School Technology Leaders Reveal What Life Is Like in the Cloud

EDTECH: Where is your school district on the cloud journey?

PENNER: If we’re talking curriculum, nearly 100% has moved to the cloud. If we’re talking business applications, probably 50%. Five years ago, we had 130 to 140 servers. We’re down to 50 Windows servers and working with Microsoft to move 40 of those to Azure. Once those are moved, we won’t have any on-premises application servers. We will have five to 10 servers on-premises for networking equipment, print servers, electronic door locks and security cameras.

DICKSON: It’s around 90%. We’ve moved email to Microsoft 365. Most of our resources are in Azure, as far as Infrastructure as a Service. We’ve moved financials and PeopleSoft into Oracle Cloud. We’ve also moved our building management, student information and library circulation systems into the cloud.

RELATED: Why K-12 schools are modernizing with hyperconverged infrastructure.

ARZATE:  Probably 30%. We are migrating a library application, so it will probably be 40% in the spring. We started five years ago when we migrated our web presence to Amazon Web Services. We use Azure Stack HCI for hyperconverged infrastructure, so we connect on-premises infrastructure to Azure services. We are a Microsoft shop, so we use Microsoft 365 and Entra ID. We use cloud for disaster recovery. We are also testing data models and using a cloud-based data warehouse.

BRINKMAN: About 90% of our enterprise apps have been moved to the cloud. We use AWS and some Azure. Enterprise Resource Planning is our last major core application that will be moved to Oracle Cloud, so we will be at 95% soon. We will always have a small on-premises presence, mostly for the network, but there are also some smaller applications that control refrigerators, air conditioners and security.

CROSS: We’ve definitely seen an uptick with independent schools moving to the cloud in recent years. I can tell you anecdotally that more schools have realized cloud providers can offer much more robust security, access and uptime than they’re able to achieve with their IT staff onsite.

EDTECH: What are the biggest benefits you’ve seen from the cloud?

CROSS: For independent schools, the top benefit is enhanced security. Accessibility is another key advantage, allowing faculty, staff and students to access applications and data from anywhere. It also eases the IT burden, with less maintenance and fewer updates to manage. Finally, it offers cost efficiencies through predictable, subscription pricing, reducing the need for large capital expenses on hardware and software licenses.

BRINKMAN: It’s increased our ability to be agile, scalable and reliable. For example, when we moved our assessment system to the cloud, there was a hiccup the first time we used it. We met with the vendor and with their help, we were able to scale up overnight. We also get automatic software updates.

DICKSON: When you think of disaster recovery, you are backed up in multiple locations in the cloud. That’s difficult to do in an on-premises environment. Also, our security posture is never going to be as good as a corporation’s like Microsoft or Oracle. Our cloud assets are watched 24/7 by trained, certified individuals. I don’t have the resources to have a 24/7 operation like that.

DISCOVER: How to get the most out of a cloud assessment.

EDTECH: How does a cloud migration impact IT roles?

ARZATE: We have more time to concentrate on other projects, but at the same time, the skill set level increases because now we have to be familiar with cloud technologies. So, while ease of use is better, the complexity of the infrastructure increases.

DICKSON: It’s an evolution. Individuals and their job descriptions are either going to evolve, or they will be eliminated, or you find different talent. We’ve done all three. This year, we moved our phone system to the cloud, and every phone is tied to Microsoft Teams. Do I need a telecom person? Not in the same way as before. The job changes.

PENNER: The cloud allows my IT department to spend more time on business value. We’re in a better position to be collaborative. When other departments say “We have this great idea,” we can help them implement it. We have the time and freedom to have those conversations because we’re not stuck at our desks doing day-to-day maintenance.

EDTECH: How important is cloud governance, and what best practices should schools be implementing?

CROSS: Effective cloud governance is critical for independent schools. They must establish clear policies and processes. Data privacy and compliance are incredibly important. They need to make sure they’ve got access controls, identity management, vendor-provided risk assessment and management, and disaster recovery and business continuity planning. The last thing is cost optimization and resource allocation. So having a framework is very important to mitigate risk and maximize the benefit of cloud investments.

BRINKMAN: Implement a governance framework if you don’t already have one. At Dallas ISD, we use ITIL [Information Technology Infrastructure Library]. We have mature governance here, and that applies to our cloud applications. So, make sure you're using some sort of framework, and bring your cloud applications under that umbrella.

We monitor all of our cloud resources. It’s a little different, because we have to work closely with our partners. They’re the ones managing and maintaining the applications. That goes through our governance process just as if it were an on-premises product. Make sure you have data privacy and security at the forefront and that you're constantly assessing risk.

PENNER: Cloud governance is very important. We need to have an incredibly healthy and robust understanding of how cloud architecture works. If there’s a cybersecurity issue, if data is inappropriately shared, if servers have ports that are open, that’s on us to maintain and fix. Obviously, we leverage Microsoft support and our cybersecurity vendor to help us. We do audit checks to make sure our environment is sound.

EDTECH: How are you handling security in the cloud, and how can you make the process more secure for K–12?

BRINKMAN: We have a framework for security, and we’re assessing every one of our cloud apps. We use the Center for Internet Security framework. We use a third-party product to continuously scan and monitor our cloud partners and vendors for risk. We let them know, “We’re seeing this. What are you seeing?” To make sure we’re as secure as possible, we just continue to try to get better based on that framework.

ARZATE: I take a multilayered approach. We use different technologies. We leverage data lakes that aggregate different security systems so we can have a single place to look at events. It’s in the cloud. We’re gathering information from intrusion prevention systems, correlating that with west-to-east traffic and north-to-south traffic and correlating it with the endpoint information being generated. With a single dashboard, we make sure we understand what is taking place, not just on-premises but also in the cloud.

READ MORE: Schools move to the cloud for better security.

EDTECH: How do you see the cloud impacting K–12 in the future?

ARZATE: Sometimes, it makes sense to keep some items on-prem. Sometimes, it doesn’t. But adoption will continue to grow, especially when it comes to data analytics. The concept of data warehouses and data lakes and being able to leverage disparate sources of data has been around a long time, but it’s new to K–12.

CROSS: Data is so underutilized at schools right now. They can synthesize data in a bigger way and across different platforms to tell more stories about the learning that is happening in our schools. They can identify areas where there may be some deficiencies that we could then work to improve. So, uncovering those stories by leveraging data through the cloud, through different applications, is going to make education in our schools even better in the future.

LEARN MORE: Here’s why you should future proof your K–12 IT infrastructure now.

PENNER: I think we’re at a transition point with cloud. The commercial industry has already adopted it, and K–12 is catching up.

If a district needs infrastructure, or if a data center is at its end of life, like ours, we’re going to build data centers differently. I would never host an on-premises application server again. There is no business value for it.