The new system has already been rolled out to over 90 schools in Kingston-upon-Hull with plans to extend the service to the rest of Yorkshire & Humberside in the new year.

Lower management fees and the desire for greater control were the key drivers in the move to an Open Source solution.

Sirius Corporation has provided the deployment expertise for the project whilst YHGfL is managing the infrastructure's day-to-day administration.

The principle technologies used in the deployment are Debian GNU/Linux, OpenLDAP, Squid Web Proxy and Dans Guardian.

The win comes after Sirius Corporation announced that they are to build an e-mail infrastructure that will be made available to all the schools in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

Martin Wheldon, Infrastructure Manager at YHGfL said: “We selected Sirius Corporation based the success of previous project work. Open Source software is key to the future of the YHGfL. Its high performance and low cost of ownership mean that we can offer better value to our customers - the schools of the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

"Despite the scale of the project, the deployment has gone smoothly and the feedback from the schools involved in the initial roll-out has been very positive."

Matthew Linden, Projects Director at Sirius Corporation said: "Projects such as this prove that, with professional support, Open Source architectures can out-perform and offer better value than proprietary systems.

"We are experiencing a surge of interest from LEAs, schools and councils around the country who are keen to lower their costs and improve their services using Open Source software."

Notes to the Editor

About YHGfL Foundation

The Yorkshire and Humberside Grid for Learning is a local authority company providing services to 12 LEAs with around 2,000 schools. The Foundation is part funded by the Government and part funded by its regions LEAs. For more information visit www.yhgfl.net

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed