Increase network security, business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness. • Streamline administrative tasks (Account Management, Client Infrastructure Management, Web Presence and Administration). • Enhance the client support coverage structure. • Reduce the total cost of ownerships (TCO) and increase Return On Investment (ROI) through standardization initiatives in all areas of IT infrastructure (Servers, Workstations, Operating Systems, Software, and Professional Development).

4. A Roadmap to Effective ICT Implementation Plans SD34’s Top 12 ICT Priorities: • Centralize Control of IT decision making • Resource Standardization & Management • New Central Directory Infrastructure • Disaster Recovery Planning & Deployment • Local Area Network Upgrade • Server Consolidation/Virtualization • Realign IT Support Coverage • Data Centre Infrastructure Optimization • Wide Area Network Upgrade • Secure Network Access Control • Portal Infrastructure Upgrade/Expansion • Cloud Computing/Emerging Technologies

5. 1st ICT Priority: Centralize Control of IT Decision Making Recommendations: • It is recommended that SD34 implement a centralized model for IT equipment purchasing. The district is a large enterprise and needs to be run as one enterprise rather then many smaller entities working together. • Expected benefits: • This will eliminate the large inequities between schools currently found today. • Provide a more consistent technological environment for teachers and students. • Reduce duplication of effort for teachers by enabling and promoting collaboration between departments and schools. • Provide a more consistent technological environment for IT staff to support. • Lower the cost of technology as it will leverage the purchasing power of the school district and will minimize money wasted on technology. • Create an environment that is easy to monitor and make adjustments for future needs. • Make new initiative more effective as they take advantage of all of the current infrastructure. 1

6. 2nd ICT Priority: Resource Standardization & Management Recommendations: • Adopt a standard Network Operating System (NOS). • Adopt a single standardized workstation operating system throughout the district for both admin and curricular networks. • Engage in an evergreen workstation refresh schedule for both admin and classroom computers. Workstation hardware refresh should take place every five to six years. • Evaluate the prospect of laptop cart initiatives for in-class at point of instruction and technology access. • Evaluate and purchase a District license for an Enterprise workstation image management and deployment tool. • Assign the image build responsibility to a single individual to ensure consistency. • Evaluate each centrally-approved software title for pedagogical benefits, network security, and ease of deployment. • A Professional Development Plan for teachers should be paired with the software selected. • The Curriculum Department should produce an online reference Library, training documentation, professional development sessions on key selected and approved software titles. 2

7. 2nd ICT Priority: Resource Standardization & Management Expected benefits: • Increase student academic outcomes through the use of readily available and robust academic resources. • Increase teachers technological proficiency through a PD plan that is relevant to the activities in the classroom. • Increase students and teacher satisfaction levels. • Enhance file sharing and collaboration. • Provide equal opportunity for students and teachers to use the same technology resources throughout the district. • Reduce technician’s workload related to software troubleshooting. • Reduce the District’s exposure in the area of software licensing. • Lower the Total Cost of Ownership through bulk purchases of standard hardware and software. 2

8. 3rd ICT Priority: New Central Directory Infrastructure Recommendations: • Engage in a district wide central directory architecture/design/deployment to collapse your existing domains a more effective and simplified design. • The industry standard is Microsoft’s Active Directory structure Expected benefits: • Increase teacher/support staff collaboration, accessibility and mobility between different schools • Increase security and user account manageability • Streamline administration support tasks • Simplify and provide for more tight integration with the messaging and collaboration infrastructures (E-mail, Portal, etc.) • Essential step for the Disaster Recovery Planning • Provide simplification through the consolidation and centralization of as many network services as possible • Increased integration with network services and peripherals (e.g: VPN, WiFi, NAC) • Reduce TCO by eliminating redundant server hardware, environmental control software licenses 3

