Computing Requirements for Schools to Implement ePortfolio

Hardware

For schools with over 1000 students hitting the program:

1. Two identical dual processor servers with minimum requirements of 1 GHz P3 chips. 2 GBs of RAM

Hard drive space works this way:

   The servers each need 10 GB drives just for operating system and ColdFusion. Preferably a RAID 0 setup. Then for each 400 students, they need 10 GBs of storage. Because the drives are mirrored, this is not cumulative between the 2 main servers. If each server has a 10 GB drive for the operating system, and then each with a 40 GB drive it is actually still only 40 GBs of space total for room for 1600 students.
Roughly $16500.00 with 4 hard drives each – quote from DELL, with Higher Education Pricing.

2. The third server is for data. This needs to be a single Pentium, P3 1 GB minimum processor with 2 GBs of RAM. RAID 5 setup, which requires 4 hard drives. I would use 10k rpm 18 GB drives. This will provide plenty of data storage.
Roughly $8000.00 for the data server.

3. Rack for the servers
Approximately $2000.00

4. Monitor and hardware to share the monitor/keyboard between the 3 servers.
 Approximately $500.00

Total approximate cost for hardware: $27,000.00

For schools with under 1000 students hitting the program:

Remove one of the web servers from the list above so that there is 1 web server and 1 data server.

Software

  1. ColdFusion Enterprise Server version 5.0  $3,300.00

  2. SQL Server Professional  $2090.00

  3. Windows 2k Server Advanced (Included in price quote for hardware)

  4. ColdFusion Studio license(s) for the web person/team  $422.00 ea.

Total approximate costs for software: $5812.00

Staff

One person could easily run this configuration once it is all installed on a part-time basis. It is no different than maintaining other web applications such as WebCT or Prospero. They run themselves. But if the school wanted to make modifications and further develop e-Portfolio for themselves, then they should employ a full time employee just for this product.

Staffing costs will vary.

One person to maintain configuration on part-time basis – approximately $25,000 per year
One person to maintain and develop e-Portfolio – approximately $50,000 per year

Network

Assuming the school has a LAN that meets the needs of the college, additional bandwidth should not be required for less than 1000 students. For over 1000 students, the school may need to add bandwidth capacity.

Not possible to project networking costs for other schools. If they are serving e-Portfolio for over 1000 students, they should consider additional bandwidth, but the price will fluctuate depending on their particular network configuration.


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posted May 30, 2002 by J D Klein from a document provided by C. Love, Conn Coll, dated Feb. 8. 2002.  Last updated 05/30/02 .