CampusEAI Consortium Announces e-Rate Private Cloud Web Hosting for K-12

Well, we got wise to e-Rate in the last few months and boy have our members been taking advantage of it! Since most of our members already use our Web Hosting Services for their myCampus K-12 portal, Learning Management System, Public Website and other back-end systems it only seemed natural to apply for an e-Rate SPIN number to move further into the motto of shared costs.

If you're not familiar, E- Rate was established as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 by the FCC. It is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), a not-for-profit corporation. This program supports connectivity and provides discounts for many schools and libraries in the United States and U.S. territories to obtain affordable web hosting and cloud computing. Through e-Rate, over 100,000 schools have received funding for classroom technology. As a potential vendor of E-rate eligible services, CampusEAI may only provide "vendor-neutral" guidance about E-rate during an applicant's required competitive bidding process. CampusEAI SPIN is 143033353. If you are interested in the type of service that CampusEAI offers, we offer suggestions for submitting FCC Form 470 to USAC. (Form 470 is used to alert potential vendors that you are seeking bids for E-rate eligible products or services.) Learn more about this program at http://www.usac.org/sl/

CLEVELAND - September 29, 2010 - CampusEAI Consortium today announced the availability of the
CampusEAI Consortium Private Cloud Web Hosting for K-12 education. The CampusEAI Private Cloud is powered by industry vendors and service providers including Dell® (Nasdaq GS: DELL), AT&T® (NYSE: T), NetApp® (Nasdaq GS: NTAP), VMware® (NYSE: VMW), Symantec® (Nasdaq GS:SYMC), Equinix® (Nasdaq GS: EQIX) and Cisco® (Nasdaq GS: CSCO).

The CampusEAI Private Cloud Web Hosting is an elastic, scalable platform that allows individual schools, school districts and ITC’s to host enterprise applications including:

Student Information Systems
Public Web Site/Web Content Management Systems
Student/Teacher Portal Systems
Parent Portal Systems
Alumni Portal Systems
ePortfolio Systems
Learning Management Systems
Grade-book
Library Automation Systems
HR/Financial Payroll Systems
School Equipment Inventory
Identity Management Systems
Student Records and Reporting Systems
Help Desk Systems

CampusEAI Consortium’s Private Cloud Web Hosting includes the following features:

Cloud-based Hosting in SAS 70-Certified Equinix®, Cisco®, Dell®, VMware®, NetApp®, Symantec®-powered Datacenter
Multi-homed, Redundant Internet Connectivity
Bulletproof Cisco®-powered Network, Application, and Equinix®-powered Physical Security
Comprehensive Symantec®-powered Backup and Recovery Operations
Administration and Management of the Cisco®-powered network, RedHat®-powered operating systems, Dell®-powered servers, VMware®-powered virtualization, and NetApp®-powered Storage Area Networks (SAN).
Application & Database Administration and Maintenance – a dedicated team of application and database engineers and administrators responsible for day-to-day maintenance and
upgrades
24x7x365 Network Operations Center staffed by a team of engineers monitoring a hosted instance around the clock

Members benefit from moving to the CampusEAI Web Hosting in many ways, including:

Elasticity and scalability. CampusEAI Private Cloud Web Hosting enables computing on demand by providing the ability to increase the supply of computing resources as they are needed to deal with spikes in demand for a particular application or service. Computing resources are turned into a commodity so more can be added over time, as needed,
to ensure systems are almost infinitely scalable.
Lower costs. A fundamental attraction of the CampusEAI Private Cloud Web Hosting is that it can provide an opportunity to reduce costs. Savings come from the use of computing
resources based at one or more low-cost locations, which are managed efficiently using automation, and by realizing economies of scale stemming from the use of specialist staff members managing large quantities of computing resources.

Institutions which have already moved to the CampusEAI Private Cloud include:

Portland Public Schools: utilizing the Cloud for hosting myCampus K-12 District portal
Northeast Ohio Network for Educational Technology (NEOnet): utilizing the Cloud for web hosting public website, web content management system, hosting for myCampus K-12 District portal and myCampus-based administrative portal.
Prince William County Public Schools: utilizing the Cloud as web hosting partner of hosting their Oracle® Portal 11g Platform

We are excited to make the CampusEAI Private Cloud available to K-12 education organizations. We look forward to helping our member institutions improve the quality of service and reduce the cost of operating their enterprise applications.

Non-members seeking further information can contact Sera Nelson at sera_nelson@campuseai.org or visit the CampusEAI website at www.campuseai.org.