9. 4th ICT Priority: Disaster Recovery Planning & Deployment Recommendations: • It is recommended that the District either dedicates an IT resource to work on a plan or hire an IT consulting firm to create, test and validate a proper Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan. • The Disaster Recovery Plan will identify mission critical systems, data retention and backup, acceptable down time, and recovery procedures. Expected benefits: • Increase district operations resiliency against any potential risks (e.g.: fire/explosion, earthquake, flood, theft, electronic cyber attack). • Ensure business operations continuity is safeguarded against: • Interruption to administrators, schools and staff work. • Interruption of transportation, planning, and district support staff operations. • Financial losses from services outages (e.g. Distance Learning). • Loss of public goodwill and confidence. • Avoid missing reporting deadlines and other commitments to the Ministry of Education. 4

10. 5th ICT Priority: Local Area Network Upgrade Recommendations: • Move your networks to a private IP address scheme • Conduct a physical network audit to identify the entire district network equipment inventory; that includes measurement of Ethernet Switches, Hubs, Wireless Access Points. • Conduct a physical network connectivity audit to identify unneeded and damaged Ethernet ports in the schools. • Define LAN Electronics infrastructure platform standards for the next 3 to 5 years. • While the hardware has been defined, there needs to be a more comprehensive plan for the entire network including wireless infrastructure and the introduction of schools firewalls. • Define standard colour schemes for each VLAN and core network device (uplink ports, routers, printers, security appliances). • Install cable management equipment (patch panel, cable trays) where needed. • Continue to replace all your wiring and wireless closet switches with manageable state of the art switches. Expected benefits: • Network security, flexibility, reliability, and high availability • Enhanced accessibility, mobility within schools closet • At point of instruction capabilities 5

11. 6th ICT Priority: Server Consolidation/Virtualization Recommendations: • Reduce the number of servers where possible. (Off site domain controllers, exchange, Databases, etc..) • Further invest in a Server Virtualization infrastructure (e.g. VMWare) to consolidate and virtualize selected backend servers. • Migrate end of life servers onto new server infrastructure. • Consolidate all storage systems onto a single robust Storage Area Network Expected benefits: • Reduces operating costs by increasing the utilization of the server hardware from 10-20% to over 80%. • Data protection and high availability. • Enhanced Disaster Recovery capabilities. • Significant reduction in heating and air conditioning requirements. • Significant reduction in power consumption. • Enhanced reliability, availability and serviceability capabilities. • Significant infrastructure savings: UPS, Cable management, KVM, and physical space requirements. 6

12. 7th Priority: Unified Communications Recommendations: • Identify the strategic benefits of a voice system relevant to SD34’s strategic objectives • A single voice platform deployed across SD34 will resultin considerable efficiency savings, as well as improvement and morale of staff • Replacing obsolete voice systems will provide the highest return first • The deployment of a centralized voice mail system over existing PLNet ADSL lines is not recommended • Insufficient bandwidth to offer any guarantee of service • Develop with PLNet a Quality of Service (QoS) strategy to protect voice where and when possible • Move the management of the voice systems to the IT systems management group • This transition is effectively complete within the industry, and is now considered a Best Practice • Voice systems are essentially application servers today, with the same deployment and support issues and tools • Deploy a network and voice monitoring tool, such as Solarwinds (recommended), WhatsUp, or Nagios. • Measuring network performance from the user’s perspective is always preferred, where possible. For voice this is tracking the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of the callsocus all Helpdesk requests through one interface (i.e. call to a helpdesk or entry to the on-line helpdesk system). Minimize or discontinue direct contact from user to IT staff members. 7

