Infrastructure Architecture Implementation at Sanskritik Pathshala: A K12 Education Case Study

Infrastructure Architecture Implementation at Sanskritik Pathshala: A K12 Education Case Study

Case Study Background

SanskritikPathshala, headquartered in Udaipur, Rajasthan, has emerged as India's leading alternative education institution, pioneering a unique blend of homeschooling methodologies with traditional Gurukul principles. Founded in 2010 as a small learning center, it has grown exponentially to support over 12,000 families across India and has established learning hubs in 18 cities, with virtual programs reaching students in 22 countries worldwide.
Dr. Aditi Sharma, Founder and CEO of SanskritikPathshala, recently unveiled "Vidya Parampara 2035" – an ambitious vision merging ancient wisdom with modern educational technology. "Education is undergoing a fundamental transformation globally," emphasizes Dr. Sharma. "We need infrastructure that supports both in-person learning hubs and global virtual classrooms, protects student data, operates on limited budgets, and delivers content to remote areas with bandwidth constraints."
Mr. Karthik Reddy, CTO at SanskritikPathshala, has identified several critical infrastructure challenges:
  • Limited infrastructure budget requiring cost-optimized cloud architecture
  • Bandwidth constraints in remote areas where many homeschooling families are located
  • Student data privacy and protection requirements across multiple countries
  • Need for content delivery to areas with inconsistent internet connectivity
  • Scalability requirements to support rapid growth from 12,000 to 100,000+ families
  • Integration challenges between learning management, video streaming, and collaboration platforms
  • Compliance with data protection regulations (India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, GDPR, etc.)
"Our infrastructure must democratize quality education regardless of location or economic constraints," explains Mr. Reddy. "We need cost-effective architectures that work with limited bandwidth, protect student privacy, scale efficiently, and support both synchronous and asynchronous learning—all while operating on an education sector budget."
To address these challenges, SanskritikPathshala has decided to implement a comprehensive infrastructure transformation initiative.

Implementation Challenge

As the implementation consultant engaged to support this strategic initiative, you must address the following questions that incorporate both technical and organizational considerations specific to this unique educational model.

Case Study Questions

  1. Cost-Optimized Cloud Architecture
      2. Educational institutions operate on tight budgets. How would you design cloud infrastructure architecture that minimizes costs while supporting 12,000+ families? Include strategies for serverless architectures, spot instances, reserved capacity, auto-scaling during class hours, and open-source solutions. Detail a FinOps framework appropriate for education.
  1. Edge Caching for Low-Bandwidth Environments
      2. Many families have limited bandwidth (< 2 Mbps). How would you design content delivery architecture that works effectively in bandwidth-constrained environments? Include edge caching strategies, progressive web applications, offline-first design, content compression, and adaptive bitrate streaming for video content.
  1. Student Data Protection Framework
      2. K12 education involves sensitive student data with strict privacy requirements. How would you design security and privacy architecture that protects student information, ensures parental consent, complies with regulations (India DPDP Act, COPPA, GDPR), and implements data minimization? Include authentication, encryption, audit trails, and data lifecycle management.
  1. Hybrid Learning Platform Architecture
      2. SanskritikPathshala supports both learning hubs and remote learners. How would you design infrastructure supporting synchronous virtual classrooms, asynchronous content delivery, collaboration tools, and assessment platforms? Include video conferencing integration, learning management system (LMS) architecture, and content management strategies.
  1. Scalability on a Budget
      2. Growth from 12,000 to 100,000+ families must not proportionally increase costs. How would you design infrastructure architecture that scales cost-effectively? Include multi-tenancy patterns, resource sharing, caching strategies, database optimization, and automation to reduce operational overhead.
  1. Multi-Region Content Delivery
      2. Students access content from 22 countries with varying connectivity. How would you design global content delivery architecture that provides good performance everywhere while minimizing costs? Include CDN selection, regional caching, content optimization, and fallback strategies for connectivity issues.
  1. Collaboration and Communication Platform
      2. Education requires collaboration between students, parents, and educators. How would you design communication and collaboration infrastructure? Include video conferencing, messaging, document collaboration, virtual whiteboards, and integration between platforms. Address cost-effective solutions suitable for education.
  1. Assessment and Analytics Platform
      2. SanskritikPathshala needs to track student progress and learning outcomes. How would you design infrastructure for assessment delivery, analytics processing, and reporting? Include secure test administration, learning analytics, data warehouse architecture, and dashboard design for parents and educators.
  1. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
      2. Education continuity is critical for student learning. How would you design disaster recovery architecture appropriate for an education budget? Include backup strategies, recovery procedures, data protection, and business continuity planning that balances cost with reliability requirements.
  1. Infrastructure as Code for Multiple Environments
      2. SanskritikPathshala operates dev, test, and production environments. How would you implement Infrastructure as Code practices that enable consistent deployments while minimizing costs? Include environment management, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and configuration management strategies appropriate for a small technical team.

Implementation Context

When developing your responses, consider these additional factors:
  • Educational institutions have limited budgets compared to corporate enterprises
  • Many families are in tier-2 and tier-3 cities with infrastructure limitations
  • Student data privacy is paramount with strict regulatory requirements
  • The organization has a small technical team requiring simple, maintainable solutions
  • Growth is rapid, requiring scalable architecture from the start
  • Parents expect reliability and data protection equivalent to commercial services
  • The educational approach values accessibility over cutting-edge features
Your implementation approach should prioritize cost-effectiveness and accessibility while ensuring security and reliability, ensuring that infrastructure architecture delivers quality educational experiences within the constraints of an education sector budget.

Evaluation Criteria

Students will be evaluated on:
  • Understanding of cost-optimized cloud architecture strategies
  • Practical approaches to content delivery in bandwidth-constrained environments
  • Student data protection and privacy architecture
  • Scalability design within budget constraints
  • Appreciation of education sector context and constraints
  • Creative solutions balancing cost, performance, and security requirements
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