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Campus Hosting Service Model Comparison
Infinite Campus offers a comprehensive hosting solution covering servers and software maintenance for the duration of your Infinite Campus subscription. By relying on Campus Hosting, your district will reduce costs and minimize the risk of managing your hardware, software, and associated operations, while freeing IT staff to focus on other district technology needs.

Central Hosting vs. Local Hosting
Campus Hosting provides nightly backups, warm site fail over for disaster  recovery in case the unthinkable occurs so your district’s data is always available.

There are two common options for hosting including central and local hosting.

Central Hosting
In smaller districts, public educators typically have constrained budgets and limited on-site technical support. While the Infinite Campus system offers tremendous power and flexibility for all educators, the ongoing costs of leasing and maintaining advanced server hardware on-site can be cost prohibitive for smaller districts. For this reason, Infinite Campus offers the central hosting option.

With central hosting, Infinite Campus provides the district’s authorized stakeholders with facilitated access to their information via the Internet. Infinite Campus maintains the district’s data at its secure, NIST-compliant national headquarters using the best equipment available. Highly trained professionals monitor the performance of the system and perform routine maintenance. Regular backups ensure the integrity of the district’s mission-critical information.

Local Hosting
In the case of a larger district or districts using the entry-level server option (see page 4), the hardware necessary to run Infinite Campus is placed on-site to ensure optimum system response times. In this situation, called local hosting, the equipment is remotely managed and maintained by Campus Hosting.

Read on for an explanation of the benefits available for each type of service and the additional options available. Also included is an overview of the hardware needed to successfully operate the system and options available.

Campus Hosting Options
Enjoy peace of mind with Campus Hosting. Each hosting model provides a different level of service.

Software Management
The management of an enterprise software solution like Infinite Campus is critical for daily operations. All software and related components needed to successfully use it are included. Districts request release updates and Campus Hosting ensures it is done as requested.

Hardware Management
All hardware, components and configurations needed to operate and support Infinite Campus are included. Campus Hosting uses special software to manage the servers and ensure availability. If the server experiences any disruption, support personnel immediately respond so the server can be brought back online as quickly as possible.

Operating Systems License
The operating system (OS) handles the details of the hardware’s operation. The OS relieves application programs from having to manage the details of the hardware. Campus Hosting ensures the OS license on your hardware is current  and compatible with the release of Infinite Campus your district is using.

Database License
The Microsoft SQL relational database license is managed by Campus Hosting. This ensures it is current and compatible with the version of Infinite Campus your district is using.

Associated Updates
Updates needed or recommended by the various component manufacturers are managed remotely by Campus Hosting.

Patches
Patches needed or recommended by the various component manufacturers are managed remotely by Campus Hosting.

Nightly Backups
In the locally hosted environment, data is backed-up on location at the Campus Data Center using secure encrypted channels. Data is backed-up nightly and stored for two weeks at the Campus Data Center. After two weeks, data is saved on the first of the month for three months.

A Campus Agent utility performs the backup, zips the file and encrypts it before it is securely transmitted from the district to the Campus Data Center
for storage.

Warm Site Fail Over
Campus Hosting provides a warm site fail-over service to all local hosting customers. Immediately following a disruption in service due to a disaster (see the Hurricane Katrina story on page 4) or catastrophic hardware failure, the district can request Campus Hosting to spin-up their backup and access the information from the Campus Data Center via the Internet.

Maintenance
A Campus Hosting professional schedules necessary system hardware and software maintenance so you can be assured your Infinite Campus system is running optimally and backups are in order. Maintenance is conveniently scheduled to meet your district needs and avoid disrupting daily use of the system.

Hardware Replacement
Campus Hosting keeps an inventory of hardware available for overnight replacement if or when a failure causes the system to be inoperable. If it is determined that hardware is not performing adequately, Campus Hosting will work to determine the best approach to resolve the issue.

Microsoft SQL Reporting Services and Visual Studio Licenses
Included in the locally hosted model is Microsoft SQL Reporting Services® (MS SRS) and a license of Visual Studio®. Districts use these tools to build custom reports and extracts. With MS SRS, users can push event driven reports to others. These users can then drill into data elements for further understanding based on their current security authorization. Reports can be updated from any computer with Visual Studio, a report authoring tool.

Transactional Replication
Infinite Campus uses MS SRS to replicate and synchronize database objects across a replication agent to another database server on the network. Replication follows a publisher/subscriber model, where the changes are sent out by one database server (“publisher”) and are received by another database server (“subscriber”).

Transactional replication synchronizes databases almost instantly. When a district purchases this service, Camus Hosting configures transaction replication between two separate database servers on the district’s network.

Each transaction made to the publisher database is synced out to a subscriber, which updates its database with the transaction. This is an excellent solution for district’s desiring to configure large amounts of custom reporting, or reports involving large, complex SQL queries. This option is available at an additional cost.

Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery has a number of different stages based on the location and severity of the issues requiring recovery.

The timelines for each are unique to the solution in place. This could be the result of a site being destroyed and offline for an extended period of time. A disaster recovery plan will be created and used to determine the recovery process for the specific incident. Capacity can be increased to accommodate full production access.

Local Fail Over
Many districts chose to select the local fail over option to leverage an extra database server on site. If one system goes down, the redundant server takes over and users will not be aware of the failure so operation will continue as normal. This option is available at an additional cost.

Continuous Backup
Continuous backup is a powerful way to retrieve almost 100 percent of your data after a disaster. As data is being saved, it is replicated to the Infinite Campus headquarters in real time. Then, if the unthinkable disaster occurs, a minimal amount of data is lost. This feature offers peace of mind and eliminates duplicate data entry post-disaster. This option is available at an additional cost.

Hardware
Campus Hosting provides all hardware required for successful operation of Infinite Campus in your district. The hardware is sized based on the number of students in your district. Listed below are the hardware options available.

ASP Option
With the ASP option, districts get all the flexibility needed without having to troubleshoot, patch, monitor, backup or worry about the hardware and software. Campus Hosting experts do all of that for you around the clock. Districts are encouraged to use ASP services to optimize their investment.

Entry-level Server Option
Districts that traditionally use the ASP option can select to have a server in-district. This allows for increased performance since the district connects to the server via the district’s internal Intranet to reach the application. This eliminates performance issues that may arise through connectivity via the Internet.

This option also provides greater granularity in choosing and managing release versions, with access to the production environment along with sandbox staging and preview sites.

Single Server Option
For districts with 5,000-7,500 students, the single server option is the right choice. This option includes an application and database server components on one server. Districts typically select this option when they add Campus Food Service.

Multi-server Option
This option includes one or more dedicated database and application servers according to each district’s size and need. For districts with two or more application servers, a Kemp Load Balancer is also supplied.

Self Hosting
Districts with more than 50,000 students can choose the self hosting option. Districts that choose self hosting are responsible for the services listed on the chart on page 1 and providing their
own hardware.

Campus Hosting provides consulting services including loading releases and patches to the district’s production, sandbox, staging and preview sites. The district is responsible for all other management of the system.

Campus Hosting in Action: Jefferson Parish and Katrina
On August 29, 2005, a category 5 hurricane hit the gulf coast and caused severe destruction from central Florida to Texas. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed.

80 percent of New Orleans and surrounding parishes flooded. More than 1,800 people lost their lives, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928. Jefferson Parish Public School System (JPPSS), a Campus Customer since 2003, took bold steps to get their district back on its feet. Campus Hosting was there to help.

Protecting Data
JPPSS was at the mercy of Katrina as the schools closed and students dispersed. Campus Hosting staff watched the hurricane warnings and immediately started to back up data every four hours. They were in constant contact with JPPSS and within an hour of the school closing, Campus Hosting had the JPPSS site running at the Campus Data Center, safe from the extreme damages that followed.

“To prepare for Katrina, JPPSS called Infinite Campus to provide a disaster recovery solution. This included data backup and restore to the Campus Hosting site in Minnesota,” said Kris Labruzzo, JPPSS Assistant Director/Student Information Systems. “As staff focused on the evacuation of their families, this service was invaluable.”

In spite of all the damage, when JPPSS was ready to reopen, they were able to immediately access student data and begin the required state reporting with zero loss of information.

Reassurance
“After our experience with Infinite Campus, it is reassuring to know that our student information is stable and reliable pending any future disasters,” said Labruzzo. Keeping the schools running is essential to a stable community.

Customers who are hosted by Infinite Campus have the assurance they are not alone, and their data is protected and secure to get them back on-track quickly.

National Data Center
Infinite Campus houses its servers in a modern national data center. With a redundant uninterruptible power supply (UPS), back-up generator, Internet connectivity, and cooling system you can rest assured your data is safe, secure, and always accessible.

Infinite Campus was recently audited by the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Inspector General to verify conformance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standards Publication (SP) 800-26, Security Self-Assessment Guide for Information Technology Systems. These security control standards are required for any federal information system installation.

For the audit, Infinite Campus was required to meet the 19 steps listed on the Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems Form 800-53. Infinite Campus is proud to have met all of these rigorous requirements. Your district’s data is handled with the utmost care and under tight scrutiny of the same organization that approves U.S. Department of Defense vendors.

Ready? We are.
Campus Hosting is ready to provide the software services and hardware management support your district needs to effectively operate and maintain your Infinite Campus investment all for a low per student pricing hosting fee. Want more information? Contact your Infinite Campus Representative today.