We recently went to a major city in California and participated in a bid for mass notification that would impact over 1 million students, faculty, administrators and parents.  Now kids will have to figure out how to beat a new and improved communication system that can notify the student’s parents within 10 minutes of an absence, tardiness or problem with the student.

 

There are two basic approaches to the backend system required to perform the magic. 

 

  • ASP Solution
  • Self Host solution.

 

Most schools seem to be opting for the ASP Solution whereby a contractor or “provider” is responsible for all of the hosting logistics and bills the customer (school district) monthly.

 

The second solution, self-host solution, is the way to go.  The school has all of the servers behind their firewall, saves a TON of money on hosting costs and also dramatically reduces data integration costs.

 

So why would the school opt for an ASP Solution? 

 

MONEY

 

It’s easy to get a mass notification system up and “on-the-cheap” if you lease it.  That’s all an ASP Solution is essentially, a LEASE but is far from the best, most secure and most affordable system.