13. 8th Priority: Realign and Monitor IT Support Coverage Recommendations: • Focus all Helpdesk requests through one interface (i.e. call to a helpdesk or entry to the on-line helpdesk system). Minimize or discontinue direct contact from user to IT staff members. • Once help desk ticket has been completed, end users should be notified either by IT Staff member, E-mail, or helpdesk contact. • Realign IT support coverage (Helpdesk and technicians) to effectively manage a consolidated and centralized infrastructure deployment. Identify job roles overlap and define procedures to manage these areas. • Realign IT Staff skill sets with job responsibilities rather then specific schools. • Communicate to schools any planned changes in IT support structure and highlight the expected benefits to the students and teachers. • Regularly keep schools informed of the effect of changes made. (i.e. a biannual E-mail to all highlighting the changes made over the past six months and the effects to measurements made from the helpdesk system). • Evaluate ways of securely providing “remote control” capabilities to the Helpdesk team into the academic network to assist with teacher issues. • IT Staff will be able to provide more support from a central (or remote) location • Monitor helpdesk statistics on a regular basis and readjust support responsibilities as necessary. • Develop standard measurements and expectations in various areas: • Type of ticket of incoming tickets (i.e. user management, hardware issue, new software install, etc) • Time to close a ticket • Average number of open tickets per school • Cross train the IT Staff so that there will always be a backup if personnel are away. • This can be accomplished by regular training sessions for the IT staff by the IT staff (i.e. they will train each other) 8

14. 8th Priority: Realign and Monitor IT Support Coverage Expected benefits: • Provide a higher level as well as predictable support to schools and teachers through more efficient use of remote and helpdesk resources and capabilities. • Provide more focus on the efforts related to standardizing, architecting, managing, and regularly updating the core IT infrastructure components. • Allow for a proactive approach to server, network and application maintenance monitoring and maintenance. • Minimized inequities between schools regarding support. • Increased satisfaction from users due to better communication and more reliable computer resources. • Increased effectiveness of IT staff’s work due to standardization. • Increased sense of camaraderie among IT staff due to regular interaction. 8

15. 9th ICT Priority: Data Centre Infrastructure Optimization Recommendations: • Engage in a green data center construction project as a foundation of the IT infrastructure. • It can remain in the current location of be integrated into the new secondary school’s construction. Ideally, you should share services wherever possible. • The site should be able to host all of the district’s mission-critical servers, central backup infrastructure and the Distance Learning backup/failover site systems. • It should have adequate wide area network connection throughput capacity to be the focal hosting site for all schools. • The new site should follow all data center design best practices. Expected benefits: • Reduce the potential of a catastrophic systems failure. • Reduce energy consumption. • Increased security to sensitive data and back-end servers. • Pinnacle part of your Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Strategy • Reduce Total cost of ownership by simplifying backend server administration tasks. 9

16. 10th ICT Priority: Wide Area Network Upgrade Recommendations: • Continue to upgrade the district’s Wide Area Network connections. • Introduce firewall software/appliances at every school. • Replace all unmanaged switches to managed throughout the District. • Deploy standard enterprise-class wireless access points throughout the district. Expected benefits: • Immense ROI through the consolidation and centralization of essential services: • Consolidation of schools’ academic servers centrally. • Consolidated firewall and network traffic shaping equipment. • Reduction of software acquisitions. • Centralized network management and preventive maintenance tasks. • Increased use of remote support tools. • Consolidated phone systems with the future use of VOIP district wide. • Increase mobility and accessibility throughout the district both internally and externally (access through district network, or externally from home) • Secure access to managed and unmanaged roaming equipment connecting to the network, for example: teachers and students’ personal laptops, or WiFi enabled technology. 10

17. 11th ICT Priority: Secure Network Access Control Recommendations: • Deploy a District wide Web content management/traffic shaping solution. • Deploy an enterprise Network Access Control infrastructure, to secure your network from within the school perimeters. Expected benefits: • Unified access policy: centralized access policy and management for all users (admin staff, students, teachers, custodians, roaming guidance). • Authentication and device health assessment: user/device authentication prior to authorizing access to the network. Optional or mandatory device health assessment to ensure endpoint compliance to District’s policy. • Authorization: enforces access control to specific network resources, services or applications based on user and device context (e.g., user identity, user type: student, teacher, device health and location) • Ongoing threat analysis: Continuous analysis of users and device health, security violation result in network termination or remediation. • Quarantine and remediation: automated quarantine and remediation based on the authentication and/or security health assessment violation. 1 1

