Here is a great recorded webcast entitled Driving Network Decisions with a Capacity Model (a free registration is required) from Nemertes Research that we think is applicable to schools for a number of important reasons:
1. Students, teachers, and administrators need/expect availability when they launch into a
learning tool whether it be a browser, application hosted in the district or outside the
district, virtual desktop, or distance learning. Learning rests on this availability.
2. As noted by John Burke during the presentation, networks are asked to carry lots of
data not just business (academic-centric in a school) traffic. This was discussed during
Embedded Intelligent Network discussion (slide #6). IP-Based Time Clocks, Cafeteria
Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, and video security systems are school based examples that
consume non-academic bandwidth.
3. Virtual desktops such as VMware View, for all of positive benefits to schools, require
bandwidth to communicate back to a server cluster. As this technology becomes more
adopted, bandwidth is a key ingredient to their success.
4. As cloud-based applications such as Software as a Service (SaaS) see a rise in adoption,
capacity is needed. Applications such as Google, Blackboard, and Learnia all require sufficient levels of capacity to be fully used in a learning context.
Not just adding bandwidth is an important point. Leveraging Quality of Service (QoS) and optimization is an important point made during the webcast.
Starting Points for Schools
Schools can begin to do modeling through use of low cost per student (CPR) and free tools. Some tools that can reveal a good amount of this data to begin modeling are PRTG , MRTG, and HostMonitor. Spreadsheets, as highlighted, are also valuable tools for capacity planning.
Enjoy the presentation!
