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SIS Behind the Scenes
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Bernhard Rieber, SIS Chief Information Officer at SIS Swiss International Schools Group
Behind all the infrastructure offered in our 17 schools of the SIS group, there is an IT team focused on providing technological improvements in a secure environment so that teaching and learning is supported and remains at the forefront, whatever the obstacle.
The consistent expansion and renewal of the IT infrastructure at the 17 school locations of the SIS Group within the countries of Switzerland, Germany, and Brazil, require clear regulation in order to ensure a professional operation of the school network.
The IT-Supporters of SIS face this task in close cooperation with the SIS Group CIO. As a team, together with Mr. Tobias Aichroth, we take on IT problems at the SIS schools as quickly as possible. For the SIS Group IT team, it is important to do everything possible to ensure that functioning IT becomes routine. Only then it is possible that the technology itself stays in the background and the digital experiences in teaching and learning stay “free of disturbances” as much as possible.
Our objective is that students get equally enthusiastic about the use of digital possibilities at SIS as their teachers – this, of course, will only be possible if the “technology” works properly. I am impressed to see how dynamically teachers in Brazil have used the new possibilities of the Office 365 platform to ensure very well-structured digital teaching of valuable content even in these times of a pandemic.
The task of the SIS Group IT is to provide all IT services, such as O365 or new hardware, as easily as possible, in order not to create obstacles to the success of SIS pedagogical practices.
Precisely because of this, we are pleased to have Mr. Genilson Lima, an extremely team-oriented and very experienced and committed IT support manager for SIS locations in Brazil. The processes which we control from the SIS Group IT headquarters, in Switzerland, are handled by Mr. Genilson Lima in Brazil with excellence.
Our objective is that students get equally enthusiastic about the use of digital possibilities at SIS as their teachers
Which IT processes are running in the background?
All the SIS equipment in Europe and Latin America is constantly synchronised to a Centralized Installation Server in Basel, Switzerland, which is responsible for making the operational system as well as licensed and approved software available for user access by “a click of a button”.
Tablets also have their apps installed by a server, Mobileiron. In this way, devices can be provided with secure and pedagogically sensitive software, regardless of their location.
All servers and devices are constantly monitored by a centralized remote system, that informs each of its status at any time, so that we can intervene if needed. Every device of a school location still has a local server as a central point of reference which is also duplicated backed up virtually and, therefore, is available in a redundant and fail-proof manner.
Thanks to these established and proven processes and, furthermore, to very good external IT service providers and high-quality hardware for the school environment, we will continue ensuring that the network operating infrastructure stays in the “background” and transparent to the users.
We are very pleased to see how positively the digital experience of the day-to-day schooling routine is developing. We are amidst this development – hence, it will continue to be an exciting experience.
