The backup bridge question

This post is brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department

In August of 2007, an eight lane bridge on Interstate 35W that spanned the Mississippi River collapsed. It killed 13 people and injured many more. It carried 140,000 vehicles every day. So critical was the link that the bridge provided that the replacement bridge was reopened just13 months later.

Design flaws and neglected maintenance were both blamed.

What no one blamed the Department of Transportation for was not having a "redundant" bridge. "Why," no one asked, "was a second bridge not in place so it could be used if the primary bridge failed?" 

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I think about this bridge a lot as we start examining the results of a network audit we had done by an independent company this year. Knowing that analogies can be dangerous things, I still think about this bridge collapse when seeing recommendations from security gurus for high levels of redundancy.

The reason, of course, for building redundancy into networks is that if there is a failure in the system, downtime can be eliminated or minimized. Two servers, two switches, two network managers, two fiber networks, two ISPs are wonderful to have if a failure of the primary occurs. The secondary can either take over automatically or can quickly replace the defective unit.

In the best of all possible worlds, everything would have a ready replacement in the technology world including, I suppose, the technology director. The downside of course is that having this much additional equipment and other resources doubles (or more) the cost of operation. Fiber optic networks, for example, can't just be two strands - these strands need to be in different physical locations so a single swipe of the backhoe doesn't take them both out. Rack space needs to be leased if secondary service are to be safely located away from the primary data closet.

If there is one balancing act that those of us who work in educational technology must constantly perform, it is allocating technology dollars between the infrastructure/administrative and the student/teacher/classroom sides of budget. For each dollar spent on that second server, one dollar cannot be spent on student computers or online resources or professional development.

Much to the displeasure of the technology experts that recommend lots and lots of redundancy, I push back quite a little. I like to ask some questions:

1. What are the odds and consequences of this particular failure occurring? Can we prioritize which applications and resources are mission critical? 
2. How many services can be moved to the cloud where it is the SaaS providers' responsibility to back things up?
3. What is an acceptable recovery time for each application? A failed firewall that stops all Internet traffic has a much shorter acceptable recover time (none) than perhaps the library automation system.
4. Can we cross train technicians and have external support on call rather than hiring two network managers?

After spending the first half of my career urging educators to use technology, it is ironic that I am spending the last half trying to stay one step ahead of those educators in making sure the technology is reliable, adequate, and available. I believe in the professional parlance it's called "creating a monster."

Nobody wants or expects a bridge to collapse. Nobody expects or wants a network to fail. Sensible precautions need to taken to insure if a failure does happen, mission-critical services and resources are minimally disrupted .

But perhaps, "sensible" is the operative word.

So long Wikispaces - you've been a great tool

 

Wikispaces recently announced that it is closing shop in mid-2018 - at least for those of us who use the free service. I have used this tool for my workshop support materials and promoted its use to countless classroom teachers and librarians in those workshops for a dozen years or more. So it is sad to see an old and comfortable friend retire.

As I started moving my materials from Wikispaces to GoogleSites this weekend, I asked myself "Does staying with any one tech tool make one complacent and maybe a little stale?"

What I had not realized was that I had support materials for 51 different presentations and workshops that I have done over the past 20 years or so. 51! Some have been old standbys that I'd given countless times; some only once or twice on an on-demand basis. The popularity rises and falls as areas of concern and interest by educators rise and fall.

The workshops have been fairly wide ranging, but the impact of technology on school libraries (of course), technology ethics, teacher competency in the use of technology, and creativity have been major themes. And over the years, I have killed a few "cash cows" now and again. But as I observed before:

...but boy o boy it's hard to kill your cow if you've named her Bossie. Or The Indispensable Librarian or The Technology? Skills Everyone Needs. No one would believe just how much fun it's been giving these talks and how lovely it is to bask in the glow of the head-swelling comments that follow.

So, not only is it time to change the tools I use for support materials, it's past time to weed the old list of workshops as well. (But I will keep the old materials - just in case - like my dad used to keep old screws and nails and other junk - just in case.) Perhaps it will be easier to find the "good stuff."

Thanks Wikispaces for the great run - and for closing shop so I have a reason to clean the presentation closet out!

BFTP: The franchise dilemma

I love it when teachers describe with great rapture successful projects they've done with their kids. I remember this one very well from a number of years ago.

A high school social studies teacher from a small town school asked teams of his students to research the history of downtown buildings in their area - when they were built, who were the owners, and what businesses had occupied the buildings. The product of the research was a series of articles that appeared in the local newspaper that proved very popular with the readers. The teacher, the kids, and the community all loved this project.

Cool, I thought. Let's try this in Mankato. But when I suggested it to our social studies teachers there was very little excitement and the one teacher who did try the assignment felt it was a dud.

This is a common occurrence - teachers who hear about a project or assignment that was hugely successful described in a journal or at a conference session that then falls flat when attempted back home. It's what I call the "franchise dilemma." Here's what I mean:

There are hundreds of thousands of wonderful restaurants in communities around the world but there are relatively few successful restaurant franchises. And frachised restaurants' food doesn't usually rise to the level of quality of the hometown fare. (The local Italian bistro vs. Olive Garden, for example.) Why?

It's because while franchises can copy the decor, the menus, the recipes, and other elements of the original, the clones cannot copy the passion of the owner of the first restaurant - his or her creativity, awareness of the local community, and personal realtionship with customers. It is the very uniqueness of the restaurant that makes it a successful place.

In the example above, the teacher had a passion for local history, knew his community, and had a relationship with the local press. Sources of local information (county records office and historical society) were cooperative. The administration supported this community-based project. While not a unique set of circumstances, it was perhaps a rare set. 

So does sharing experiences have any value? Yes, but only if we don't look at them as blueprints. Instead we should be analyzing the elements that made the project successful and then see if these elements can be applied to our own subject, students, schools AND personal passions.

The elements I saw in the building history project above included:

• Relavance built because of local connections
• Primary data supporting research
• Community involvement
• Group work
• Publishing for the public of results

Each of these elements can be applied to any subject, at any grade level, at any school. 

Avoid the franchise dilemma by looking for the fundamental reasons the projects of others are successful rather than trying to duplicate them. Remember the importance of your own passion for the work!

Original post January 25, 2013