Download PDF
---nasdaq--amzn_14.jpg "Amazon Web Services Logo")
Firefly Boosts Student and Teacher Experiences in the AWS Cloud
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Databases
Applicable Industries
- Education
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Sales & Marketing
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
The Challenge
Firefly Learning, an online tool for teachers, students, and parents, was initially deployed by installing its software on Windows servers locally at each school. This setup presented numerous challenges, as supporting schools largely consisted of solving problems with their underlying infrastructure, such as dealing with backup issues and domain name system failures. As more schools adopted Firefly, the issues multiplied. The software was installed on hundreds of servers, and the task of supporting them all became overwhelming. Firefly needed a solution that would help join up the learning experience and allow for easier and more efficient support and management.
About The Customer
Firefly Learning is an online tool for teachers, students, and parents. It aims to create better outcomes through more flexible learning, allowing teachers to set work, students to access resources, and parents to track their children’s progress. The co-founders of Firefly Learning, Joe Mathewson and Simon Hay, developed the first version of their learning management software when they were high school students. They saw a way of bringing together teachers, students, and parents to make learning more effective. Today, hundreds of leading schools around the world, like Eton College in the UK, Dulwich College in Singapore, and Caulfield Grammar School in Australia, all use Firefly.
The Solution
Firefly started looking at cloud technology from the beginning, with a view to eventually delivering its software as a service. They found that Amazon Web Services (AWS) had the most mature offering, and by 2013 Firefly was launching its software in the cloud—starting with small schools that didn’t have the IT capacity to run on-premises installations. For example, whereas before the Firefly team used to run and backup SQL servers, now they automate the process using Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS). As a result, the infrastructure team hasn’t had to expand even as the client base has grown rapidly. Firefly now serves customers around the world through AWS Regions in Dublin, Sydney, Singapore, and the US.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
IoT platform Enables Safety Solutions for U.S. School Districts
Designed to alert drivers when schoolchildren are present, especially in low-visibility conditions, school-zone flasher signals are typically updated manually at each school. The switching is based on the school calendar and manually changed when an unexpected early dismissal occurs, as in the case of a weather-event altering the normal schedule. The process to reprogram the flashers requires a significant effort by school district personnel to implement due to the large number of warning flashers installed across an entire school district.
Case Study
Revolutionizing Medical Training in India: GSL Smart Lab and the LAP Mentor
The GSL SMART Lab, a collective effort of the GSL College of Medicine and the GSL College of Nursing and Health Science, was facing a challenge in providing superior training to healthcare professionals. As clinical medicine was becoming more focused on patient safety and quality of care, the need for medical simulation to bridge the educational gap between the classroom and the clinical environment was becoming increasingly apparent. Dr. Sandeep Ganni, the director of the GSL SMART Lab, envisioned a world-class surgical and medical training center where physicians and healthcare professionals could learn skills through simulation training. He was looking for different simulators for different specialties to provide both basic and advanced simulation training. For laparoscopic surgery, he was interested in a high fidelity simulator that could provide basic surgical and suturing skills training for international accreditation as well as specific hands-on training in complex laparoscopic procedures for practicing physicians in India.
Case Study
Implementing Robotic Surgery Training Simulator for Enhanced Surgical Proficiency
Fundacio Puigvert, a leading European medical center specializing in Urology, Nephrology, and Andrology, faced a significant challenge in training its surgical residents. The institution recognized the need for a more standardized and comprehensive training curriculum, particularly in the area of robotic surgery. The challenge was underscored by two independent studies showing that less than 5% of residents in Italian and German residency programs could perform major or complex procedures by the end of their residency. The institution sought to establish a virtual reality simulation lab that would include endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic platforms. However, they needed a simulator that could replicate both the hardware and software of the robotic Da Vinci console used in the operating room, without being connected to the actual physical console. They also required a system that could provide both basic and advanced simulation training, and a metrics system to assess the proficiency of the trainees before they performed surgical procedures in the operating theater.
Case Study
Edinburgh Napier University streamlines long-distance learning with Cisco WebEX
• Geographically dispersed campus made in-person meetings costly and inconvenient.• Distance-learning programs in Malaysia, India, and China required dependable, user-friendly online tools to maximize interaction in collaborative workspaces.• Virtual learning environment required a separate sign-in process, resulting in a significant administrative burden for IT staff and limited adoption of collaboration technology.
Case Study
8x increased productivity with VKS
Before VKS, a teacher would spend a lot of time showing a group of 22 students how to build a set of stairs within a semester of 120 hours. Along with not leaving the teacher much time to provide one-on-one support for each student to properly learn carpentry, it also left a considerable amount of room for error. Key information would be misinterpreted or lost as the class was taught in the typical show-and-tell way.
Case Study
Scalable IoT Empowering GreenFlex's Sustainable Growth
GreenFlex, a company that supports sustainable development, decarbonization, and energy efficiency, faced several challenges in its quest to expand its business. The company needed to deploy a robust and sustainable IoT technology to support its growth. It was crucial for them to monitor and control devices at customer sites in a safe and reliable manner. They also needed to integrate devices across a range of communication protocols and gather and act on data to meet efficiency targets. GreenFlex had previously built IoT capabilities into its digital platform, GreenFlexIQ, to monitor and manage customer sites remotely. However, they soon realized that they needed a new platform to support their ambitions. They needed a platform that could scale to connect more devices for production management and make it easier for the operations team to manage devices in the field.
