District data that is validated by Elevate Data Quality is accessed nightly from the district’s student information system (SIS) via the Data Gateway. The Data Gateway Agent is a small Windows service that is installed in the district environment and provides secure SSL communication (via HTTPS) between the SIS database and the Elevate Data Quality hosted environment. This secure mechanism is responsible for reading data from the district’s SIS on a scheduled basis and encrypting and communicating it to the Data Gateway Server installed in the Elevate Data Quality hosted environment. The Data Gateway Server controls each Data Gateway Agent remotely and notifies Elevate Data Quality Support if any technical problems occur.
In preparation for your Data Gateway Agent installation session please complete the following items below. A typical installation will take an estimated 30-60 minutes to complete. It is imperative to perform these steps prior to the session in order to ensure installation in the allotted time frame.
Step 1: Provide Database Information
Please provide the following information about the SIS database you are currently running in the Provisioning Survey form:
RDBMS Information
- Version number of the underlying DBMS – e.g., SQL Server 2008 or Oracle 10g
- IP Address / Host Name for your SIS database server, with port number, normally 1521 for Oracle or 1433 for SQL Server
- Physical database name where your SIS tables are located
- For Oracle: Username with read-only schema access for this database and password;
For SQL Server: a datareader SQL Server Login account and password for this database (not a Windows or Active Directory account)
Example
RDBMS / Version: Oracle 10g or SQL Server 2008 R2
IP Address/Host name: 10.1.1.168
Port Number: 1521
Database Name (SID): PSPRODDB
Username: Elevate Data Quality User
Password: xyz123
Step 2: Select Location for the Data Gateway Agent
Best practice for the typical configuration is selecting a Virtual Machine (VM) or physical server that provides multiple services to the district, preferably not in the same location as the SIS application server or SIS database server. The selected location must have network access to the SIS database server in order to establish successful communication for data uploading.
Data Gateway Agent Requirements
The Data Gateway Agent is deployed as a windows service, and all necessary components are configured during this installation session. Below are the requirements for the server you have designated for the Data Gateway Agent.
- Operating System: Windows Server 2008 or higher
- CPU: Dual core or higher
- RAM: 4 GB or higher (2 GB for Agent Engine; 2 GB for Agent Manager)
- Drive Space: 100 MB or higher
- The machine where the Data Gateway Agent is installed must be able to internally communicate with your database server.
- This same machine must be able to initiate outbound https internet requests through port 443. If a firewall exception is needed, then both TCP as well as UDP must be enabled in the firewall rule.
- In order to install the software, the login account to this machine must have Administrative privileges.
Step 3: Confirm
Once you have received confirmation that your district’s IP addresses have been provisioned for access, please try one of the links below (depending on your state or version of Elevate Data Quality) from the machine where the Data Gateway Agent will be installed. This is to confirm that the Agent will be able to communicate with our hosted Data Gateway Server application.
- California: https://dg-ca.certifymydata.com/DataGatewayServer/
- Texas/All Other States (Not California): https://dg.certifymydata.com/DataGatewayServer/
- Elevate Data Quality Enterprise Edition: https://dg-cee.certifymydata.com/DataGatewayServer/
You should reach a User name / Password prompt from the dg.certifymydata.com server. There is no need to log in, as you are solely ensuring a successful connection.
Additional Information
For more information regarding preparation for installing the Data Gateway Agent, please contact Elevate Data Quality Support at 877.456.8949 or data-quality-support@instructure.com.
