When designing our supplemental usage environment, we took averages from our current school adoptions and built it out for 10 percent of the students to be actively using the applications at any time.  We do understand that at times that could be less or more and have scaling policies in place to increase capacity as the number of people in the environment gets close to that 10 percent mark.  It will be important for schools to connect with ByteSpeed right away to let us know if there are snow days or major lab issues that will require heavier usage for a certain amount of time so that we can ensure the best possible user experience.

Yes.  Please connect with ByteSpeed for options.

This solution does not include the software.  Schools are required to own the licenses for the software that is used the CLaaS environment.  For example, Adobe CC requires the school to have Adobe ID cloud accounts setup.

Minor software tweaks or additional software may be considered.  If you are looking for a custom environment that is far outside of our scope of work, we may refer you to one of our partners who build custom AWS environments.

When ByteSpeed sets up each school, we attach cloud storage to your AppStream environment. Schools can choose between either OneDrive or Google Drive and users will have the ability to save and open files/projects from their individual user accounts. ByteSpeed will take care of this during the initial setup. 

Google Drive

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/appstream2/latest/developerguide/google-drive-end-user.html

OneDrive

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/appstream2/latest/developerguide/onedrive-end-user.html

Each school will have a custom branded landing page that will include school logos and links.

There are fixed costs and maintenance within the AWS environment that don’t allow for a per student model that covers less than 100 students.

Anyone who has access to AppStream, including students, teachers, and technology team.

The best way is to work with the teachers and cross-reference with the classes in your SIS site to get a count of how many students are enrolled in those classes. Don’t forget to include the teachers and anyone else you want to have access to AppStream.

Every user that will be accessing an application throughout the school year will need to be counted whether they are using the applications during one semester or two.

ByteSpeed is responsible for creation and maintenance of the following as well as managing usage to provide a sustainable pricing model.

• Amazon Web Services accounts are created under ByteSpeed’s organization
• VPC which includes the subnets, routing tables, NAT and Internet Gateways, security policies, users and roles
• Server instances for licensing and internet proxy
• AppStream Service which includes:
  • Building the main image to be used for the account
  • SAML authentication integration (Google or Azure with schools help)
  • S3 storage buckets
  • Storage integration for Google Drive or Onedrive
  • Stack and Fleet setup
  • Scaling policies for availability

• This plan is built on a traditional school year (36 weeks), but supplemental hours can be purchased to cover summer courses. 

• Both environments are built on a standard school year of 36 weeks with an assumed 8 hour standard school day, 5 hours for homework, 8 hours on the weekends (at reduced capacity).

• For the Predictable Economy plan, the environment is built with 10% of the users purchased available.  Should usage get close to the 10% number, the environment is built to slowly scale and add seats. *This would make for a very poor user experience if you were operating the solution as a lab replacement.  Please note about snow days and lab issues to ensure the best possible experience. We utilize Auto Scaling to add capacity so depending on how fast the student usage turnover is, there may be a wait for them to get into AppStream.

  For the Scheduled Performance plan, user capacity is built around the class schedule provided by the school with an additional 10 percent buffer to accommodate any outliers. ByteSpeed is committed to the best possible user experience while still maintaining an affordable option for schools.  We will work closely with each school in the CLaaS environment to ensure their users have a good user experience.

• Reach out to your ByteSpeed Territory Manager and we would be happy to help.

• If you are using the lab replacement option, you should already be ready to go.  If you are using the supplement option, Bytespeed would get your schedule and build availability sound your needs with an additional 10% supplemental usage built in.  Snow days or lab issues can be communicated to cloudsupport@bytespeed.com

• General rule of thumb is a week. Setup can actually be done in days depending on the software setup.

• No

• Any device with a modern browser – iPad, Chromebook, Windows, Mac. Depending on the application, having a mouse and keyboard to use with the device may make for a much better user experience.

• We do have a demo account that we can get you access to. Please request the demo from your Account Manager or sales@bytespeed.com and will schedule time and get you the links needed.

• If you would like to purchase during the middle of the school year, work with your ByteSpeed Territory Manager to discuss options.  Usage can also be purchased in hour bundles to cover smaller time frames.

• AppStream offers an application only view. There is no desktop that the students are able to get to, no need to set up group policies or worry about opening other applications. 

  Each session is a sandbox off a master image. After a session is ended the instance is destroyed.

  Only users who you’ve given access to through GSuite/Azure will have access to AppStream.

• All traffic is routed through a deny all squid proxy with a whitelist of domains only required to run the software.

• This is a separate account created for Appstream and it will not affect anything else being done in a school’s AWS environment.

• ByteSpeed’s CLaaS solution is built using Amazon AppStream 2.0. For more information on Amazon AppStream 2.0, visit: https://aws.amazon.com/appstream2/faqs/?nc=sn&loc=7