Page 45 - Technology plan fy2023-27

Chapter 3 – Information Technology

Infrastructure

Executive Overview

The infrastructure in the District will provide the underpinnings necessary to drive technology for
the next few years. The infrastructure, both wired and wireless, must be robust to support
increased utilization, yet flexible for a paradigm shift toward cloud computing solutions. With the
increased dependency on technology, the network and server infrastructure must facilitate the
requirements necessary for success at all district locations. The architecture must be adaptable,
scalable, secure, and manageable. The physical servers, network, including all voice, data, and
digital video communications, will require the bandwidth capacity, flexibility, mobility, and security
to meet the needs of the schools in real-time. Communications must be possible beyond a
school to home environment, learning centers, state, country, and World.

Network and Performance Efficiencies
The District's network is currently a geographically dispersed redundant network of 3
datacenters, Fulton Holland Education Center (FHESC), SITV, and Northwest Regional Data
Center (NWR). This geographically redundant architecture is provided by our internet service
providers, AT&T and Florida LambdaRail (FLR). Our infrastructure has 2 points-of-presence;
one with AT&T located in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami, and a single point-of-presence on Florida
LambdaRail provided by Palm Beach County. This doubled our internal and external network
capacity where we are now positioned for future scalability to respond to increasing demands.

To provide safe and reliable network services for students, teachers, and employees; a
proactive rather than reactive approach is required. Technical challenges arrive at unexpected
times, and unforeseen problems are inevitable. A Network Operations Centers (NOC) can
provide network stability while implementing appropriate tools, and monitoring for optimal
management of infrastructure.

The District’s Network Operations Center (NOC) is the main center for network monitoring,
performance, and dashboards. This Center is designed to monitor the network at each of the
180+ school locations, as well as the many District offices. The NOC is under great pressure to
meet both business and educational service demands. It is a crucial cornerstone for the District;
its main goal is to respond to the business and educational needs of teachers, students, and
employees, all the while ensuring a safe and reliable network.

Over the next five years, the District will focus on improvements to its infrastructure that address
critical downtime and end-user experience. Large investments will focus on increased
bandwidth, wireless capacity, device stability, and site-to-site redundancy. Continued
investments will focus on network monitoring, system & network intrusion detection, log
aggregation, and event correlation. Hardware such as switches, routers, and fiber optic wiring
will be upgraded to the most current technology according to our five-year plan. Internet circuits
will be updated in FY23 to handle double our current capacity. We are currently piloting double
capacity at High Schools and plan to complete all High schools over the next 5 years. This will
also provide resiliency and a second fiber connection to provide maximum uptime. The plan is
to upgrade all school site circuits to handle double the original capacity and provide resilient
circuit paths to the District Datacenters. A safe and reliable connection for teachers, students,
and employees is a priority.

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