Next Generation Online Testing Solutions Dell Wyse Datacenter for Online Testing Solutions VMware Horizon View and PARCC Next Generation Online Testing Solutions Across the country, districts are adopting on-line assessment strategies to help teachers and administrators determine whether students are learning the curriculum standards and where gaps may exist well before students enter college or the workforce. Whether districts are implementing the Common Core State Standards assessments or individual state designed assessments, having a secure, reliable and responsive technology solution is critical for success. Dell has both the educational and technical expertise necessary to become your trusted advisor in this initiative. Dell offers a wide range of pertinent solutions, including virtual desktop infrastructure, professional learning, and security. Dell offers the investigative services to blueprint the existing environment, and can design the infrastructure solution needed to achieve the desired goal, including reallocation of legacy equipment, solution implementation, and necessary maintenance services. Pearson s testing software, TestNav, has been selected by the PARCC states as the Common Core test engine. It is also in use by a number of states outside the Common Core as a testing platform. Dell is partnering with Pearson to help ensure that you achieve your goals, and for this purpose has created the Dell Wyse Datacenter for Online Testing Solutions.
Dell is your trusted advisor. We will provide solutions to ensure your online and next generation assessments are secure and reliable. Our solutions are designed to meet your needs. Why are schools concerned with online testing? In part, concern with delivering assessments online has been brought about by the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in many states. In addition to providing clear and consistent curriculum standards for math and English, the CCSS iniative is defining consistent assessments that are designed to be delivered online. Many districts in states that have chosen to maintain their own state standards are also transitioning to online assessments to gain efficiency in delivering critical tests. As districts prepare to meet online assessment requirements, there is a great deal of concern from IT professionals around the technology readiness for delivering online testing in a way that ensures reliable and equal access for each student, that prohibits cheating, and that takes individual education plans and students with special needs into account. While the main focus of this whitepaper is technology readiness for online assessments, there is a separate discussion that should be had regarding teacher readiness to use new teaching and assessment tools. We encourage schools to drive communication between Curriculum Specialists and IT as part of this transition, and to treat professional development as a critical factor in the success of any curriculum testing initiative. Tools and Technology Successfully administering online assessemnts require an online testing solution that is secure and consistent. In other words, the online testing solution must ensure that students can access all the necessary programs, accessories and tools on the system as dictated within their Individual Development Plan while making certain that they are not touching or accessing anything outside of that scope. There are also significant concerns about the impact viruses and malware, or even test-specific hacking, could have on test integrity. Running online testing in a digital environment requires tight systems management for all systems running the test, potentially requiring that a single system be updated several times per day during high volume testing periods, depending on the technology-to-student ratio. This is putting strain on many districts as the people resources needed to deal with systems that don t update correctly, components that fail, and troubleshooting across a variety of devices, etc., simply are not there in many cases. One solution, that will address these requirements securely, consistently and with management capabilities across multi-system environments is desktop virtualization. Desktop virtualization (VDI) by definition is a combination of software and hardware solutions that allows the desktop environment and/or application software to run somewhere other than on the local end point device. The end point device can be defined as any device that can see and access the virtualized environment, a PC, Chromebook, tablet, or thin/zero client as well as other options. This means that schools using VDI can make use of a large variety of different types of existing PC s, Mac s and Chromebooks in a consistent and easy to manage way. The data or environment can be seen locally on the end point but the work is actually being done elsewhere, in a datacenter, the cloud or localized server. The end user may or may not have any knowledge that the environment they see is not actually running on the device they are using. In addition, it can serve up a number of different types of either full desktop environments or simply critical non-cloud applications for those on Chrome. The benefit for a testing environment is that all of the management tasks mentioned above can be handled by a few people from a central datacenter, vs. being hands-on with numerous endpoint devices. For the purposes of this paper, going forward, such testing will be called Next Generation Online Testing. 15
