12 Aug, 2007
Technical Support
The technical support strategy should focus on how to deliver reliable ICT services at all hours of the day with minimum downtime. These services should be determined by the overall ICT strategy as defined by the end-users. In SMJK Dindings, technical support strategy is related to the overall ICT strategy headed by the principal and assisted by system administrators who are IT teachers and the ex-students of the school. The technical support are categorized into hardware and software support. The hardware purchasing policy is to purchase refurbished equipment from computer hardware vendors who are able to provide up to 5 years, online support, warranty on spare parts and labour. The hardware suppliers can also be a useful source of technical knowledge about the products they sell and at the same time provide specialist technical support services when necessary. Computer peripherals are purchased from online auction sites such as eBay.com and lelong.com.my. Well stocked spare parts enable the support team to instantly replace faulty peripherals to minimize downtime thus ensuring maximum availability of the system.
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12 Aug, 2007
The Technological Infrastructure – An integrated school network
Another commonly used term for an integrated network is a ‘Whole School Network’ or Campus Area Network. School will become more and more dependent on their ICT infrastructure to deliver all aspects of their work. It will be vital to ensure that the technological infrastructure is correctly specified to meet the daily curriculum tasks. In SMJK Dindings, the whole school is connected by a single cabling structure following the TIA/EIA 568 specifications, including administrative and curriculur fields. The Local Area Networking is scalable, star topology and Ethernet compliant. The Local Area Network linking each classroom, administrative office, counseling centre, library and science laboratories are connected via UTP Cat.5+ cable. In terms of physical networking hardware, the Campus Area Network consists of gigabits Ethernet (1000Mbps) backbone with switched 100Mbps connections to the desktop. SMJK Dindings is equipped with a data centre consolidating all the servers into one central location which serves to provide network resources to four separate networks.
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