[Building Sakai] Sakai Support Service Recommendation

[Karl Forest]

Hi all,

If I may chime in...

At the New Teacher Center, working out of Santa Cruz, CA but working with
new K-12 teachers, administrators and their active mentors across the
country, we also have an ongoing contract with Unicon for server
maintenance/monitoring/upgrading with our core Sakai instance, and also for
Cooperative Support to address issues in Sakai itself when something is not
working correctly or needs modification. A third contract area, when the
need arises for new tool installation, creation of new tools to be shared
with the community, version upgrading, etc. also falls within our
relationship.

We host our Sakai production, development and back up files in the Cloud
(using Rackspace). Unicon has full access to our servers and a clear
communication strategy with me, as our organization's manager and liaison.
When I notice something or hear from users that there is some issue, I
review as first level, and then escalate to Unicon for analysis and they
either correct the issue, or we quickly develop a strategy to address the
issue. They deal with emergency situations within 15 minutes of my alerting
them to the problem (like server down!). Unicon has also implemented
monitoring the health of our system, with instant notifications for major
problems, and lead regular meetings both individually to review the health
of our system (quarterly) and monthly provide a synchronous community forum
for presentation of ideas, discussion of issues and requests for direction
as to improvements our community requests.

We are highly satisfied with our relationship with Unicon, and recommend
them highly as a company with the skill sets, knowledge and protocols for
server installation, maintenance and support in all areas regarding the use
of Sakai. Feel free to contact me directly for more information if you feel
the need.

Karl Forest



On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:14 PM, Longfei Yu <longfei at oit.umass.edu> wrote:

> You mean even Unicon hosts Sakai for you, or you have the Sakai system
> on your own, they only provide customer supports?
> Longfei
>
> Quoting "Gordon, Patricia (psg3a)" <psg3a at eservices.virginia.edu>:
>
> > Hi Rui,
> >
> > At the University of Virginia, we have contracted with Unicon for
> > support and take advantage of their Cooperative Support Program,
> > which allows us to have input on prioritizing bug fixes and
> > enhancements that their developers make to the Sakai code. They have
> > been an invaluable resource for us in many ways for the past two
> > years and this year marks the third year we will partner with Unicon
> > for support. They are extremely responsive to our support requests
> > and have extensive knowledge of Sakai.
> >
> > Hope this is helpful!
> > Trisha
> >
> > Trisha Gordon
> > UVaCollab Project Lead and User Support Manager
> > https://collab.itc.virginia.edu
> > collab-support at virginia.edu
> >
> > Dept. of Information Technology and Communication
> > University of Virginia
> > PO Box 400198
> > Charlottesville, VA 22904
> > 434.243.5465
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: sakai-user-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [mailto:sakai-user-
> >> bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of Rui Li
> >> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 11:13 AM
> >> To: sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org; sakai-dev
> >> Subject: [Using Sakai] Sakai Support Service Recommendation
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >>  We are a small college with about 2000 students.  We are going to
> >> adopt
> >> Sakai this fall.  Could you please give us some recommendations on
> >> companies
> >> that provide Sakai support services such as installation/configuration,
> >> 24/7
> >> support, etc?
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >>
> >> Rui
> >>
> >> Rui Li
> >> Director, Instructional Technology
> >> Saint Anselm College
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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> >
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> >
>
>
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Forest
Technology Coordinator || Sakai || Elluminate
New Teacher Center
725 Front Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
www.newteachercenter.org  ||  831.600.2242
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