Introduction

For many years IT departments in education institutions from schools to universities have been working hard to standardise their systems by reducing the number of supported Operating Systems and hardware devicetypes across campus. There have been many internal battles won and lost to centralise IT procurement acrosscampus, and many senior staff told “No you can't connect that to our network, we won't support it”.

Well times, they are a-changin and this new era is known as Consumerisation of IT and it seems to go againstthe very principals we have been striving so hard to implement.

Organisations that are brave enough to adopt this new world of working are seeing many benefits that comewith providing less IT resources out of school coffers. But there are many things that need to be considered andthought through before fully making the move.

Despite this, Consumerisation of IT isn't a Microsoft initiative nor is it something we actively promote. In fact,arguably it could potentially negatively impact our current licensing models and revenues. This is an industrywide phenomenon and Microsoft is positioning itself strongly at the centre. With the aim of helping our education customers provide the best possible user experience to their staff and students regardless of device, in a well-managed and secure way.

This paper attempts to highlight some key areas of consideration and explores some technologies that canenable this transition to take place.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

Consumerisation of IT in Education

Consumerisation of IT hasn't happened overnight, it has evolved over a period of time and is largely downto three things:

• Choice – a greater variety of devices, form factors and operating systems

• Cloud – many more services running in the cloud

• Connectivity – we are connected most of the time, wherever we are

As with all new IT Initiatives Consumerisation introduces a host of new acronyms. COIT (Consumerisation of IT), BYOC (Bring your own computer), BYOD (Bring your own device), BYOPC (I am sure you can guess thisone) to name but a few.

The move to support consumerisation is being discussed in many of our education institutions in the UK,many of whom are already embracing consumerisation and seeing the benefits.

With a groundswell of passionate students, academics and admin staff looking to embrace the COIT, if youhaven't already had the conversation, be prepared…

Key Considerations

Institutions considering the move to support COIT have many things to consider. First and quite simply, it is important to understand your users and their needs. A good way to approach this is to profile a crosssection of your institution, including both staff and students, in order to get a firm understanding of all thesituations and apps used by the core stakeholder groups.

With a holistic understanding of what devices and applications are used across the institution on a day to day basis in place, it is then important to be mindful of both the data being accessed and the devicerequirements of the applications used. For example, will they work equally well on a slate or laptop.

Secondly, you need to understand your data. This is particularly important around the concept of sensitivityand where the data is both stored and accessed.

Then there is the scope of the project – will it be for students, staff or both? Will you start with a small pilot.How will you measure the success of the project? Will you be prescriptive about what types of devices areallowed/supported? Many questions need to be answered!

In terms of purchasing equipment – would you consider introducing a financial support package, i.e. buy new device from the school/college/university and pay it back over a 12 month period with supportincluded?

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

You will also need re-define your support model – what level of support will you provide, if any, to personally owned devices?

Software as a Service

One of the key enablers for COIT is the growing number cloud based applications and services.

Much of the software available from Microsoft is now available as a cloud hosted service. A great example in Education is Live@Edu which provides free email, calendaring and collaboration functionality and iscompletely free to education organisations.

Office 2010 also embraces the cloud with a great combination of software and services. It is worth exploring this in more detail. As with previous versions, Microsoft Office 2010 is still installed locally on your PC, this provides all the rich functionality you have come to expect from Microsoft Office and worksequally well with or without internet connectivity. In addition there are now Office Web Apps - which arelightweight web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The Office Web Apps have thesame look and feel as their fully installed counterparts (albeit with less functionality) but they work in thebrowser, with most major browsers supported. When we combine these versions of Office with a centralisedstorage service such as Windows Live SkyDrive or SharePoint, it opens up a plethora of possibilities.

Let's look at an example…

As you are probably aware, Windows Live SkyDrive is a completely free storage and collaboration servicewhich provides users with 25GB of online storage and the ability to create folders and share them by defining access permissions.

So let's imagine two students, Peter and Jane who are working together on a project. Peter is working on his own laptop at home, running Windows 7 with Office 2010 installed locally. Jane uses a Mac with no MS Office installed.

Starting the project, Peter creates a new folder on his SkyDrive with and also grants Jane the read and writepermissions on the folder.

He then creates an Excel workbook using his locally installed rich client, and uses functionality includingpivot tables, pivot charts and sparklines. Peter saves the document to the project folder he created onSkyDrive.

