Need Reliable, Secure School IT Services? Use IaaS
In today’s schools, IT plays a key role in shaping the learning experience. If your school or district’s IT infrastructure isn’t reliable, it can significantly disrupt learning or keep IT staff too busy with repairs to work on other projects.
Many school districts are dependent on old, on-prem IT infrastructure that is difficult to maintain. It’s hard to give students the best learning tools when IT staff are dealing with failing equipment and frequent repairs, but you might not have the budget for expensive new infrastructure. Fortunately, you have another option for school IT services.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) gives you access to reliable infrastructure on a pay-as-you-go basis. Instead of purchasing your own equipment, you consume it from a third party who spreads the costs across several clients. Best of all, you can pay for it on a month-to-month basis instead of asking the school board for a large investment all at once.
With IaaS, you can transition from physical servers to virtual computing without having to go full cloud all at once. The IaaS provider can also help with things like managing the hypervisor environment, licensing, and monitoring. Your district’s IT team can then fully dedicate themselves to student, teacher, and staff needs.
IaaS can pave the way for a brighter future. Here’s how it could help your school community.
1. Reduced Costs, Amplified Resources
Budgetary constraints are a common challenge for schools and districts. IaaS can help by eliminating the need for hefty upfront investments in physical hardware and maintenance. With partially cloud-based infrastructure, schools can shift from capital-intensive expenditures to a cost-effective, pay-as-you-go model.
Using IaaS instead of investing in on-prem infrastructure lets your school reallocate funds toward educational experiences and staffing. You can invest more in innovative programs that will shape the next generation of leaders.
2. Fewer IT Issues, More Time for Education
Maintaining older IT infrastructure can be a lot of work for even the most skilled IT teams. More often than not, the IT team also gets involved with troubleshooting HVAC failures, generators not starting, or having to worry if the UPS will carry the load when the power goes out. All this often gets in the way of other IT needs.
With IaaS, your school can offload many of those maintenance tasks to a third party. Your school IT services staff can focus on strategic initiatives that directly impact learning outcomes. The result? An environment where educators and students can use technology to its fullest learning potential.
3. Superior School IT Services for Uninterrupted Learning
IT disruptions often hinder the teaching and learning process. Fortunately, an IaaS provider with a Tier III-equivalent data center can keep disruptions to a minimum.
These providers have extensive backups, redundant systems, and teams of experts who can ensure your systems run smoothly. With an IaaS provider’s assistance, you can offer a reliable and consistent experience to both educators and students, fostering the best possible environment for learning.
4. Future-Proof With Effortless Upgrades or Downsizing
No matter how good your infrastructure is, you will need to upgrade eventually. New security concerns, digital education standards, and tech breakdowns are inevitable. There may be other changes in your IT needs, like an increasing or decreasing number of students to serve.
With IaaS, you can scale up or down your infrastructure access as needed. This means your school or district will only pay for what it needs. You also won’t need to worry about upgrades: your IaaS provider will take care of them for you.
5. Fortified Cybersecurity for Data Protection
Data breaches and cyber threats are on the rise, so it’s important to keep sensitive student and faculty information safe. IaaS providers like Simple Helix have robust, up-to-date cybersecurity measures to safeguard that data.
From multi-factor authentication to encryption to intrusion detection systems, we take every precaution to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches. By entrusting your infrastructure to professionals who prioritize cybersecurity, you’re taking a proactive stance in protecting your school community’s personal information.
At Simple Helix, we believe that education has the power to shape the future. By embracing IaaS, you’re not only saving time and money on IT infrastructure, but also creating an IT environment that supports a thriving learning environment. You’ll get more freedom for your IT team and more money to invest in other school priorities.
Simple Helix will be your dedicated partner as you move to IaaS. Let us empower your district to provide the best possible education through IaaS, virtual computing, private cloud, colocation, and other solutions. Get in touch with us today about our IaaS options for schools and districts.
