THE ESSENTIAL EDUCATION TECH INVESTMENT GUIDE

How to thrive in an increasingly unpredictable digital economy

THE STATE OF PLAY FOR EDUCATION

As a K-12 school, being successful in an increasingly

unpredictable and data-driven digital economy hinges on

you investing in the right technologies to underpin a digital

transformation strategy that drives better learning experiences

and outcomes.

Traditionally, unlike some other sectors, you have to face

challenges across budget constraints, smaller IT teams and a

distinct lack of digital skills. A tall order, even before you take

into consideration other pre-existing challenges that include

exponential data growth, an increasingly sophisticated threat

landscape, and desire from your community’s stakeholders for

improved experiences.

The struggles don’t just stop there.

The global pandemic tested the very foundations of how you

teach. Existing systems that handicapped your ability to be

agile during this period of disruption made it diff icult to

facilitate streamlined, uninterrupted distance learning.

So much so, that as 2021 comes to an end, and we look ahead

to 2022 you’re evaluating if your current and perhaps

planned infrastructure will be adequate moving forward.

Moulding the minds of the future doesn’t allow for

complacency. Your digital transformation strategy must

enable you to thrive in an increasingly unpredictable digital

economy, irrespective of the unique challenges in front of

you.

Digital transformation is an imperative initiative in your

continued endeavours to drive better learning experiences

and outcomes.

With challenges come opportunities.

The state of play Education tech drivers Overcome your challenges Financial Solutions A successful future Our speciality

TOP EDUCATION TECH INVESTMENT DRIVERS

2021 has shown schools the unpredictability of the world.

To continue delivering improved learning experiences and

outcomes, school leaders must look to harness a wider

range of digital tools to not only support improved learning

experiences and outcomes, but to solidify school continuity

in the face of disruption.

Reduce costs

Promote online learning and collaboration technologies

Improve IT capability to promote agility and innovation

Maintain robust and resolute cyber security practices

Drive better community stakeholder experiences using cloud and hybrid

learning

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OVERCOME YOUR CHALLENGES

As we’ve discussed, schools often have to deal with delivering

IT services to a large number of users with limited IT resources

and funds. In fact, these two factors alone can lead to

numerous other inhibitors, including:

• A lack of strategic direction

• Ineff icient operational processes across the school

• An element of legacy inertia

• Insuff icient networking and security skills

These do not mean you have to put the digital transformation

discussion on the backburner. Accelerating your adoption of

new technologies to drive continual improvement does not

have to be handicapped by your existing IT budget. There are

ways to achieve your transformation goals, irrespective of how

much $$$ is in the bank.

You might ask “how exactly?”

FUND THE OPERATIONAL-CRITICAL TECHNOLOGY YOU NEED TO CONTINUE YOUR DIGITAL JOURNEY THROUGH:

• Conserving cashflow

• Gaining value from old or depreciating assets

• Planning budgetary spend ahead of time withpredictive cost models

• Stretching your budget across strategic priorities

INVEST IN SYSTEMS THAT HELP YOU BECOME MORE OPERATIONALLY EFFICIENT BY:

• Accessing technology for unplanned situations orevents without purchasing outright

• Managing your retired or near end-of-life assets in amanner that doesn’t cause disruption

• Steer clear of increased maintenance and operating costs

• Reduce demand on internal resources by workingwith a trusted IT partner

• Aligning your technology usage to cost predictability

GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE AND DRIVE NEW LEARNING OUTCOMES THROUGH:

• Proactively preparing for innovation andnew initiatives ahead of time

• Delivering the seamless customer experienceyour community stakeholders’ demand

• Mitigating the associated risk attached to newprojects and investments

• Learning to practice responsible asset management

• Exploring alternative means of reducing costslike purchasing second hand IT assets

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FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR TRANSFORMATION GOALS

Trident is proud to partner with Hewlett Packard Enterprise

(HPE), the global, edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service

company built to transform organisations.

Through leveraging technology delivered by Trident and

supported with HPE Financial Services, you can take

advantage of new ways to forecast, acquire and consume

the technologies your school needs to continually deliver

improved learning experiences and outcomes.

Again, you might ask “how exactly?”

By embracing the following four principles.

UNLOCK NEW BUDGET FROM EXISTING LEGACY ASSETS

Do you currently have old IT equipment that is currently gathering dust because you haven’t found the time or resources to correctly dispose of it? Or perhaps you have current IT equipment you intend on making redundant in the near future with a new solution?

If you do, why not use these existing assets to unlock some much-needed capital to fund your digital transformation projects?

• Trident and HPE Financial Services can help you manage thetransition from old to new IT. Your legacy assets that you no longerhave any use for can be sent back to HPE’s renewal centres to eitherbe repurposed or disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.

• When you trade-in your older equipment (vendor agnostic) youcan recover its cash value, subsequently adding funds to yourtransformation efforts.

AVOID CAPEX OUTLAYS IN FAVOUR OF PAY-PER-USE OPEX COST MODELS

In the same way that you consume your Netflix, Spotify and Foxtel, you can also consume your IT infrastructure. There are very few areas that are off-limits too. All your IT needs, whether it be running critical applications on-premises or in the cloud, can be consolidated and consumed with a simple, predictable monthly subscription fee.