18. 12th ICT Priority: Portal Infrastructure Upgrade/Expansion Recommendations: • We recommend that a set of standards and guidelines for schools’ websites should be set to assure organizational branding and content consistency such as: School name, address, contact information, newsletters, school calendar, site map, and link to the District’s homepage • We recommend that the District adopts a long-term goal of integrating a portal tool (such as SharePoint) as the main tool of communication between teachers, administration staff, students, and parents. • Whichever solution is chosen as a communication platform, it must tie into your central directory system to simplify management and security. Expected benefits: • Improve the District’s public image. • Increase communication and collaboration between students and teachers as well as District admin staff and the community. • Allow for greater accessibility and mobility where staff members and teachers could access their records securely both during and after hours, on and off the District’s network. • Provide the ability for students and teachers to securely access online courseware titles whenever, wherever, and whatever they choose as a device. 1 2

19. 13th ICT Priority: Cloud Computing/Emerging Technologies Recommendations: • Once the IT infrastructure has been standardized, evaluate cloud computing tools to virtualize applications or complete desktops. • Evaluate newer technologies as to their value and their ability to tie into the current infrastructure. • This must be done by a team with representatives of whom will be affected by any changes with this new technology. Expected benefits: • Continue to engage students using the newest technologies. • Further cost savings. • Improve the District’s public image. 1 3

20. Rack, Switch, WiFi NAC, VPN, Firewall Server Infra., Storage Infra., VMWare, Exchange, UPS School Server, LAN Electronics, WAP, Firewalls, UPS School Server, LAN Electronics, Wireless Access Points, UPS Rack, UPS, DR Site ESX Servers, Storage Infrastructure Software Power Monitor, LAN Monitor, A/C and HVAC NOS Lic., Enterprise Applications Lic., VMWare ESX Lic. Windows 2008 Lic, SD Middleware, Image Deployment Windows 2008 Lic, SD Middleware, Image Deployment VMWare SRM, NSI Doubletake, NOS Licenses Services Data Center Design & Const., Firewall /VPN, NAC, IT ProD ADS Design & Build, Server Migration, VMWARE VCP Elementary Template, Deployment, WAN Upgrade Server Template, Deployment, SBO Migration DR Architecture & Implementation., Annual Validation A Roadmap to an Effective ICT Implementation Plan Phase I Data Center and Core Network Infrastructure Phase II Core Server and Storage Infrastructure Phase III Elem. +Mid. Schools’ Infra. Upgrade Phase IV Secondary Schools’ Infra. upgrade Phase V Backup and Disaster Recovery Infrastructure Hardware

21. Conclusions

22. The Reasons Initiatives Fail • Lack of strategy/vision • A great sense of urgency was not established • A powerful enough guiding coalition was not created • Under-communication of the strategy/vision • Obstacles to the new strategy/vision were not removed • No systematic planning for the creation of short-term wins • Declaring victory too soon • Staff preparation, training and support were inadequate • Changes were not anchored in the school or system Adapted from: Kotter, J.P. Leading Change, 1996 Harvard Business School Press: Boston, MA

23. Conclusion – General Comments • The Abbotsford School District #34 has taken the first step towards an IT infrastructure revitalization initiative. This is a major step and the leadership team is commended for taking that step. • The District’s IT leadership team demonstrates strong dedication, innovation and commitment to the success of the organization. Their cooperation throughout this study demonstrates a sincere desire to improve the operation of their team wherever possible. • It has to also be noted that all the staff that participated in this study have been very cooperative and open minded about the process. • It is critical that SD34 keeps the momentum that has been generated through this study and capitalize on the high expectations the staff have developed through this process to produce tangible actions and results in a short time frame. • Once the next steps are defined and agreed to, based on the recommendations in this report, it is encouraged that a communiqué be sent to the staff with the actions that will directly impact them.