Providing a completely clean system can be done at the touch of a button from the datacenter. If an endpoint fails, a student can simply access their virtual desktop from any other endpoint with no loss of data. Desktop Virtualization can drastically reduce the personnel and hours needed to manage a digital testing environment. However, there can be perceived complexity with running online testing in a VDI environment, including stability, user experience, and security. The solution must be stable and the software must work consistently. The biggest fear many districts have is seeing their desktop virtualization instance go down in the middle of a high stakes test, or that scaling from the 100 users that use the system on a daily basis, to the 1000 they need to grant access to during testing time, will break the system in epic fashion. The infrastructure network must have sufficient capacity to handle the workload, and the endpoints have to be able to run the test consistently. All aspects of all current and future tests must be available to the student, including multimedia today and whatever the hot technology is in the future, so schools need be concerned with avoiding platforms with technology lock-in that may not grow with the testing environment. If there are bottlenecks with the connection to the Internet or the internal network, there will be issues with latency, which can impact test completion and quality. Increased latency (delay in display or processing) may create issues with the progress of the assessment content or assessment completion. These issues will also create distractions for students and the overall reduction in assessment time and quality. Inadequate network or internal bandwidth issues and management may also create stability issues. Bandwidth can be easily consumed by network traffic and connections. If the network is unable to prioritize online assessment traffic over lower priority tasks, the critical and successful assessment completions will be hampered. Finally security is critical. Students must not be allowed to access anything outside of their specific Individual Education Plans (IEP), if they have one, and the online testing. Security inherently presents challenges in any environment, but with the CCSS, there are very clear and detailed guidelines that must be implemented. True, desktop virtualization solves many security challenges around providing a clean system and per-student access to ports and functionality, etc. and the virtual machine can be made to be extremely secure. However, there are potential issues that should be considered when schools are trying to run virtual machines on top of traditional desktop and notebook systems, where there is a secure virtual machine, but a potentially unsecured host OS. Dell Wyse Datacenter Solutions Dell has worked with our various technology partners to develop a comprehensive end-to-end, scalable, repeatable solution that addresses stability, resources and security. This end-to-end solution for Common Core and other online testing standards includes a full Chrome testing environment, as well as VDI solutions: data center infrastructure, desktop virtualization software, end point devices and the services necessary to implement and maintain this environment. Dell continues to work very hard to offer education customers unique solutions independently and in collaboration with our partners. Solution Components Let s take a quick look at each of these end-to-end components to provide a complete solution. Chrome Environments The first is Chrome and the Chrome Management Console. Dell has done extensive validation on running Pearson TestNav in this environment, and can both provide Chromebooks, Chromeboxes and management software, but can also assist in setting up the environment for a transition from everyday to test day. Dell also has extensive experience running both virtual applications and virtual desktops in a Chrome environment and can help you maximize this experience, should you want to go this route. VDI Infrastructure The first is the infrastructure. Dell offers hardware including servers, networking, rack(s) and storage solutions. To ensure that your needs are met, Dell has spent thousands of hours in the lab creating reference architectures, ranging from small departmental deployments to 50,000 seat architectures. We ve made these modular to support incorporation of legacy investments. We have earned the official Pearson TestNav Qualified seal of approval for several of our platforms, which included rigorous testing by Pearson and Dell against a strict set of user experience and security standards. You 3 Room for text Dell Inc., 2015
can either choose to implement our reference architectures as is, or we additionally provide service offerings and Common Core readiness assessments that have the necessary evaluations to determine potential bandwidth issues, network segmentations, capabilities and bottlenecks in your existing environment. Based on those findings, recommendations can be made as to the necessary adjustments or additions to have an infrastructure that will be able to handle the network requirements of both instruction and online testing. The level of infrastructure implementation depends on your overall goals and approvals. The hardware can vary significantly based on need. There are hardware solutions that range from a completely self-contained server/networking/storage device ideal for a small to medium scale environment with the PowerEdge VRTX appliance, to the PowerEdge R720 server with the necessary storage, networking and racks depending on the needs and requirements of a larger or metro district with the capabilities to share resources and assets. Virtualization The infrastructure analysis and implementation is a key to ensuring that a VDI solution will function properly. VDI software solutions include VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and Dell s own Quest vworkspace product. The size of the environment, existing infrastructure, budgets, scalability, manageability and scope are all factors that will dictate which solution is right for your needs. The evaluation, services and solution sales teams can assist with tailoring the right solution to fit your needs leveraging our validated and tested reference architectures. However, we have either validated or are validating environments on each of these platforms with Pearson TestNav, so we can better advise customers on the peculiarities of each platform in running an online testing environment. End Points Unlike the original dumb terminals that some people associate to thin clients, today s end points are sophisticated and varied. They provide a familiar experience to the end users. In most instances, end users rarely know that they are not actually completing the processing on their local machine Specification Overview PowerEdge VRTX with VMware Horizon View Blade Server Configuraiton Dell M620 for VRTX 2X Intel Xeon E5-2680 (2.7 GHz) 192 GB Memory SD Card Broadcom 5720 1GB DP NIC Additional Specifications in RA Shared Storage Raid Configuration Tier 1 Linked Clone and Replica Disk Tier 2 floating between all 4 hosts Network Configuraiton VTRX Chassis connected to Text network via F10 ToR switches 16GB connectivity until they are disconnected from the network. Thin, zero and Chrome clients are comfortable and similar to the traditional workspace environment with high end graphics, video and sound capabilities and a seamless experience. However, if they are disconnected from the network, they have little to no functionality and absolutely no data locally, which increases security. The Wyse Zero clients that are PC over IP (PCoIP) capable running Windows based operatings systems are certified for VMware Horizon View and this solution. Traditional Windows based end points, such as desktops, notebooks and workstations, that are capable of running Windows XP, XP Embedded, Windows 7 and Windows 7 Embedded operating systems (either 32 or 64 bit) are supported and validated with this solution. However, all Windows text Dell Inc., 2015
