CONNEAUT – It’s often said computers are outdated within a few months of when they’re purchased.
Servers used by government agencies and schools tend to have a slightly longer life span, but still need updated or replaced approximately every five years, which is a costly endeavor.
Brian Chase, director of technology and infrastructure administration, delivered the bad news that the servers at the Conneaut Area City Schools have reached the end of their lifespan during a regular board meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 17.
“We’re getting to the point we’re going past year five now for our data center,” Chase said. “To kind of put this in perspective, everything you’re seeing down to this board, the presentations that were made, the Wi-Fi that’s being used, everything goes through that room, down to the desktops. What we’re looking at for this refresh is those servers. When it comes to tech, once you get to year five, you’re on the graces. Anything beyond five, we’re just going to try to cobble together and keep it moving.”
“What we’re seeing today is in the data center,” Chase continued. “Software revisions, everything gets better, more secure, patch, patch, patch, additions. What’s happening is the hardware itself is stagnant. Not only are we starting to see errors in memory, the servers are smart enough where they’ll say, ‘Okay, this memory is going bad, I’ll allocate it out. I keep on doing my business,’ but the problem is still there.”
“The other part of it is, within the last month, one of those servers decided to go AWOL on me,” Chase continued. “We had to take it down to bare metal, which means just start from scratch and build it back up. The first morning it came up when I was doing the baseline install, that it was complaining that, ‘Okay, this is going to work now, future renditions probably will not run on this hardware.’”
Chase softened that bit of jolting news with the information that he had negotiated a deal that would save the district substantially if it acted – before the end of the year.
The board approved a nine-server refresh that will cost the district $382,325.47, a price that was 82 percent of the initial estimate thanks to Chase’s negotiations.
The retail cost of the server refresh is more than $2 million.
“I have this agreement written for $382,000 and change,” Chase said. “It’s a massive discount on this, 82 percent. Almost automatically, we get that education pricing. That 82 percent took me the better part of two months to get to that discount level, crying the need of the district, the financial situation as a whole for school districts and HPE really, honestly, stepped up to the point HP undercut (the generic brand’s offer) by $10,000.”
A 15-server refresh cost the district $640,509.59 during the 2019-20 school year.
“These particular servers we’re looking at, they’re HP servers, very good servers,” Chase said. “They are end of life, which means that they’re being phased out of support.”
Increasing demands on technology departments in school districts make having up-to-date servers a necessity.
“Demands are always being upped on us,” Chase said. “It almost seems like it’s weekly, daily, in some cases, anymore with security being at the top of that. Shortly before July, you’re going to see something come across the board for Senate Bill 96. It’s dealing with cyber security. We have really tight mandates. If we experience a sort of cyberattack, malware attack, in order to do this, I have to be able to have the latest versions, the latest patches, everything I can do to make the infrastructure as solid as possible.”
Governmental mandates aren’t the only reason updating servers quickly is important.
“(The mandates are) one of the big drivers of this whole project,” Chase said. “The other part of it is being proactive to this. They’re okay today. We’re running today. Everybody’s giving their presentations to their students. Obviously, we’re up and running. We’re good, but when we experience a failure because of this, it’s going to have an impact to the district as a whole.”
Chase is not looking to improve the CACS server situation as much as maintain the status quo with the update.
“This refresh, it’s about maintaining,” Chase said. “We’re looking to be able to take what we have into the next five years. With the advent of where technology is today, specifically with AI and what that’s going to look like in year six. I can’t predict that today, that pace is so rapid. I’m looking at a scope for the next five years, and this plan right here, will have what we have today. We’ll be able to maintain it and add some performance on top of it. The big thing is we’re not expanding this. We’re doing a lateral move to something that’s going to be able to sustain us in this capacity in the next five years.”
The district’s current servers reached end of life on May 1, 2024, but have support until 2028.
The refresh will give the district another five- to seven-year lifespan.
During his presentation, Chase told the board members the deal he had negotiated was good only until the end of December and, after that, he would have to go back to the table a start from scratch.
“Here’s the deal,” Chase said. “If we want to be guaranteed this pricing, I hate to put this kind of pressure on you guys, but this is one of the situations where this kind of pricing, I can’t guarantee past what I’m presenting to you today.”
Mid-meeting, the board decided to modify the agenda and voted to make the purchase.
