Back to School: How Does a Server Support IT in Education
How important is technology in education? As the report by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) notes, there has been exponential growth in the use of digital technologies this century.
Many technologists and educators think the school server should be a vital part of teaching and learning. Fundamentally a server is just a powerful computer that historically has run at the heart of the network, ‘serving’ the network. In schools they traditionally also perform functions such as managing client devices (laptops and desktops), printers and user profiles (including passwords) as well as storing data (including shared teaching files, MIS and finance data) and physical access control and security, such as the school gates and CCTV.
What to Consider When Selecting a Server for a School?
1. Understand your Performance Requirements
Each school has unique performance requirements for their servers. How many students & staff do you expect to have? Do you require the server to store large and frequently accessed media files? Defining these conditions will help determine what type of server to use. If the server is sitting in an office, do you want it to be quiet? Knowing this will give you insight into hardware requirements.
2. Consider Application Scalability
How well does your application scale? Is it easy to add more servers, and will that increase the number of school offices you can service?
Some applications are difficult to scale to multiple devices. Making sure a database is running on multiple servers is challenging since it needs to be synchronized over all database servers. It could be easier to move the database to a server that has more processing capacity, RAM, and faster storage.
3. Choose a trustable IT support team
IT Support helps your school to efficiently manage software, hardware, and educational services to ensure continued and uninterrupted business. No matter what size of school you manage, it’s important to safeguard and support your school data with secure backup systems and top-of-the-line cybersecurity. A technical support team will assure all of the above and more.
Lenovo Rack Servers: Highly Scalable With Strong Security
From growing small businesses to enterprise workloads, Lenovo rack servers offer the unmatched value, flexibility and industry-leading efficiency to meet mission-critical demands with legendary quality and reliability.
For example, the ThinkSystem SR590 Rack Server, which was released in the winter of 2021, is one of the most popular servers in the world. It has the Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory system, which delivers a new, flexible tier of memory designed specifically for data center workloads that offers an unprecedented combination of high capacity, affordability and persistence.
Pros: Quality Lenovo XClarity Controller management, smarter design, highly expandable, extensive customisable options, strong security.
Lenovo Rack Server just keeps getting better with every generation and the latest one delivers new advanced features in abundance. Small and medium schools looking for a powerful and secure 2U rack server that can grow with them will find the Lenovo Rack Server an ideal partner.
IP Partners is proud to be one of the foremost retailers of new and refurbished servers in Australia. IP Partners has also been working within the Education Sector for many years. We work with schools providing services and infrastructure projects.
Recently you would have heard Leader Computers being appointed to South Australia’s personal computer and server equipment panel. Leader has a great range of products while also having strong partnerships with Lenovo for Server, Asus for notebooks and so on.
IP Partners has been a reseller of Leader products for many years and has a very good working relationship with the Leader Team. Take a look at our full range of services or get in touch if you want any personal computer, desktop, notebook or networking needs your school may need. We are here to assist you!
