Thursday, March 6, 2008

Local school district considers security

The Board of Education for my town has a committee that was formed almost two years ago called the Tech Advisory Committee. It consists of members of the school board, the technology staff, and a few volunteer community members; most of whom have kids in the district and have some tech experience. I think there are three of us in that category now. We are steered by the Supervisor of Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology. Generally, the meetings have a few topics that the school district is interested in, and our group serves as a sounding board for those ideas. We weigh in on what we have seen in our respective companies, and we give opinions and brainstorm. A couple of projects I've seen accomplished:
  • The backup process was overhauled and outsourced (to some degree) freeing up time, space, and actually saving some money.
  • The school system dropped a costly T1 line and switched to Fios, saving lots of money, and not seeing any apparent degradation of service.
  • We've made recommendations on architecture and technologies.
Through it all, the district has been cognizant of security and considered it in all phases of its projects. Sure, the threat vectors have been different than your typical business; but there are threats none the less. It has impressed me that the decision makers are considering security up front, and not as an afterthought; or after a major/minor incident. Can they do better? Everyone could do better, but they are light years ahead of what I see day to day.

I enjoy being part of this group, and I'm glad to see the group be effective in its mission.

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