• Choose from pre-selected products and services (depending on yourrequirements) including support.

• Leverage best-in-class compute, storage and networking hardware,software, and accessories, including support.

• Take advantage of ‘subscribe, use, return and renew’consumption models.

YOUR SCHOOL CAN:

• Access residual value of old IT assets

• Monetise assets to grow budget

• Retire old IT assets using best-practice

YOUR SCHOOL BENEFITS FROM:

• An ability to fund new transformation efforts without theassociated headaches of lumpy capital outlays

• Simple, predictable monthly costs

• Zero headaches regarding disposal of old IT assets

• Best-in-class, innovative technology

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REDUCE INVESTMENT RISKS ATTACHED TO NEW IT PROJECTS

Typically speaking, before diving head f irst into a major transformation project, you’ll begin with a pilot project with the success of which being dependent on the implementation of some new foundational technologies.

But there’s a lot of f inancial risk attached to such a project. The question is, how do you reduce the overall f inancial risks attached to new transformation efforts, while still ultimately getting to where you want to be?

• Pay monthly for new and pre-owned compute, storage,and networking data centre solutions.

• Scale back on the investment if the results don’t meet expectations,or plans change by leveraging equipment return options. This way,you’re not forced into using technology that doesn’t suityour requirements.

FLEX YOUR INVESTMENTS UP OR DOWN DEPENDING ON SCHOOL DEMANDS

The ability to deploy new, faster, and more agile IT solutions is an essential element of your digital transformation strategy, but sometimes it can be very diff icult to know what your needs will be in 6 or even 12 months’ time (2021 is a great example of this).

It can go both ways too. Events unfold that may leave you with equipment surplus to requirements, or you have a spike in demand without the suff icient funds to account for it.

• With Trident and HPE, you can acquire the IT you need for a simplemonthly payment, and if you get to a point where that equipment isno longer needed, you usually have the option to return it.

YOUR SCHOOL BENEFITS FROM:

• No large up-front capital investment

• Ability to return unnecessary equipment

• Flexibility to reduce overall investment if situations change

YOUR SCHOOL CAN:

• Invest in new and innovative technology with greaterf inancial ease

• Drive greater speed and flexibility

• Thrive in the face of uncertainty

• Reduce the risk of over-provisioning

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POSITION YOURSELF FOR A SUCCESSFUL FUTURE

Through leveraging these forward-thinking investment

strategies, your school can gain access to, and use new

technologies in a manner that also preserves your limited

IT budget. They provide a way to accelerate your digital

evolution – enabling you to power those uninterrupted

distance learning initiatives, become operationally superior,

and deliver the improved community stakeholder experiences.

The question is now, what types of transformative

technologies will you leverage with these

investment strategies?

SIMPLIFY MANAGEMENT, TROUBLESHOOTING, AND SCALING2

• Manage your entire environment with a simple user interface experience

• Update software, hypervisor, and firmware with one click

• Predict and prevent issues before they occur

• Rapidly deploy and scale to meet demand

• Reduce costs by 69%

ACHIEVE EXCEPTIONAL DATA EFFICIENCY AND PROTECTION WITHOUT COMPROMISE2

• 90% (10X) capacity savings—guaranteed

• Restore 1 TB VM in 60 seconds—guaranteed

• Built-in data protection and resiliency

• Perfect for VDI environments

AUTOMATE REMOTE SITES AT SCALE2

• Achieve high availability for each site with only two nodes

• Simplify ROBO/edge site control with centralized management

• Rapid multisite failover with instant recovery across distributed sites

INTELLIGENTLY SIMPLE

HYPER EFFICIENT

EDGE OPTIMISED

EXPERIENCE INTELLIGENT HCI WITH HPE SIMPLIVITY

HPE SimpliVity is hyperconverged infrastructure that

combines the entire IT stack into a single hyperconverged

node, providing the agility and economics of the cloud with

enterprise-grade performance and data protection.1

The state of play Education tech drivers Overcome your challenges Financial Solutions A successful future Our speciality

YOUR I.T INFRASTRUCTURE, OUR SPECIALTY

Your school is unique. You have different hardware

and software requirements to other schools, and we

think that’s pretty great

But because you are unique, f inding the right IT infrastructure

can be challenging. Without it, your processes and ability

to deliver optimal learning outcomes can be compromised.

Which is not so great.

Don’t fear though, because Trident is here to help. Our expert

team has worked across a range of industries and specialised

in education to design hardware and software solutions for

our customers, which means there’s not many situations we

haven’t seen.

It is through this experience that we take the time to

understand what makes you different and recommend the

best solutions for your organisation.

Together we can f ind the right f inancial solutions to match

your transformation goals.

Let’s talk, we would love to hear about your

current circumstances, requirements and goals for the future.

1. What is HPE SimpliVity? 2. Experience intelligent HCI with HPE SimpliVity infographic

TRIDENT.COM.AU 03 8587 7500