Overview: What is CloudApps Classroom?
CloudApps Classroom is a cloud-based service that allows students and teachers to access the applications their classes need most on any device, and with no need for lengthy and expensive installations.
With over 150 applications at your fingertips and seamless integrations with your current classroom rosters on Google Workspace, Microsoft Azure, and ClassLink, CloudApps Classroom empowers educators to deliver a powerful and engaging learning experience that can be accessed anytime and anywhere.
For additional product information, visit https://itopia.com/students/.
In this article, we'll review:
Technical overview
itopia CloudApps Classroom is a fully-managed service offering. itopia is responsible for all maintenance and management tasks, including:
- Health and availability monitoring
- Resource scaling
- OS and application patching
- Security hardening
This allows school administrators to focus on developing and delivering curriculum for students without needing to worry about the complexities of tech management or maintenance issues.
Image management
All OS images for CloudApps Classes are built by the itopia Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Team and managed centrally. Each image is custom-developed to ensure that applications run as expected and the operating environment is as secure as possible.
The itopia team also performs comprehensive hardening to ensure students don't have access to unauthorized materials or unnecessary features that may compromise the safety and security of the environment.
CloudApps sessions are non-persistent, so each user is assigned a dedicated virtual machine (VM) that exists only for the duration of their session. When a user ends their session, their VM is securely deleted and destroyed.
Patch management
Each OS image is automatically patched and subjected to preliminary testing before being published. Images are typically refreshed semi-monthly to include the latest OS security patches and updates.
Applications are also regularly patched for "minor" updates, such as security updates or bug fixes. Major version upgrades occur periodically to keep all applications up-to-date, but no set schedule is defined for these updates.
Patches on production are subject to complex testing and validation procedures. itopia regularly performs security reviews of each image (and the CloudApps infrastructure) and introduces new safeguards as necessary.