RM - Discuss

I also think a lot of people fall into the trap of "It's a solution so it should work, end of". They seem to think that no additional tinkering is needed to optimise it for your school.
2.4 was a great point in case in that those that fiddled the most seemed to benefit the most. In my opinion I would say we had a great system running on it, with RM's stuff and bits we had added to fill in the gaps. I used to feel a great pride when you would find a 'hacking' site describing ways to get round systems and either be able to say, "fixed that, stopped that, that doesn't work" or go and test them and find something you had put into place all ready stopped it. But there were many others who hated it and though it was the worst ever because these hacks worked.
Though that opens the debate of should a solution such as RM's, or anyone elses, need additional bits added after.

@TechMonkey, the RM solution is just that - a solution. A solution should solve a problem - in this case that of providing a secure and easily maintainable network. If a solution doesn't provide that, how can it be a solution?

When you are paying top whack for something you shouldn't need to tinker too much - I think that's the point that people are making. You can tinker with a vanilla Windows install and it will give the benefits of CC3 after all.

I think CC3 does do this out of the box. But for added benefit it needs to be tweaked to fit your needs. If RM were to provide a customised solution for each school then the price would shoot up for the time needed to find what is needed, do the customisations etc etc.

I totally agree that you can do CC3 on a vanilla system, but it is the time to set up and tweak. With CC3 you have a base standard that you can then move on from.

Ohhh damnnit, now I'm sounding like an RM fanatic 8O Ermmm, ermmmm, RMMC sucks...... Phew, good save.

Just to add my sixpennorth
I have just obtained quotes for 'whole school systems' from the three 'total solutions' providers that my authority allow (Schoolcare, Viglen and RM) and the RM quote came out at over £8000 more for the same spec kit - and no difference in provided software, either
Having said that - a lot of the problems with the RM kit apply to most 'whole system' providers
My current system does not even allow teachers to clear print queues!

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Originally Posted by ITWITCH

Just to add my sixpennorth
I have just obtained quotes for 'whole school systems' from the three 'total solutions' providers that my authority allow (Schoolcare, Viglen and RM) and the RM quote came out at over £8000 more for the same spec kit - and no difference in provided software, either
Having said that - a lot of the problems with the RM kit apply to most 'whole system' providers
My current system does not even allow teachers to clear print queues!

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Why not just go to the print que, click security, and add the staff group to full control of the que, like you would on a vanilla system?

Well, I would if I could, BUT this is a bespoke system with someone else's front end on it - with just about everything disabled. I have tried (with the collusion of one of their own engineers) but I cannot get past their set up. Sometimes you can change things to the way you want them but they still dont work, and sometimes you cannot get at the thing you want to change.
I would love a vanilla system

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Originally Posted by TechMonkey

Jose, do you want me to copy and paste the responses to those arguments from the RM Communities thread?

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yes please, lets see what people pn here think

I think the real issue with RM is the cost - it's just not justifiable IMHO.

Being part scottish I took jose's comment about 3rd world support as a good joke.

its not just cost even if it was free I'd still prefer a vanilla network.
I had a problem with ris the other day, solved one problem by asking on here and ther by googling. RM would just claim the the system is designed that way for security purposes etc

From your technical point of view maybe Jose, granted. Me too.

Isn't problem with Vanilla networks that:

a) you have to think of everything
b) as far as the school is concerned 'your' network may not easily be picked up by your succesor if you leave
c) more time is spent on doing things that CC3 does automatically

Also, on the Printer Queues question - just give the staff Print Operators, or do what you would in vanilla - which still works just fine in CC3.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by u8dmtm

Isn't problem with Vanilla networks that:

a) you have to think of everything
b) as far as the school is concerned 'your' network may not easily be picked up by your succesor if you leave
c) more time is spent on doing things that CC3 does automatically

Also, on the Printer Queues question - just give the staff Print Operators, or do what you would in vanilla - which still works just fine in CC3.

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Not really.

Whats the difference between adding users in a vanilla system in active directory then adding users in RM connect?

Whats the difference between deploying software via MSI packages on a group policy or using RM connect?

As for spending more time doing things that RM Connect does automatically i cannnot think of anything.

RM Connect 3 is an overpriced print quota software. If you had 300 PC's that would be £30,000 wasted on CC3 client licences.

The tools RM Connect 3 offers are no longer needed since Windows 2000 was born. Now all RM Connect does is get in the way and give users an interface they will not find in industry.

RM Connect is bad for students. It wastes schools resources big time, and allows some people to think they are system administrators when they are infact clueless and some from experience go cross eyed when shown group policy's, how to edit them and active directory and do not understand that this what RM Connect is using. How the hell are people who do not know what Active Directory or Group Policy's are allowed Administrator rights on a 2000/2003 domain.

I know there are some out there who do run RM Connect 3 and do know a lot about the more technical side. But the amount of people i see being paid more than me to run Connect 3 networks and are clueless really pisses me off big time. I'll put my claws away now. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by u8dmtm

Isn't problem with Vanilla networks that:

a) you have to think of everything
b) as far as the school is concerned 'your' network may not easily be picked up by your succesor if you leave
c) more time is spent on doing things that CC3 does automatically

Also, on the Printer Queues question - just give the staff Print Operators, or do what you would in vanilla - which still works just fine in CC3.

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a) Thats what we are paid for, and besides it's how you learn. No one outside (and even inside) education would employ someone boasting of RM skills (what little there are).

b) Anyone who is experienced and\or qualified can unpick a 'vanilla' network. You would require an RM training course (at expense of course) before being totally sure of doing anything in depth with RM.

c) Such as?

In my opinion, RM handles RIS and package allocation better than on a vanilla network.

In answer:

- When I started in this job they were running Connect 2.4. So my first exposure to RM was not good. However I still chose CC3 over W2K/XP vanilla. Its an out of the box solution that suits the needs of schools.

a) We are NOT paid to think of everything, we are paid to deliver the most educationally focussed ICT facility - reinventing the wheel is a waste of time.

b) Unpicking a vanilla network assumes that the person who picked it did a reasonably good job of it. If you know AD you can easily work CC3, so that idea that you need training before doing anything with it is wrong.

It is true that CC3 is not the magic potion it claims to be and if you do have a "clue" then it is easy to see that it is simply an additional layer, but a useful layer that saves time and does an efficient job of it. I would like to know when vanilla users got the time to start from scratch whilst also being nagged to do all the other jobs that people want them to do. I don't know about other people but there are plenty of other things to be doing. For me that includes coding, training and all the usual hardware and user stuff.