FragglePete

Monday was the big day for us this week; we've switched over on Friday afternoon to our new fully IP based system consisting of a Splicecom Maximiser 5100 Call Server supporting 118 phones. So far, so good with it all appearing to be working well and recieved well by all staff.

It has however been a long time in planning; with support from the community on here as a whole I felt it only right to detail my experience over the last few months.

I've been fortunate that ...

So, I've got all the VLAN in place ready for VOIP, just a few tweaks to be done to servers and stuff but nothing major. I'm still trying to nail down the exact QoS configuration but I've put that ball in the court of the supplier for now . I've got a 10 more Switches with PoE on order in places where we don't have the capacity.

Further discussions with the supplier states that the system needs to be able to Multicast, and with the Softphone feature on the desktops PCs it looks ...

I had one of those moments today; the mist cleared (only slightly) in sorting our network out with a VLAN ready for a VOIP implementation.

The various posts here on Edugeek once again proved valuable, and I'm chuffed to bits that I've got it sorted to a certain point (have yet to tweak various Server gateway addresses).

Next step later on down the line is to start segmenting the next work into logical parts but need a NAT box of somesort to do that correctly.
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One of my Summer tasks has been to get SIMS migrated from our ageing server onto a new Server. I've gone down the route of hosting it on a virtual machine based on a XenServer Host. First impressions are all good so far.

In all the planning of this and arranging for Capita to do the migration, you suddenly realise how many other systems feed off your SIMS database and these too need either migration or re-configuring. These include simple things like the Frog SIMS Extractor right ...

Had one of those days today that we all dread as technicians/network managers. Walk into the office this morning and pounced upon by various members of staff shouting "No one can log on!"

Into the Server room and all the servers apart from one is switched on and running. The main DC which also houses the CSE Database is dead as a dodo.

Initial indication would be a power failure, but no, all others UPS' are running and not reporting an issue. Power ...

There I was, thought I'd have a go at implementing a VLAN on the Core switch yesterday. Just to prove the concept and make sure I've got it clear in my head what to do. I telnet into the Switch and start tweaking some settings, next thing I know connectivity to the Internet Stops.. What have I done? I look at the steps I took, and all seems well. I then revert all the settings back to their initial settings and still no Internet.

Quick phone call to SWGfL and it would ...

I've been in my post now for just over three years; I'm loving the job but there is one thing I've noticed since I started here.....

I seem to be suffering from higher than usual amount of colds, sniffles and other such horrible things. Normally, I wouldn't take more than a day off per year due to some sort of sickness, but since being here I feel like I'm taking more.

I guess its working around all these little darlings that does it. But, I just seem to feel like ...

We've come back this term with a whole load of machines complaining that Windows 7 is not genuine. How nice; after all the money we spend with Microsoft and the various backflips we have to do to get our KMS server working correctly we're being accused of running illegal software!

It would turn out that during the Xmas break I created a new Prism Package which was the new SIMS Update installation. Rather than let SIMS update itself this time round (because it doesn't always work), ...

We've had a XenServer running since last year, and have been impressed so much that we introduced another one this year and both hosts have some eight Windows based servers sitting on them.

I've got a small Linux server running on an old workstation that hosts the Xibo Signage System and also looks after LimeSurveys as well running on Ubuntu. My plan was to move this to another VM on the newer host as it has more than enough capacity.

It would seem that only certain ...

Teacher preparing for OCR Level 1 ICT Functional Skills, and this particular guidance note took my interest:

During the time allowed for Part B (1 hour 45 minutes), candidates must not have access to the internet. Candidates should not be able to send or receive emails but must have access to email software (such as Outlook or Outlook Express) so that they can demonstrate their ability to e.g. organise attachments when sending an email.

So, blocking Internet - no problem, ...