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, expect to 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, disaster recovery and real-time data replication 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, with less than 3,000 students, public educators typically have constrained budgets and limited onsite 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 a 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 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 with more than 3,000 students, or districts using the entry-level server option (see page 4), the hardware necessary to run Infinite Campus is placed onsite to ensure optimum system response times. In this situation, called local hosting, the equipment is remotely managed and maintained by the Campus Hosting Team.

On the following pages is 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 the options available.

Campus Hosting Options
Campus Customers enjoy peace of mind provided by Campus Hosting. Each hosting model provides a different level of service, explained in detail here.

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 that 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 also managed by Campus Hosting. This ensures that it is current and compatible with the version of Infinite Campus your district is using.

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

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

Nightly Backups
Nightly database backups help districts recover and restore data records after they may have been accidentally deleted or corrupted. All hosted customers receive this service.

In the locally hosted environment, data is backed up on location as well as to 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 does the backup, zips the file and encrypts it before it is securely transmitted from the district to the Campus Data Center for storage.

Nightly backups do not include student photos or documents associated with an IEP. The district may do these backups independently, if desired.

Warm Site Fail Over
Campus Hosting provides warm site fail-over service which is a backup of the system from the prior day. District users can log into the system like usual, access data and use it as if under normal operational conditions.

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 in order to avoid disruption daily use of the production 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 not currently available out of the box.

With MS SRS, users can push event driven reports to others. These users can then drill into Campus 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.

Disaster Recovery
Immediately following a disruption in service due to a disaster, such as a tornado or hurricane (see the Hurricane Katrina story on page 3), the district can request Campus Hosting to spin up their backup and access the information from the Campus Data Center via the Internet.

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. The last backup of the database would be made available from Infinite Campus for limited access. 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 could 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, 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.

Real-time Data Replication
Data replication 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
Through Campus Hosting, all hardware required for successful operation of your district is provided. 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 with
3,000 students or less typically are encouraged to use ASP services to operate their investment.

Entry-level Server Option
Districts that traditionally use the ASP option, can select to have a server in-district. This allows for better performance since the district is the only database on the server and use only relies on the district’s internal Intranet to reach the application.

This option also provides greater granularity in choosing release versions. This option also provides access to a sandbox and production site to manage releases.

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

Multi-server Option
For districts with 7,501-49,999 students, the multi-server option is the right choice for performance of the system. This option includes a database and production server. One application server is required for each 10,000 students. For districts with more than 12,500 students a Kemp High Availability Load Balancer is also required.

For districts with more than 100,000 students, a database server and production server are required in addition to the Kemp High Availability Load Balancer. However, your Campus Representative will want to discuss specific details with this size of an installation. This assures the highest performance for end users and district-level reporting needs.

Local Hosting Services Only Option
For districts with more than 50,000 students, the district can chose only the services of Campus Hosting listed on the chart on page 1 and provide their own hardware. Hardware replacement, maintenance, and updates are the responsibility of the district.

Application Management Only Option
For districts with more than 50,000 students, the district can chose to have Campus Hosting manage only the Infinite Campus software. This includes loading releases and patches to the district’s sandbox site. The district is responsible for all other management of the system.

Campus Hosting In Action: Jefferson Parish & 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.

Eighty 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 – with the help of Campus Hosting.

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, assistant director/student information systems. “As JPPSS staff focused on the evacuation of their families, this service was invaluable.”

JPPSS made a good choice with Infinite Campus and its hosting model. In spite of all the damage, when JPPSS was ready to reopen, they could immediately access student data and begin the required state reporting with no 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, satellite link, 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 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.