classroom network advice

[ollieblake]

Hello,

Ive been set the task to find out a sufficient way to build a seperate network for our music technology department that isnt connected to the main school network.

Basically what we have at the moment is a group of 16 computers all linked into the one server which has the licence software for the hellish Sibelius and Cubase on. All of the files created by students are saved onto the hard drives locally on each computer and each hard drive is shared on the network.

We are hopefully soon to refurbish the network with new computers/equipment so I was wondering if there was a more efficient way of handling the files, for instance synching back to one main storage area on the server as opposed to saving locally and sharing in a mesh type of sharing way.

Anyone had any experience with this kind of issue?

Any feedback is welcomed gladly!


Thanks in advance,


Ollie

[jamesreedersmith]

Why seperate network - what is it with music departments wanting their own networks?

[Hecate]

If it's a separate network how do they authenticate, access stuff they may have saved in their home folders etc etc. Because they often need to save large files we have a separate music file server on the same switch as the music workstation. At logon a drive is mapped to a folder on this server and they save their music stuff there. They still have access to their ordinary home folders if needed but they can only work on their music in the music room

[ollieblake]

Network Manager stated that he doesnt want the music network on the main network due to the use of pen drives, viruses and everything I guess, thats not my call though unfortunetly.

The main problem is that the music software requires you to be logged in on an administrator account to have access to the C: drive. so at the moment the students are logging on as administrators to use the software.

Also the latency on the network is to slow for the files to be edited and played back from a server, which is why all of the computers are sharing a work drive between eachother.

Their home folders are located in the main network, basically all the music technology work is saved in a big mess on each of the computers hard drives. Its a mess at the moment.

Thanks for your advice so far!


Ollie

[pete]

The main problem is that the music software requires you to be logged in on an administrator account to have access to the C: drive. so at the moment the students are logging on as administrators to use the software.
Ollie

Bet you can fix that with tweaking file permissions and half an hour's work with Process Monitor from sysinternals. Process Monitor

90% of programs needing "administrator" access just have lazy programmers.

[ollieblake]

Bet you can fix that with tweaking file permissions and half an hour's work with Process Monitor from sysinternals. Process Monitor

90% of programs needing "administrator" access just have lazy programmers.

I will definetly bring one in on the bench and have a play around, greatly appreciated!

[mossj]

Network Manager stated that he doesnt want the music network on the main network due to the use of pen drives, viruses and everything I guess, thats not my call though unfortunetly.

Is that not an issue with any IT Network?

The main problem is that the music software requires you to be logged in on an administrator account to have access to the C: drive. so at the moment the students are logging on as administrators to use the software.

Lots of people on here have Sib running without admin rights. Sure they would be happy to help...

[Sylv3r]

We run Sibelius 6 and Cubase on locked down student accounts with no issues.

[daveyboy]

as above - Us too (Sib & Cub) on locked down user accounts.....

[IanT]

Network Manager stated that he doesnt want the music network on the main network due to the use of pen drives, viruses and everything I guess, thats not my call though unfortunetly.

The main problem is that the music software requires you to be logged in on an administrator account to have access to the C: drive. so at the moment the students are logging on as administrators to use the software.

Also the latency on the network is to slow for the files to be edited and played back from a server, which is why all of the computers are sharing a work drive between eachother.

Their home folders are located in the main network, basically all the music technology work is saved in a big mess on each of the computers hard drives. Its a mess at the moment.

Thanks for your advice so far!


Ollie

Network Manager! - I think he needs to learn how to apply permissions.

Having a seperate network is a crazy idea imo

[dhicks]

We are hopefully soon to refurbish the network with new computers/equipment so I was wondering if there was a more efficient way of handling the files, for instance synching back to one main storage area on the server as opposed to saving locally and sharing in a mesh type of sharing way.

We have pretty much the same setup - 18 machines with Sibelious and Cubase on, lots of data needing to be stored. I've added a second network card to each machine and attached each machine to a second network used just for storage. At some point I intend to do some cunning trick where I share out a second harddrive from each machine over the storage as a network-available block device and have a server aggregate these all in to a RAID array. I haven't actually got around to doing this yet, but have been talking about it for ages, so I don't know if this will ever actually get done.

For external disk storage, you could look at eSATA - attach one of those bare-bones drive caddies to each machine via eSATA, the ones that let you simply stick a bare harddrive into a base unit. Give each pupil a SATA drive and leave them to get on with it (can't help thinking that a SATA drive isn't going to last very long in the average 15-year old's school bag...).

--
David Hicks

[ollieblake]

We run Sibelius 6 and Cubase on locked down student accounts with no issues.

as above - Us too (Sib & Cub) on locked down user accounts..... .

Could I be cheeky enough to ask the settings and permissions youve applied in order to get this working?


Thanks in advance!


Ollie