FOSS at SCEGGS

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst The Open Source story at SCEGGS Darlinghurst Ian Ralph IT Manager

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst You don’t have to choose.

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst

???? 2010 SCEGGS Open Source journey for backend services Mahara, Joomla Website external Clustered Services Moodle CMS ISOnet TikiWiki 2000 LDAP for Intranet AUC CMS E-mail gateway Primitive CMS DNS Satellite + ISDN SCEGGS FOSS @ Darlinghurst First Web site 1994 Tech plan did not mention Internet

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Free and Open Source Software – continuum 100% Proprietary Open Source 100% Desktop OS Backend LMS, CMS, Services e-Portfolios Office Suite

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Office Suites

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Desktop OS

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Backend Services • 7 / 17 servers run • E-mail • Websites • LDAP the glue that binds it all together

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst LMS, CMS, e-Portfolios • LMS – Moodle ( 3 instances) • CMS – Joomla! • E-Portfolio – Mahara

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Why FOSS? • It does the job • We have great support • It’s cost effective • It’s reliable and robust • It’s continually evolving and improving

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Support? • Community • Contractors • RTM • Author

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Support Costs • 2007 - $2280 • 2008 - $1760 • 2009 - $4026 • 2010 - $426

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Reliability • Low vulnerability • Patches/Fixes often automatic • Vigilant community • Last place we look when there are problems

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst The Future • NOS -> Linux (OES Linux from Novell?) • Looks bright • Just Do It!

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Questions? Comments Your Experiences

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst The Open Source story at SCEGGS Darlinghurst Ian Ralph IT Manager 1 We’ve had a long journey with open source – since 1996. Our journey is different from Peter’s and will almost certainly be different from yours We started because there were no alternatives – with our first website was built on a distribution of Linux that I can’t even remember We have evolved with Open Source We take the best from both worlds.

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst You don’t have to choose. • Click to add an outline 2 Schools and Open Source are not a case of either or. It is possible to blend commercial and FOSS There is a parallel journey in relation to Copyright and material licensed under CC and other non-commercial licensing systems. Sylvie Saab has already given a session on Copyright that has explored alternatives to restrictive copyright – something that could be called open education.

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Click to add title 3 We started out journey with a simple website hosted on a Linux box Unable to recall the name of the distribution Here’s what it looked like. Access was via dialup It kept crashing and the staff in the boarding house used to walk up to my office and press the reset button - that boarding house mistress is now our webmanager! Yes it crashed but it didn’t matter since it was not a vital part of our schools infrastructure or services. But that was soon to change.

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Click to add title SCEGGS Open Source journey for backend services 1994 2000 2010 LDAP for Intranet Satellite + ISDN First Web site Clustered Services Moodle CMS DNS Primitive CMS E-mail gateway AUC CMS TikiWiki ISOnet Website external Mahara, Joomla ???? mention Internet Tech plan did not 4 A few things about our journey. Services have evolved – there was no revolution. Can you believe that we did not mention the work “Internet” once in our 1994 strategic plan – let along Website or OSS! We did what made sense at the time taking systems from one iteration to the next, finding boundaries, overcoming problems, figuring out how to work around limitations All the time the importance to the good functioning of the school and its services depended more and more on the systems we provided This meant that they had to be robust, scalable and reliable. Open source did not let us down so we have continued on our journey. There have been a number of FOSS systems that we have trialled and abandoned. IM system Openfire Drupal pHpWebsite Were out journey goes next is hard to say. Maybe in 10 years I’ll look back at our NSSCF ICT strategic plan from 2009 and ask the question how could I have written that with out mentioning ???????

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Free and Open Source Software – continuum 100% Proprietary Open Source 100% Desktop OS Backend LMS, CMS, Services e-Portfolios Office Suite 5 Open source software usage is shown on this continuum. I’d imagine that each school has some Open Source software and could draw something similar. Just as an aside I remember speaking to an IT manager moved to a school where it was Microsoft end to end and he did say that there appeared to be fewer “issues”……Maybe I could have made my life easier by moving everything to the left????

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Office Suites 6 Unlike Peter who has had some success with OSS desktops we have not been able to move from the proprietary end. Staff and students like to stick to what they know – when people are give a choice they will tend to stay with the familiar. Our trial were not successful – after a year we made our lives easier and jumped back into the Microsoft boat. That is not to say that we don’t have Open Source application on the desktop , but there are not many.

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Desktop OS 7

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Backend Services • 7 / 17 servers run • E-mail • Websites • LDAP the glue that binds it all together 8 At the backend things are different. Our open source servers run on SuSe Linux They are clustered Our School admin package runs on Linux While our website is hosted externally on a Windows platform, our CMS and LMS all run internally on Linux servers What would we do without LDAP????

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst LMS, CMS, e-Portfolios • LMS – Moodle ( 3 instances) • CMS – Joomla! • E-Portfolio – Mahara 9 No need to say much about these, but I will mention the things I like. With an active development community, if you ask the question, If only our LMS could do this?” then there is almost certainly someone who has written that module. If you get stuck then the community has almost certainly discussed your exact same problem and usually there is a solution If your LMS/CMS/e-Portfolio does not do what you want then get someone to change it so that it does They need little support

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Why FOSS? • It does the job • We have great support • It’s cost effective • It’s reliable and robust • It’s continually evolving and improving 10

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Support? • Community • Contractors • RTM • Author 11

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Support Costs • 2007 - $2280 • 2008 - $1760 • 2009 - $4026 • 2010 - $426 12

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Reliability • Low vulnerability • Patches/Fixes often automatic • Vigilant community • Last place we look when there are problems 13

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst The Future • NOS -> Linux (OES Linux from Novell?) • Looks bright • Just Do It! 14

FOSS @ SCEGGS Darlinghurst Questions? Comments Your Experiences • Click to add an outline 15

FOSS at SCEGGS

by Donna Benjamin on May 18, 2010

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FOSS at SCEGGS — Presentation Transcript