Interacting with SkyDrive, shared storage is integrated into Office 2010. From the File menu, under Save &Send, there is an option to Save to Web. This connects directly to the users SkyDrive account and shows thefile structure directly from the cloud.

The file is now saved on SkyDrive and can be accessed by both Peter and Jane.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

Working on her Mac, Jane accesses the Excel workbook via her browser - and importantly even though sheis using the Excel Web App - with the lighter weight feature set, full fidelity viewing is preserved.

In the screenshot below, Jane can alter the cell values - and the Sparklines (in Column H) will update andreflect the changes made - even though Jane cannot create Sparklines directly in the Web App.

The following day, they both need to work on the document at the same time. Jane is at home and opensthe Excel workbook from her Safari browser. Peter is working on a shared computer in the library, MicrosoftOffice is not installed - so he opens up SkyDrive in his browser and opens the Excel workbook. They can nowhappily co-author this document at the same time across a range of technologies.

Excel Web App - showing 2 people co-authoring a document

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

The future of cloud based applications is looking very strong. Office 365, a recent addition to the MicrosoftPortfolio, includes Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online. An education specific version, aptlynamed Office 365 for Education, is expected soon and will add additional functionality to those found inLive@EDU. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is also available online which provides customisable and powerful relationship mnagement in the cloud. Many Education ISV's (Independent Software Vendors) are nowproviding their solutions as hosted alternatives to their on premise offerings.

We are passionate about the cloud and its ability to help institutions and students realise their potential.

Opportunites with Virtualisation Technologies

Virtualisation technologies can also help organisations embrace CoIT . Virtualisation technologies provideus with the ability to run applications or full school desktops on a wider range of device types and operatingsystems.

Presenting Software to Users

Microsoft has offered Session virtualisation (aka presentation virtualisation) for many years. Initially, throughTerminal Services and more recently with RDS (Remote Desktop Services). RDS Remote App allows for acentrally managed and server hosted application to be presented to remote users via a simple RDP client.RDP Clients are widely available across a range of platforms and devices, thus removing the need for clientsto be using a specific OS version.

An alternative to session virtualisation is application virtualisation which Microsoft provides through App-V.The key difference being that session virtualisation is server hosted, while App-V applications run on theclient device (although they are not installed in the traditional sense). App-V has all the benefits of centrallymanaged software combined with the benefits of removing any application conflicts on the clients. App-V ispart of MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimisation Pack). App-V applications can also be extended to non-windows devices through partner tools such as Citrix XenApp.

Presenting Desktops to Users

Desktops can be presented to users via both session virtualisation and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure).They are quite similar technologies, the key difference is that instead of presenting the user with a sharedcomputing session from a server, VDI users are presented with a full desktop from a virtual machine. Thisprovides users with a fully customisable and personal computing experience. A VDI server typically supportsfewer users than an RDS environment. Storing numerous large VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) Images can also takeup valuable disk space, although some VDI solutions make use of sophisticated differencing technologies to

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

save space. VDI desktops are also presented to users via an RDP client. Presenting a full desktop experienceto users via RDP is a good way of providing a school standard desktop and applications regardless of userdevice type or location, distance learners for example.

Security Considerations

When considering security we need to think about the devices themselves, the data and the network.

Device Encryption

Is any data going to be stored on the device, or is it all in the data center or cloud. If there will be sensitivedata, on a member of staffs laptop for example – would you consider enforcing encryption policies with atechnology such as BitLocker Drive Encryption. BitLocker Drive Encryption is integrated into Windows 7Enterprise and Ultimate Editions and encrypts the harddisk at volume level. Thus if a staff laptop goesmissing, you will have the peace of mind that any sensitive data is unreadable.

BitLocker To Go extends encryption protection to USB memory sticks. Policies can also be enforced toensure only encrypted memory sticks be used on campus.

Providing Network Access

With the potential introduction of “untrusted” devices onto your network there are many points to considerincluding network segmentation (physical or logical) and user authentication.

A typical student might require a school PC one day to access internal systems, while the next day she mightbring in her own device. What level of access will you give your student when using an untrusted device?Will you limit her access to external access only? Will she be able to use the same username and passwordregardless of which device she uses?

You will likely want to limit the access level based on the level of trust you have in the device they areconnecting from.

Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway is a solution that can provide secure access (both internal and remote) based on a number of criteria. For example a student logging on from a School PC will be ableto access applications 1-5, the same student logging on from an untrusted device might be limited to oneapplication – or have no access at all.

