Education and Cultural Institutions

INTRODUCTION

Derive Technologies' Education and Cultural Institution practice spans the requirements of private and public academic institutions, all educational levels from K-12 to colleges and universities and every type of Cultural and historic organization. These include:

• Primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, distance learning programs, libraries, museums, galleries, theaters, cultural archives and many more.
• Education and Cultural Institutions are challenged with being able to adapt technology to ever-changing teaching, professional, administrative, research, budget and regulatory needs while facing escalating fiscal constraints.
• Other challenges include the utilization of technology to attract and retain students and faculty, curators, theater and concert-goers, exhibits and donors, to foresee and meet the challenges and future of academic and cultural information dissemination and to best serve the public interest.
• Financial limitations often force Educational and Cultural institutions to do significantly more, technologically, with less. We directly collaborate with your internal technology teams and with your other stakeholders to meet all service level needs and emerging requirements through the implementation and strategic procurement of systems in accordance with your unique academic and budget cycles.
• Derive also helps Educational and Cultural organizations to make the most of existing infrastructure and to introduce cost-effective, new terrestrial and wireless systems, specialized applications, teaching tools and data models to stay on the academic cutting edge, while, simultaneously, containing and even reducing operating expenses.
  

EDUCATION AND CULTURAL INSTITUTION INFRASTRUCTURE

• Derive's core experience is in the design, delivery, and support of technology Infrastructure, both in and out of the data center.
• Among the most important Infrastructure and support challenges for Educational and Cultural institutions of all types are:
• Supporting Infrastructure needs with limited staff: For smaller schools and cultural institutions.
• Augmenting already deep investments in sizeable, vastly experienced internal technology teams: In large multi-campus/multi-site institutions.
• Bringing together disparate, frequently incompatible, yet often irreplaceable systems, including legacy system
• We embrace these challenges with:
• Experience: Two-plus decades of IT business solutions experience, including knowledge of many of the legacy technologies that exist in Educational and Cultural institution environments--with methods of integrating legacy systems into new IT service paradigms.
• Comprehensive Knowledge of New Technology: A complete range of competencies in the newest server, storage, networking, backup and recovery technologies, desktop and mobile systems and productivity applications, with awareness of how to implement these technologies economically. Establishment of processes and real-world best-practices to evaluate and to determine a path to migrate to new technologies.
• Customized Support: Fully customized service programs for all of the technologies that run your business, delivered as an all-encompassing 24x7 on-site and remote.

• Derive possesses vast experience in the design and implementation of secure, effective e-mail and messaging platforms.
• Our teams bring decades of experience in electronic communication and we remain thought-leaders, envisioning the truly "socialized" future of academic and cultural electronic communication.
• We do this through rich competencies going back to the earliest Arpanet and CICS-based mail, through the newest, networked, web and portal-based, integrated mail solutions and global multimedia messaging platforms.
• This is critical to the constantly transformational environment of teaching, learning and student communication and to keeping Cultural audiences engaged, enriched and excited.
• Challenges include:
• Mail and messaging concepts and delivery: Further interconnecting and never remaining static in Educational and Cultural communities.
• New methods of communication: Being as risky for your institution and constituents as they are exciting--primary and secondary school and college and university students being among the leaders in the use of every manifestation and access point for these transformational forms of communication.
• Mail and messaging: Becoming increasingly media rich, requiring more and presumably costly resources to download and use them
• We embrace these challenges with:
• Security: New solutions to protect students and other constituents, including enterprise single-sign-on, digital signatures and seals and specialized encryption technologies, which ensure that no one other than intended recipients can see or replicate messages.
• Platforms: Support of all of the latest mail and messaging platforms, run on machines, thin-client terminals, PDAs and more, running every service environment from mainframe to Microsoft Vista and virtualized through such services as Citrix Application Access Infrastructure.

• Derive promotes mobility services which enable your institution to provide end-to-end mobile connectivity utilizing a vast array of wireless technologies. These include:
• WLAN and Bluetooth.
• GSM, GPRS, and cutting-edge 3G standards.
• A variety of devices: Including pocket PCs, portables, WAP-enabled phones and desktops.
• Mobility support: From fully virtualized Infrastructure and Networking
• With these services, we help you to support, end-to-end, such platforms as:
• Video-on-Demand.
• Distance learning.
• Satellite campus interconnectivity.
• IP telephony.

• Educational and Cultural Institutions frequently face challenges in supporting technology needs in physical plants.
• These challenges include:
• Supporting modern needs in historic buildings.
• Providing services across multi-location environments.
• Cost effectively building new technology facilities: Including data centers and training facilities
• Derive’s Project Management Office can help you to meet these needs through:
• Assessments: We provide you with free preliminary assessments of how best to utilize space within a data center or to best provide the supporting technologies for new IT and application services.
• Facilities Knowledge: Ability to determine specialized requirements for power, cabling, flooring, wall mounting, etc. in historic and other legacy buildings and in new facilities.
• Negotiations: Helping you to negotiate with building contractors and trade unions.
  

PROCUREMENT SUPPORT

• Derive has maintained powerful relationships with the leading manufacturers of technologies that support Educational and Cultural institutions.
• We are fully aware of procurement and delivery cycles in these environments and can leverage our alliances with these world-leading IT solution providers to offer optimal technology support and materials at the best discounts for your sector.
  

ADDITIONAL COMPETENCIES

• Simultaneous Wintel and Macintosh capabilities: With related, specialized procurement relationships.
• Specialized alliances with manufacturers: E.g. Linux certified Elite HP partner authorization).
• Solutions surrounding: Audio-visual rollouts, IP security cameras, point-of-sale applications for Educational and Cultural Institution retail stores.

NYS AND NYC BACKDROP CONTRACTS AND MBE CERTIFICATION

• Derive Technologies is certified with the State of New York on the OGS backdrop contracts for the provision of solutions built by the leading manufacturers of business systems and for services surrounding those technologies.
• We are also a NYS and NYC-certified Minority Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), which lets you receive technology consulting and procurement support from an organization officially recognized for its diversity.
• Many Educational and Cultural Institutions within the New York Metropolitan Area, and throughout the state, are inherently inclined, and compelled, to work with technology solution and supplier companies that have met the rigorous requirements for placement on backdrop contracts and have achieved the distinction of MBE status.
• This offers powerful benefits to Educational and Cultural enterprises in terms of service and the most economical pricing possible on countless IT business solutions.