24. Conclusion – Recommended Priorities / Next Steps • Establishing a central point of control of your IT infrastructure is critical for any of the following steps to succeed. You are operating a large enterprise and it must be treated as such. • Adopting the proposed 5 Year Long Term IT Strategic Plan will enforce standards, and provide schools and staff with a support framework that they will respect and honour, and that will simplify the support requirements. • Establishing District wide standardization is a top priority and should be addressed prior to proceeding with any other changes to the infrastructure. At a minimum, a new central directory should be chosen, designed and implemented. • Server consolidation and virtualization will yield cost savings, better performance, and a manageable support environment and should be addressed prior to the acquisition of any new hardware. • Currently, your backup infrastructure is very fragmented and inconsistent. If a disaster should occur, your district will likely have a difficult time resuming operations and recovering data.

25. Conclusion – Recommended Roll Out Plan

26. The IBM Consultants would like to extend their sincere appreciation to the Leadership team (Ms. Julie MacRae, Mr. Mark Lee, Mr. Kevin Godden, Mr. Steve Carlton, and Mr. Bruce Ivany) for their unwavering support and help throughout this study. Sincere thanks are due to Mr. Leighton Lefaivre for his support throughout this study. His helpful attitude has reflected on the excellent cooperation we received from the IT Department’s staff. Also, we would like thank Ms. Shelley Wilcox for her assistance in organizing and facilitating meetings with various participants. We would also like to extend our gratitude to the IT team in general, and in particular Mr. Sam Shah and Mr. Taj Gahir for gathering the information we requested and then spending additional time with us while continuing to perform their regular duties. Sincere thanks are due to the Principals, Vice Principals, Teachers, Clerical staff, Central administrative staff, and IT Department staff whom we have had the pleasure of meeting with during this study for the time they have taken out of their busy schedules and for their valuable input and cooperation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

27. Ms. Julie MacRae Mr. Mark Lee Mr. Kevin Godden Mr. Steve Carlton Mr. Bruce Ivany Mr. Leighton Lefaivre Ms. Lisa Pleadwell Mr. Tom Maddigan Mr. Steve Woelke Ms. Shelley Wilcox Mr. George Keys Mr. Balwinder Rai Ms. Susan Antak Ms. Katrina Miller Mr. Taj Gahir Mr. Sam Shah Ms. Bonnie Smith SD34 Participants • Mr. Brandon Dunn • Mr. David Gregson • Mr. Dean Saler • Mr. Derrick Anderson • Mr. Doug Shearer • Mr. Greg Nutchey • Mr. Leo Wong • Mr. Mark O’Neil • Mr. Mike Sillery • Mr. Norm Taylor • Mr. Wayne Li • Mr. Jun Kim • Ms. Deborah Beres • Ms. Jo Szabo • Ms. Kanta Naik • Mr. Dave Stephen • Ms. Julie Wright • Ms. Marlene Funk • Ms. Cindy Romanowski • Mr. Barclay Neilson • Mr. David Ennis • Mr. Gary Toews • Mr. James Klassen • Ms. Kerry Enns • Ms. Mary Stobbe • Mr. Tom Louie • Mr. Rick Walker • Mr. Bob Mainman • Mr. Ed Davis • Ms. Kelly Plastow • Ms. Marie Van Dalfsen • Mr. Jonathan Culley • Ms. Daljeet Rama

28. Mr. Jinder Sarowa Mr. Greg Sharpe Mr. Lance McDonald Ms. Rhonda Pauls Mr. Kevin Pedersen Mr. Jagannath Narayanan Mr. Chris Rempel Mr. Bud Loewen Mr. Shane Hipwell Mr. Angus MacKay Mr. Gord Revel SD34 Participants • Mr. Alex Andison • Ms. Sandy Lane • Mr. Novglas Williams • Mr. Greg Batt • Mr. Grant Gasser • Ms. Tanya Cook • Ms. Alison Haist • Mr. Bill Henderson • Ms. Sue Baker-Hamm • Ms. Joanne Neveux • Mr. Dean Fetterly • Mr. Rich Whitman • Ms. Leslie Forsyth-Eno • Ms. Jo Szabo • Mr. Doug Robertson • Mr. Mark Grillandini • Mr. Paul Rochon • Ms. Nancy Castonguay • Mr. Mike Ewart • Mr. Woody Bradford