The Kivuto to D2L migration topic

[VincentHerreman]

In the Spring of 2020 VMware IT Academy will be migrating to D2L, a new Learning Management System (LMS). We will be migrating from Kivuto Solutions to D2L Brightspace. D2L is an industry leader and their LMS platform Brightspace is the ideal solution for our learning community.

This migration will affect VMUG license program members, the VMware IT Academy members, and the VMware Academic Software License members.

In this thread we will be engaging with the members of these programs on the various questions, comments or remarks that they might have.

Ask away!

[VincentHerreman]

Hello RandyGShelton,

That won't cause a problem, you can just reapply for your institution when we go live with the D2L portal.

To bridge the gap you might want to consider the following readily available resources for your students:

1. The default 60-day evaluation licenses by VMware: https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware.html

2. Our free open course content (top line of the eLearning tab in our Kivuto Demo store): https://vmwaredemo.onthehub.com/WebStore/ProductsByMajorVersionList.aspx?cmi_mnuMain_child_child=9a1...

This includes:

- Getting Started in IT

- KubeAcademy

- Cloud and Virtualization Concepts

- Software Defined Storage Concepts

- Network Virtualization Concepts

As soon as we go live with our new portal we'll announce it here.

Hoping this helps,

Vincent

[UniSAStew]

Im confused.  We didn't know this transition was happening until a student tried to do a certification exam and they found out they werent allowed to do it with the Kivuto transition. 

1. Is there some documentation around what the new system will do and work ? 

2. How does the licensing work for our student practice machines (eg vsphere licensing etc..) 

3. How do we handle students who want to do the certification exam between now and when we transition ot D2L? 

How much more is this compared to the old license/kivuto system ? 

[VincentHerreman]

Hello UniSAStew,

Thank you for your participation in our academic programs and for raising the question.

I would offer the following resources to help you find the answers to your questions:

- ​YouTube video’s that demo different aspects.

- ​Register for one of our D2L webinars where we explain and demo the D2L portal functionality.

- ​Join our regular open meeting slots to ask your questions live and receive support.

Regarding your questions:

1. You may find the information in the youtube video's highlighted above, and through https://itacademy.vmware.com

2. The resources D2L provides access to are the same as Kivuto gives/gave access to. Instructors may use the academic evaluation licenses to deploy the software on the lab PC's (at Kivuto this was called lab installs), students may get their individual academic evaluation license to deploy on their own laptop/pc.

3. If you still have access to your Kivuto portal, your teachers can still order certification vouchers for the students so that they can take the certification exams. If your Kivuto portal expired, you can sign up for the D2L portal, obtain a student seat subscription package, create the class, add students to them and order them the certification voucher. With that voucher the students can take the academic exam.

4. While Kivuto was charging 250USD per department, D2L charges in student subscription seat bundles:

- 205 seats at 330USD*

- 405 seats at 505USD*

* subject to change at any time

Once more I would recommend you register for one of the D2L webinars we regularly deliver to learn about the details of the migration.

Hope this helps to find your way,

Vincent

[UniSAStew]

Thanks for the quick reply.  Ill check the resources out. 

[Matt_S1]

Perhaps it was just me but the Kivoto SSO model worked for us registering students peace meal is a real pain and manual uploads were not timely enough and are time consuming.

Happy to work with an API or SSO integration of some kind if available but I understand this is a long way out, any chance others are or will suffer from the same issue and want to nudge D2L to put some effort into something other than a text file?

[Dan-ATX]

Apologies for being a bit late to this topic, but it still seems relevant.

In the education industry, does anyone know how D2L/Brightspace handles what Kivuto used to call "Lab Installs?" For example, are the license keys for on-campus VMWare installations somehow taken out of the pool of user keys purchased, or are they still separate?

Thanks in advance.