Data Security & Cloud Hosting for SchoolTool

Leave it to our certified cloud experts

BENEFITS OF A CLOUD-HOSTED STUDENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

Scalable. Resilient. Current.

Take advantage of the benefits cloud computing brings, while putting security, software updates, infrastructure upgrades, application monitoring, disaster recovery, and other critical considerations into the hands of certified cloud experts.

High availability and disaster recovery

With bit-level replication to a geographically separated region, our disaster recovery provides near real-time continuity, rendering catastrophic events almost unnoticeable to district users.

In the event of a security incident, such as malware attack, the Disaster Recovery (DR) environment will bring SchoolTool back up at the point of the last known good baseline.

Timely, pain-free software updates

Stay up-to-date with the latest release and new features without time-consuming updates related to:

• New SchoolTool Version Releases
• SchoolTool Maintenance Releases & Hotfixes
• Other Software (OS patching and required 3rd party components)

Horizontally and vertically scalable

Infrastructure is managed and scalable, allowing administrators, staff, and parents to enjoy a much faster user experience that doesn’t lag, even during peak usage.

With one flat fee per user, we'll horizontally and vertically scale your infrastructure to ensure that it’s performant throughout the school year.

Simplify your investment and environmental impact

Reduce your district’s carbon footprint by eliminating the need to maintain in-house servers for your Student Management System (SMS)—large capital investments that depreciate over time, and consume precious resources such as power, time, and physical space.

“Not only did the SchoolTool team stand up our operations quickly, but they also provided in-depth training to our staff and ensured we were prepared for day one. Cloud hosting also provided us with a significant cost-savings and the peace of mind that our data would be secure and easily accessible.”

T. Brown

Board Member, Truxton Academy Charter School

“Everybody wants security to be someone else’s problem. Keeping your most important asset— the information— safe and secure is important because parents are trusting us with it. With SchoolTool having the amount of student data that it does, it’s nice to know that Mindex is taking responsibility and isn’t putting security of that data all on the end user. Every program has potential to be an exposure point, and I appreciate the fact that Mindex has put extra layers there. We have left vendors in the past that have been very casual with our data, to the point of being negligent.”

G. Lambert

Director of IT, Beekmantown CSD

ROBUST SECUrity

Don't worry, your data is safe in the cloud

We realize the importance of having a student management system that protects your students' most valuable information so you can focus on your students instead of reacting to a data disaster.

Improving your security posture

With cybercriminals using the pandemic to attack the education industry with increased frequency and sophistication, there is an urgency to enhance your security posture and protect yourself from future risk.

Mindex is an AWS Advanced Services Partner and Public Sector Solution Provider, with a security posture so robust we are trusted by organizations in highly targeted data-sensitive industries to protect and monitor their cloud data.

With SchoolTool cloud hosting, offload the risk of ever-increasing and costly cyberattacks by automatically adhering to high standards of privacy and data security with proactive monitoring and blocking through penetration testing, interactive application scanning, continuous web application firewall updates, DDoS prevention, and endpoint protection on servers.

We take the protection of your student data very seriously.

We align to the NIST 800-53 r5 Moderate standard, exceeding NYS requirements for encryption in transit and at rest, while adhering to the NIST CSF under Ed-Law 2d.

Secure physical environments both at AWS and Mindex

Strong governance framework, regularly reviewed by 3rd parties

Strictly controlled access and secure communication protocols

Robust change and configuration management practices

Granular audit trails, anomaly detection, alerting, and intervention

Thorough data handling practices from development to support

Regular security incident simulations and disaster recovery testing

DDoS, WAF, IDS/IDP, and next-gen end-point protection all in use

Regular penetration testing and vulnerability scanning (IAST and SAST)

Timely patching of all 3rd party applications and OS

Please refer to our Data Privacy and Security Plan to review our policies regarding our use of data and our adherence to the Parents’ Bill of Rights.

MANAGED CLOUD MIGRATION

Enjoy a secure, scalable, reliable, and maintained environment!

By migrating to the cloud, districts are transforming the way they deliver and support education, but they need to achieve this migration quickly and efficiently so they can truly allocate time and attention to more value-added responsibilities and resources to help their students succeed. Cloud migrations also require extensive planning and preparation that most IT staff don’t have the time or expertise to tackle—that’s where we come in!

Our SchoolTool cloud migration team is equipped with the experience, tools and resources to help you through each step of the migration journey. We can help you achieve a successful cloud migration, from assessing your current environment, to planning and executing the migration itself, and supporting your new cloud environment post-migration.

Data Security Cloud Migration Banner

Every district is unique, and we would ensure your migration follows the best practices to make your cloud migration a success. We work closely with you to coordinate timing and communications, capture custom work and integrations that exist in your environment, ensure a secure backup is in place, test and test some more, and guide you through a successful go-live.

Learn how we migrated 100 districts to the cloud in our cloud migration case study.

Don’t be left behind!

We’ve already started migrating New York State districts and RICs to the cloud, we do it with ease, white-glove service, and speed.

Interested in learning more about how your district can migrate to the cloud?

MINDEX CLOUD SERVICES

Your SIS is just one part (albeit a big one!) of your IT infrastructure

We can help you with your cloud journey outside of SchoolTool, too!

As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner, we are committed to helping customers no matter where they are on their cloud journey by reducing the effort, time, and complexity involved.

Mindex is more than SchoolTool, and across the entire organization we have deep cloud expertise. Aside from hosting SchoolTool in the cloud, we also have the experience, tools and resources to work hand-in-hand to assist your district with migrating other investments you may have in your IT infrastructure to the cloud.

It all starts with understanding your entire IT landscape, determining each application's fit and feasibility to begin a cloud journey, and providing recommended paths to ensure success.

Sound good, but not sure where to start? No worries!

We'd love to help you with your cloud journey outside of SchoolTool.