Information Technology

A Brief on Project IT at SDPS SDPS embarked on its ambitions IT Project in 2017. The main aim of the project was to provide an advanced computing environment and access to Information Superhighway to all human resources in the School. The Project envisaged improved infrastructure facilities in IT by: 1. Wiring all the main Academic block with Optical Fiber backbone to enable multimedia learning and teaching. 2. Providing Internet facility to students. 3. Providing centralized access to various departments/administrative blocks (Authentication, Mail, Proxy, Firewall, Database, File and Print) 4. Adequate manpower for maintenance. 5. Purchase of Operating System and other Software licenses required for the above purpose. The entire concept was conceived in 2017 and Old Boys of active chapters had come out with a proposal to wire the entire campus.With the emerging needs of students and IT as a major tool in shaping their life, the project assumed significance and implemented in 2018. The work on the project commenced as soon as the school closed for summer vacations in 2017. The team of workers from IP & Data Solution found major hurdles in digging trenches for laying cables as the terrain was rocky, standards for cabling were followed meticulously. Under the supervision of Coordinator IT, the project was completed in two phases a fortnight behind schedule. Phase I connected the Admin block and classrooms and Phase II covered all Labs. The Aim of Project IT was to provide connectivity to all places in the campus including Admin Block, Class Rooms and Labs so that communication becomes simple and easy between the vast areas of the School Campus. The network is designed to cater to 360 nodes in the initial phase and can be expanded to cater to additional nodes as the backbone is a high capacity 10Gbps Fiber. All the Edge switches have 24 ports wherein only 12 ports are loaded in the initial phase. The Network Layout that was designed originally by IP & DATA Solution was modified to bring in more redundancy at the outer layers so that the entire project can be well maintained with minimum downtime. Today, 100 Mbps Leased line caters to the needs of students. The project facilitates e-learning process that has become a benchmark in today’s learning environment. In addition to providing Internet facility to students for mailing purposes, the network is extensively used for project work and career guidance. It also facilitates easy communication between staff and students and vice-versa any time in the day in addition to helping the students to be in touch with their parents. The students can share resources among themselves thereby saving a lot of time and increasing productivity. They can also get 24x7 help from the staff during vacations. The intranet facility "SDPS SchoolHouse" is a customized Information Management Solution and was developed by the school in partnership with Appsar. “SDPS SchoolHouse” is a single platform where all stake holders- Administration, Staff, Teachers, Students and Parents connect with each other. It helps in Class & Student Management, recording student results and performance, Staff Management, Attendance, Payroll Management, Accounting, Stores Management, Hospital Management, Library Management and a host of other features. MIS reports are available to check usage and improve efficiency. It also helps the school in better implementation of schemes. In addition, it helps the students to be in touch with each other and also help them to access offline material stored on the servers. All the computers in the campus are connected to the central hub high-end servers cater to different needs of the stake holders. The firewall ensures unauthorized access to the network and it an anti-virus software helps the network from keeping away virus attacks. A Domain Name Server (DNS) with Active Directory Services is used for authentication of users. Built-in LDAP services enable rights to users based on login id. Every staff has a login name and a password with a 25 MB server space. A proxy server ensures access to legitimate sites for students. A host of data servers helps users in sharing resources across the network. The Network is very robust with a 3 tier architecture-Core, Distribution and Access. All switches used are ARUBA (HP) make with aruba 2530 at the edge. A mix of ring and Logical topology was implemented to maximize redundancy. Universal standards for cabling and documentation have been followed. It is a completely "managed" network for effective LAN Management. All the classrooms have been upgraded to smart classrooms with multi touch enabled smart boards. Teachers can now facilitate group learning and record their lectures for future use. They can also collaborate online with other schools using the smart board. The school also offers two subjects in IT - Computer Science and Informatics Practices at the Senior Secondary level. The IT department also provides the following services as part of the network: • Learning Management Solutions • Wi-Fi hotspots across campus • IP Telephony • Surveillance • Website Management • SMS Gateway services • Online Power backup solutions • Robotics • Support to foreign language labs with facility for online translation The students in Junior School are learning with Tablets bought by the School as part of experiential learning. The School has ensured that technology does not replace the traditional learning process, yet technology serves as an extension for better learning outcomes.