Teknoids - disaster recovery

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

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Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

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Disaster Preparedness Webinar - Favor to Ask Teknoids

Sat, 1 Apr 2006 03:40:38 -0600

Hi folks,

EDUCAUSE is going to have a presentation from the LSU CIO on April 5th
that is relevant to our Law School Emergency Planning Project

(see http://www.teknoids.net/?q=node/6862)

I will be out of town on that day and was hoping that several of you
could "attend" the webinar and keep another browser window open on the
LSEPP wiki at the URL above and take notes that may be relevant for our
planning.

Here's the link to the EDUCAUSE event..

http://www.educause.edu/live067

Thanks!
John

--
===================================================
John P. Mayer
Executive Director
Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
565 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60661
312-906-5307 - voice
312-906-5338 - fax
jmayer@cali.org - email
http://www.cali.org
===================================================

Law School Emergency Planning

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:57:28 -0600

We’re very interested in this project and would like
to be involved. Living in hurricane alley, we’ve had to prepare for 7
hurricanes in the last 2 years. We were walloped badly with Wilma last year. The
University, along with 98 of Broward
County, shut down for
over a week. Count us in and please keep us posted. Thanks.

LOCATIONS

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 01:58:13 -0600

Where should we put the two servers?
What law schools are willing to step up to host?

APPLICATIONS

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 01:56:39 -0600

What applications (both functions to be served and specific products) should we install and make available?

Blogging

I'm partial to Classcaster which is a mashup of LifeType and Asterisk so that it can take phone calls and turn them into podcasts - a feature that we don't use much now, but could be rather valuable for scattered faculty who may not have reliable computer or internet access.
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Podcasting

See 1 in Blogging.
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Mailing List Manager

Forums

LMS/CMS

One idea is to have a solid LMS like Moodle so that law schools could quickly setup simple course web pages for every course. Students would be directed there for course content, podcasts, etc. Faculty could phone in lectures to Classcaster and link to those lectures from the Moodle course presence. A more advanced idea is to have law schools upload their course list at the beginning of every semester so that in the case of a disaster, everything is already to go. We could probably automate this if everyone can agree to output a relatively standard looking XML-formatted course list or at least a CSV of their courses.

OPERATING SYSTEM

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 01:52:51 -0600

What Operating System Should we Use?
What Distro?

HARDWARE

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 01:49:50 -0600

What hardware should we install?
CPU
Hard disks (how many, RAID, NAS, SAN?)
UPC

PROJECT NAME

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 01:47:42 -0600

What should we call this project?

Law School Emergency Preparedness Project (LSEPP)
Law School FEMA
Heckuva Backup Site
Law School Bit Bucket
LSBU (law school backup)

Law School Emergency Planning Project (LSEPP)

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 00:46:05 -0600

In the past several years, we have seen several law schools run into trouble when operations were disrupted by hurricanes, tornadoes, hijacked airplanes and floods. In the most recent case of Hurricane Katrina, there was a generous and spontaneous outpouring of assistance for Tulane and Loyola from the legal education IT community. The problem was that there was too much help and this created confusion as to where people should go to get reliable and updated information.

We are at the point with distance learning technologies like blogs, podcasting and the like, that if a disaster were to occurr mid-semester, there is no need to lose the entire semester. Faculty can create assignments and delivery lectures from almost any net-connected location and students can continue their studies until recovery services and longer-term planning can take hold. This is, of course, highly dependent on the nature of the disaster.

Furthermore, we are becoming more and more dependent on our digital infrastructures and even short-term interruptions (like a week) can be highly disruptive to our students and our jobs. With so many students using CALI lessons (over 500,000 in 2005) and so much traffic at the LII, we were in the planning stages of creating a co-hosting setup when Katrina hit and we realized that maybe we could create a system and service that benefits all law schools. In that light, CALI can cover the costs of a couple of servers.