PowerSchool Partners with Rackspace for Hosted SIS
PowerSchool has selected Rackspace as the new cloud-service
provider for its PowerSchool student information system (SIS) hosted
service.
The company spent two months evaluating cloud service providers before
selecting Rackspace, a company that has significant experience in planning,
deploying and managing server, storage and network configurations. Factors that
may have influenced PowerSchool's decision included Rackspace's 100 percent
network uptime guarantee (excluding maintenance), enterprise-grade data centers
located around the world, and other components of the company's competitive
service-level agreements.
According to a news release from PowerSchool, the partnership with Rackspace
enables the company to offer its hosted SIS with "ultra-high bandwidth, robust
failover capabilities, data encryption, storage performance and systems
monitoring that meets the needs of large and small school districts in the
United States and internationally."
Key features of the new PowerSchool SIS hosted service include:
- Redundant, bonded 10 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) network connection;
- Enhanced server availability by migrating virtual application service to
another physical host if the current host becomes unresponsive or
unavailable;
- XTS-AES 256-bit data-at-rest encryption of all PowerSchool data;
- Fault-tolerant EMC VMAX enterprise data storage array; and
- Systems monitoring capable of processing thousands of metrics per second
and real-time alerts.
"This is a critical relationship for PowerSchool as we seek to deliver
the highest quality K-12 technology cloud solutions to our customers, including
the assurance that their student data is highly available and secure,"
said Hardeep Gulati, CEO of PowerSchool, in a prepared statement.
Further information about PowerSchool's partnership with Rackspace and the
new hosted SIS service can be found on PowerSchool's site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].