Will you enforce a security policy to ensure devices meet minimum security levels, local firewall, antivirusprotection etc. Network Access Protection (NAP) a technology introduced with Windows Server 2008 checkspolicy compliance of Windows clients and enforces security before allowing access to the network.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

Is it likely that you will have students visiting from other schools, colleges or universities? If so, how will youmanage their authentication? You might consider using a service such as the JANET(UK) federation serviceeduroam. The eduroam service provided by JANET(UK) is a federated service that enables JANET connectedinstitutions to offer secure network services for visitors from other eduroam-enabled institutions – withoutthe need for guest account management.

Alternatively, running a commercial offering, such as BT OpenZone, alongside your JANET(UK) provisioncould be a good option for allowing network access to non-approved devices.

HTML5

HTML5 offers many interesting ways to make apps shine both securely and across all platforms.

With its range of cross platform and device agnostic benefits, it could be argued that HTML5 offers the mostseamless COIT solution for institutions. HTML5 enables institutions to build and run rich experiences forstudents and staff without the need for plugins, all within the browser.

As a result, HTML5 offers an elegant single solution to address the majority of institutions BYOD challengesand requirements, regardless of whether the apps are being run on a Windows, Apple or Linux platform.

With the advances in HTML5 technologies, these benefits can also be extended to internet enabled mobiledevices and could potentially prevent the need to develop individual platform specific applications.

We look forward to watching the impact that HTML5 will have on the COIT movement over the coming years.

Systems Management

Depending on the size of your institution you probably already manage your IT infrastructure with a toolsuch as System Center Configuration Manager or System Center Essentials. But what if you need to startmanaging non-windows devices? System Center Configuration Manager 2012, currently in Beta, includes theability to manage non-windows devices including IOS, Symbian and android based devices. SCCM 2012 putsthe user at the heart of the solution and can deliver the best application experience based on their identity,their device, and their connection.

For organisations that don't have the resources and infrastructure to support their environment, WindowsInTune offers a great alternative. Windows InTune is a cloud based management and security solution thatenables PCs to be managed and protected without the need for on-campus servers. Windows InTune alsocomes with upgrade rights to allow organisations to upgrade to Windows 7 and beyond, based on subscription rights.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

Conclusion

With many industry experts stating that the future of technology in education lies with the user, COIT is now firmly on the radars on both suppliers, such as Microsoft, and the institutions we passionately serve.

As can be seen within this eBook on the subject, the definitive answer to making COIT palatable for bothusers and the providers of IT within schools, colleges and universities is not a clear cut one.

While students, especially those within FE and HE, want to bring their own devices on campus and use themto connect to their institutions network and systems, there is still a need to offer physical machines oncampus. This hybrid approach will no doubt be a reality for some time yet.

Despite this, there is clearly a requirement from the users of technology to have more flexibility in when and how they use a mix of personal and institutional devices to carry out their studies and it's the industryand IT professionals responsibility, working together, to make this a reality.

Locking down systems and preventing access is no longer realistic, particularly at a time when HE students,in particular, are demanding more from their learning experience.

Furthermore, with the budget cuts being realised across the sector, COIT offers potential cost saving benefits that educations leaders will find hard to ignore.

It is, therefore, all of our responsibilities to embrace more of a can do attitude towards COIT and discoverand embrace solutions that students so passionately require, while also maintaining the security of the institutions core networks and systems.

The ultimate answer is going to require a mix of cultural change and technology solutions, of which the vastmajority is already available.

The cloud, combined with client based software, offer flexibility and choice regardless of the platform used by the institutions learners. Furthermore, with the enhancements in virtualisation technologies, such as App-V, it is now possible to easily recreate institutional environments across Windows, Apple, Linux andmobile platforms, such as IOS and Android.

Furthermore, a pure-play web solution, using HTML5, also offers a highly elegant option for IT professionalsto offer apps to their wide range of users in a highly feature rich and secure environment.

Ultimately, the technology is available now to make COIT a practical reality for all institutions. Culturalchange is, however, needed to make this truly possible. Only with these two elements in place, are we goingto see the COIT available to all.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education

Have your say

We would love to hear what you think about the concept of COIT and how you are making this a reality, if atall, within your institutions. Have your say and join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #coit.

We look forward to continuing the conversation and debate.

Embracing Consumerisation of IT in Education