While virtualization may be too much for smaller schools to bite off on their own, collaboration with other school districts, universities, or other learning institutions can make it more accessible. It can also raise the value of the pay-off of virtualization to everyone. But it requires planning and some standardization to really get the maximum benefit for all.

Take, for example, the K-12 Disaster Recovery Consortium (DRC), launched by Alvarado Independent School District’s Executive Director of Technology Services Kyle Berger. Berger purchased storage virtualization technology from Compellent, but soon realized that he wasn’t able to get the same sort of disaster recovery benefit as large private sector customers.

“Big businesses that have storage area networks have them replicating across their businesses’ locations around the world,” he said. Because of the threat of hurricanes hitting the Gulf coast of Texas, Berger said, he saw a need for disaster recovery capabilities to support not just his schools, but school districts further south in the state. “We wanted the ability to offload those school districts in case of emergency,” he explained. “I had a fellow IT director in the southern part of the state whose disaster plan was actually unscrewing his racks, putting them in a truck, and driving them north.”

Read the rest at the Virtual Integrated System Blog.