Now that school is off and running, I can return to some of the less urgent tasks—like updating my blog—that tend to go missing during crunch times. I’d like to add a few further reflections on ten years in the IT trenches, focusing today on those developments that were milestones in our school’s tech progress to date.
The first real milestone on my watch was establishing a replacement cycle for computers. Moving older computers out of the school was the only way to achieve enough standardization to support a single version of the operating system, create practical training opportunities, and ensure that Information Systems communications were relevant to all computer users.
It also gives some structure to the school’s technology budget when replacements are planned. Replacing upon failure can be expensive since you don’t end up buying in volume; you also incur significant support costs nursing old computers along until they can no longer be repaired.
Another milestone came about four years ago when we worked with the University to shift data networking responsibilities from us to them. There was a classic tipping point as the number of network nodes grew rapidly, wireless networking was needed, and aging switching equipment and wiring plants neared replacement points. The early fears we had about not being in control of our network were unfounded, as we experienced improvement in uptime numbers and enjoyed solid cooperation from University networking staff. It also freed up IS staff members to move on to other tasks with a more direct bearing on the Schools’ educational mission. The network today continues to be extremely reliable, fast, and well-maintained—and not by us, and in a way that is extremely cost effective.
More milestones next time. I’d be curious to hear from Lab people about what they feel are milestones in our tech progress or from educators in other schools about key events in their school’s tech evolution as well.
Posted on October 9th, 2008 by Curt Lieneck
Filed under: General Interest
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