St. Jerome School, Maplewood

Our relationship with St. Jerome began several years ago when they wanted to upgrade their schools technology. The computers for students and staff were woefully out of date and software for the staff was virtually nonexistant.

We began by helping them determine what needs could be met within their limited budget. A long term plan was developed to meet their immediate goals and to insure an ongoing process to prevent simply falling behind again in a few years.

A local area network that allowed them to provide Internet access to all the machines in the computer lab and offices was installed, along with a small central file server running Windows NT4 (state of the art at that time). We also set-up approx 20 desktop computers with operating systems and Microsoft Office. For the staff, we designed a new database to replace their ancient system using MS Access and trained the staff on it's use.

In the intervening years, we have:

• Developed, hosted and maintained their web-site.
• Installed and supported a high-speed cable Internet connection for their network.
• Administered an email system providing an address for all of the faculty and staff.
• Continued to expand their network and computer lab to take advantage of available equipment and technical advances.

In order to maximize St. Jerome's progress and minimize the impact to their budget, we migrated the computer lab to Open Office in the fall of 2002. This is a no licensing cost office productivity suite that is comparable to MS Office. By making this move, St. Jerome was able to trim approximately $1400.00 in software acquisition costs while still providing the same full functionality to it's older students.

To respond to the nearing end of life of the NT4 server operating system, we are currently preparing to upgrade their server operating system in the spring of 2003. We have shown them how advances in open source software will now allow them to save significantly by deploying a Linux server. This migration will again save the school hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over proprietary alternatives. A test server has been deployed and migration of the main server is scheduled for shortly after the end of the school year to minimize disruptions.