Network Management Software

[towen]

Thanks ajbritton, for your comments, again much appreciated!

Seems to be many people here with expert knowlege of ICT in education...

My experience of GPO's and Software deployment dates back to the initial rollout of Windows 2000 Pro \ Server, perhaps things have changed, I don't know although we are planning to upgrade our servers to Windows 2003 over the summer months, perhaps that might see some improvements to to this. (I am due to attend the MS AD 2003 Course so that might shed some light on this)

Application roll-outs - This is a very much close to my heart (esp. as Senior Techie!) I seem to get the Software deployment job... I've spent many an hour replicating software installs on a classroom with 30+ machines in, extremely time consuming! And proves very difficult at times to get into ICT suites to actually perform tasks like this, This is one of my many objectives for a network management suite... also deployment of Software and updates to software to staff wireless laptops is a real nightmare, as none of the teachers seem to want to let go of there laptop, it's like a small child to them!!

Remote \ Interactive Control of Client machines - Well yes a great util, untill a few weeks ago we had no means of interactively connecting to machines across the network, yes RDP was a solution but it did not offer the ability to interact with the current logged on user. We have recently purchased ABTutor and I must say it been a brilliant piece of software! At a great price.....

Alot of the other ideas suggested (4,5,6) we already utilise and have been for while...

As for reporting \ monitoring this is somthing that would probably prove quite useful longterm, something to think about if we decide to go down the route of purchasing some sort of network management suite....

Any thanks everyone for your comments I will let you know about our decision on whether or not we purchase a suite of utils or not......

[Simcfc73]

We have Reminstall for software rollout which used to work really well until I let the license slip and now it won't let me run it.

It allows you to deploy / uninstall on rooms or the whole school using MSI's using multicast. Its very fast and worked really well when I used it.

We also have Interjigsaw from Akhter which is pretty good. Its a nice front end which allows you to create users by just putting in their name and it creates everything for you.

I can't justify the cost of these to be honest as I can do everything with a vanilla 2003 install. They do make life alot easier but wheres the challenge in that

Think they charge about £10 per client for both Reminstall and Interjigsaw.

[Dos_Box]

I would not bother with RM, Viglen et-al as all they do is re-badge mainly free active directory tools. I would however recommend Net Support Manager and Net Support DNA to provide you wiuth remote and classroom control. DNA gives you extra abilities like software packaging, app deployment, inventory, internet monitoring, licensing and firewall. Not bad. We are looking to buy this in the autumn.

[kingswood]

We use CSE- if you want an indepth look at their stuff I can give you lots of info (the school has been with them for 7 years now). They are quite good- have their moments like every other solution out there (including "vanilla"). I suppose it depends on the size of your network. We are approaching (fast) 700 machines (laptops, admin and curriculum- with some Macs thrown in). It's nice to have (for the school too) an extra layer of support.

CSE have quite good engineers- and I can pass on some names to you if you PM me. We have had trouble with some of their tools in the past- but with their new .NET software arriving soon it would be worth your while taking a look at what they do and getting a demo. On the management side the CSE ToolKit helps you manage application deployment (Prism Deploy), Printer Management and Deplyment (scripts etc), group policies (they plop them in for you and you can then tweek away), and project folders, VLE solutions, internet tracking/application blocking blah blah blah. An aweful lot of it is a Godsend. And that isn't knocking the vanilla method (I would like to do that too) but you will often find that you still need some tools to get you working properly. Enter CSE who offer a packaged solution that you still control but that makes your job easier (a little anyway).

As I said- get in touch with me if you need more information.

Paul
Systems Manager, The Kingswood School Corby

[gcheeseman]

This thread has given me some really good insight into the options available, but has anyone got some indicative pricing to compare CC3 / Ranger / Classlink?

Free is great, but I'm interested to know what the paid for solutions actually cost.

Many Thanks.

[Simcfc73]

Reminstall for us is £10 per client. Interjigsaw is £10 per client and I think they charge you per server and a setup fee.

[Norphy]

This may be a sledgehammer/walnut situation but what about SMS server to deploy software? It isn't especially expensive on a Select licence.