Ethernotes

Merit Mail

• Jim and Jamie about Merit Mail & telephony
• Near sourcing: On our network, served by our partner.
• Merit backbone throughout MI. Unlimited bandwidth. Expand beyond Internet connectivity with layered services.
• Other services: Colocation, cloud services, CMS – Ziphos
• Merit backbone as robust, reliable and stable as telephone system
• Hosted/Managed PBX service from Merit. Removes the hardware
• Any IP phone works
• Offering PRI replacements. PRI is interface from VoIP to traditional system
• 911 works. e911 available at additional cost. e99v2 is being finalized. Muskegon kind of has e911, Ottawa does not, Detroit is struggling.
• If phone is off-site, creates 911 location problem.
• Volume based pricing. $31/phone/month
• Pure rent to own
• Merit Voice web interface
  • Every user gets a web portal with voicemail, call information, forward voicemails onward
  • Web based admin tool
  • Conferencing
  • Call management per user
  • Merit finds that most users use the web portal, not the phone, is how they manage calls
  • eRate eligible
• Merit Mail
  • backup, law enforcement requests, archiving, SPAM filtering, anti-virus, multiple points of failure in current systems
  • Student auditing: Higher ed can only use this within organization. Northern MI example
  • Replacement for GroupWise functions
  • $2.00/account/month. Students are $0.50/student/month. $20,000 for blackberry support. iPhone a lot cheaper, a lot more cost effective
  • Eliminates a lot of the archiving and access concerns with Google Docs
  • Uses Zimbra web interface. Must have Intel iMacs on Mac side
  • 300,000 users state wide
  • “unlimited” storage for staff, but no artificial additions allowed. 300
  • eRate eligible

• OAISD is going to this.
• Why not Google Docs at $0.00? University lawyers says if email leaves Michigan can be adjucated anywhere. Data location, data jurisdiction are still covered in state where data resides. Therefore, we’ve lost control of our data. How confident are you in keeping your confidential data anywhere. Merit resides in MI. Google is $0.00, but support costs are not free. Google brings giantness. Merit provides better support. You’re paying for Merit’s “high touch” option.

• Need to figure out what the MAISD charges us for email.
• Need to talk to Jeff Wykes on eRate eligibility
• Get Bret Emerson in contact to see if this is feasible, practical and cost effective for Ravenna.

Tech Plans

• Ravenna’s Tech Plan is approved at the ISD level.

AVG Licensing

• MAISD quote is for 5,400 user. $3.30/user.
• Ravenna needs to budget for 100 licenses in 09-10.

MUNIS

• A newer update was installed near the first of April.
• Tyler Content Manager is being implemented and users trained.
• Phase 2 begins in August: Montague, Holton, R-P and one more in-county.
• Added some customer’s, lost some customers.

IGOR Update

• Added reports from district requests
• R-P began piloting uploading district level
• HELGA tool being added: Allows cohort groups to be added. The report will run just for the cohort kids. Randy can demo it for you.
• IGOR is free for one more year

SMS Update

• Vendor presentations completed.
• Evaluation committee is trying to narrow it down to top 2. Meeting around May 7.
• Getting to top 2 going to be hard.
• Every vendor has pros/cons.

Office 2007

• Office 2010 will be out in under a year. Consensus was no sense in moving until at least then.
• Whitehall is only district to use 2007 district wide.
• No plans in other districts to move from their district wide versions. Muskegon districts run versions from Office 2000 Pro (Win, Ravenna), Office 2003 (Win), Office 2004 (Mac, Ravenna), Office 2008 (Mac, Ravenna) and XP (Win).

HelpSpot

• Help Desk software
• $170/technician/1st year, $50/technician/annual maintenance
• Help Spot hosting available from MAISD
• I recently implement the 1 user version of Web Help Desk. Deb and I are testing it currently.

MAISD Tech InventoryMIDPAC

• Date change to May 18 at 1:00 pm.

Shared Services – Next steps

• Get a committee
• Muskegon has Zimbra server. Having MAISD host it, could it make it eRate(able)
• VoIP: Cisco’s cost is on the backend with SMARTnet contract
• VideoIP. MAISD is investigating fiber distribution.
• videoconferencing: start with remote rural districts like Ravenna

May 21 Meeting Items 2009-10 Meetings

• Going to overlap with curriculum directors on 3rd Thurdays

Tech Services Golf outing

• Randy will Doodle the golf outing.

Filed under: TECHC Notes