based end points require the installation of Thin Desktop 3.3.4 software by Thinlaunch configured to insure that the system is locked down. This will prevent any access to the host system, therefore ensuring secure and dedicated access to the testing environment. Services With the end to end infrastructure addressed and implemented, there will be the ongoing need for services to maintain this solution. The services offered from Dell include but are not limited to Common Core Technology Readiness Assessments, staff training and management services. Also very important to this type of implementation are solution level support services, as issues across multiple pieces of infrastructure and software can be challenging to troubleshoot. Dell delivers the entire end to end infrastructure to allow you to run the CCSS or any other online testing with simplicity and ease. Dell works very hard to collaborate with the necessary partners for the CCSS initiatives and other online testing providers. As previously stated, one collaboration effort conducted is with Pearson. This collaboration between Dell and Pearson is starting with VDI and zero clients but is going a few steps farther to include traditional and thin clients as well. With traditional systems (desktop, notebooks and workstations), the potential for risks are higher and increases the complexity of the solution. However, Dell has anticipated that and validated the solutions that will address these concerns. The testing has started with VDI solutions geared toward small to medium districts. The reference architecture includes configurations based on the PowerEdge VRTX self-contained server, storage and networking device. The VRTX is the right-sized converged infrastructure solution that can rapidly scale resources based on your workloads and requirements while minimizing disruption to productivity. It can scale precisely to the right power, storage, connectivity and performance to meet your needs. Partnership Dell completely understands that there are many questions and uncertainties on the horizon. Regardless of whether or not you know which approach or technology solution is right for you, or you have already made that determination and need a Wyse Datacenter Reference Architectures (RAs) are the simplist and easiest to implement. Based on thousands of hours of testing, validation and certification, all to provide you the best possible solution. partner to join you in reaching those goals, Dell can provide the resources to assist you. Our engineering resources are second to none and very well versed on the requirements of a variety of online testing solutions that might be considered. We have talented Solutions Architects to help sort through various varieties of desktop virtualization infrastructures, and full blown Common Core Assessment services that will look at everything from your network infrastructure to your firewall, from management to professional development recommendations. Dell has developed a unique set of expertise in the Education space and our many years of experience can be brought to bear in your district as well. Reference Architecture Dell is committed to ensuring that our customers have the best possible solutions available. The Wyse Datcenter engineering team goes far above and beyond the tradtitional reference architecture development. The Wyse Datacenter team spends hundreds of thousands of hours testing and validating infrastrucures all in an effort to take the guesswork out of desktop virtualization implementations. With specific guidance on optimal hardware, installation and configuration, you have the best and simplest direction on how to deploy your environment. Our Education-specific solutions team then takes that work further. Engineers specifically conduct additional testing, validations and certification on the 5 Room for text Dell Inc., 2015
software and hardware solutions that you need to achieve your academic environmental needs. For instance, the Dell Wyse Datacenter for Online Testing Solutions with VMware Horizon View reference architecture, includes validation and guidance on Pearson TestNav 7.5 or 8.0 solutions within the desktop virtualization environment. It provides guidance for an easy to deploy online testing environment with the assurance that all the required performance and security standards are met. The solution has multiple offerings to give flexibility for schools looking to integrate virtual desktop environments into your infrastructure and cost savings for schools that are only looking to use it for a certified PARCC testing environment. Other similar reference architectures are also in the works for schools working with the Smarter Balanced consortium and with other testing companies. Getting Started Getting started and implementing Wyse Datcenter for Next Generation Assessments is easy. The various testing and reference architectures for Wyse Datacenter for Horizon View and Next Generation Assessments are available online for reference and review. As your trusted advisor, Dell sales staff or your local value added reseller are ready to assit you with your solution. They can provide additional information, bill of materials and customize the environment to meet your needs. In some cases, your existing infrastructure can even be incorporated into the solution. In most cases, you have the capability to repurpose your existing traditional end points. We have the guidance, scalability and services to meet almost every need. Additional Resources Dell K-12 Education Solutions Dell Wyse Datacenter Solutions Dell Wyse Datacenter for VMware Horizon View text Dell Inc., 2015