Anyone Still running CC3?

[maniac]

Just to get a rough idea of how many (if any) schools are still running CC3 - I'm interested because one of the schools I look after is still running this, and I can't believe they are considering how old the product is now. I'm trying to put forwards an urgent case for them to lose it this summer, but of course it means investing in some new infrastructure which they are really dragging their heels in agreeing to.

[synaesthesia]

There shouldn't be a "putting forward a case". There should be "this is what you must do"

 

1. XP support.

2 if they use it, Sims support, due to the above

3. Overheads - do they need CC3? do they even need CC4? could they achieve more using something else?

4. Performance

[Trapper]

I'm so glad primaries are wising up and getting school employed technical staff the amount of schools with problems like this. Some in Birmingham are actually getting proper IT Managers in at a proper wage scale too.

 

Not as bad as one school a while back, the middle school techie had to go back to the secondary IT manager for approval just to change a toner.

[FishCustard]

We (a secondary school) are still using CC3. However, over the summer it is being swept away (in glorious cleansing flame... *ahem*) and replaced with a vanilla WS2012/Win 7 x64 setup.

 

To do this we're using four new (to us, they're second hand) servers - three ESXi units and one backup server. The SIMS server will stay as-is for now as it's supported by the LA, and perfectly adequate. We're also buying new PCs to replace various bits of P4-era junk.

 

I'd be happy to have a chat with you about it if you'd like? (PM me!)

[Sunnyknight]

Don't upgrade to CC4. Go back to vanilla. Wish we did

[pickman]

Still using cc3 here. Upgrading this summer to a loverly new San and vanilla windows server 2008 and windows 7.

 

Just holding it together with sticky tape and string for these last few weeks :-)

 

Most of my kit is nearly 5years old so having a complete refresh.

 

No holiday for me this summer over 600 machines to rebuild but it will be worth it in the end.

[sparkeh]

Might want to point out that RM's support for CC3 ends on 8th April 2014 so you need something in place before this.

RM Networks Product Support Lifecycle Policy

[FishCustard]

Just holding it together with sticky tape and string for these last few weeks :-)

 

I know the feeling. Like keeping a sinking ship afloat long enough to reach the new one!

[Ric_]

Still using cc3 here. Upgrading this summer to a loverly new San and vanilla windows server 2008 and windows 7.

 

I'd hope you mean 2008R2... although you should really consider Server 2012 (it is much better)

 

No holiday for me this summer over 600 machines to rebuild but it will be worth it in the end.

 

SCCM is your friend... you'll be able to do much of the legwork now and, come day 1 of the summer holidays, you just take a leisurely stroll around site PXE-booting the machines. It is actually one of the most satisfying jobs in a school - I miss mass-building machines.

[synaesthesia]

Of course if SCCM is too much, MDT with WDS will do the job of image deployment just fine

[Norphy]

We migrated from CC3 to an SCCM managed vanilla network in the last summer holiday. Formatting that last DC with the CC3 crud on felt good. As with others, you're welcome to contact me with any questions if you want.

[FishCustard]

Of course if SCCM is too much, MDT with WDS will do the job of image deployment just fine

 

My thoughts exactly - SCCM is overkill for our network, and would add another management load (on the PCs, and our own brains!), something we're keen to get away from. I've been getting MDT set up, and think it'll work nicely. Now we just need to get WDS sorted (can't test yet as DHCP is still handled by the CC3 DC).

[pickman]

I'd hope you mean 2008R2... although you should really consider Server 2012 (it is much better)

 

 

 

SCCM is your friend... you'll be able to do much of the legwork now and, come day 1 of the summer holidays, you just take a leisurely stroll around site PXE-booting the machines. It is actually one of the most satisfying jobs in a school - I miss mass-building machines.

 

 

Yes 2008r2. My new support company recommended 2008r2 as this is a stable platform and to upgrade to 2012 when that's considered stable for our environment

 

Getting wds for deployment.

Edited June 26, 2013 by pickman

[Danp]

Don't upgrade to CC4. Go back to vanilla. Wish we did

 

Same here...

[maark]

I would recommend server 2012 and MDT. Server 2012 is stable and gives a lot of benefits. SCCM is too time consuming, breaks easily and not really needed for a secondary school.

[Norphy]

SCCM is too time consuming, breaks easily and not really needed for a secondary school.

 

I've got to disagree with that entire statement.

 

We've been running it for the last two and a bit years and been using it in anger since September last year. It's been perfectly stable. Yes, it takes a long time to set up but once it's going, it's going and assuming you use the suite to its full ability it will save you a considerable amount of time as everything gets automated.

 

Not really needed for a secondary school? How do you figure? I suppose it depends on the size of the secondary school but any estate which has more than 100 computers benefits from SCCM. The ability to push software, updates and configurations, the ability to take inventories and monitor what software is being used and AV management make it absolutely invaluable to me. The ability to schedule of that does too. Targeting software/updates/configurations at specific users or computers is pretty damn cool too. Whereas all MDT will do for you is deploy an OS and install software during its task sequence. Not a trivial task by any means but it offers nowhere near the functionality of SCCM or similar products.

[sparkeh]

I've got to disagree with that entire statement.

Agreed. Primary school here with ~150 machines and its invaluable.

[Gatt]

Agreed. Primary school here with ~150 machines and its invaluable.

Thirded

 

SCCM 2007 took me a bit of time to get setup initially (SCCM 2012 is much better to get up and running - 48 hours tops from install to usability)

 

I used 2007 R3 at my school and it saved me a lot of man hours for updates, distribution and of course OS Deployments!

Would seriously recommend that people take the time to look at SCCM 2012 as it will make your life much, much easier

[synaesthesia]

Fourthed. We use it here as a secondary and it's also invaluable. What it offers over and above MDT is massive - it can indeed be overkill but, and the big but is everyone's requirements are different. It's not even like we spend a lot of time using it - it just sits there and works - wsus, pxe builds, software deployment, inventory management, licensing/software management but to name just a few. Just think of it as consolidating services. It only breaks easily if there's something wrong. MDT will break easily if you try hard enough - as will an iPhone!

 

As said though, before making jumps you need to decide exactly what you need to do, to what scale, to what benefits, pros & cons and work from there. Education ICT isn't a one size fit's all thing and it's not just about the computers, or the network, or the technical staff, or the users, or the finances. It's a fine balance between all of them.

Edited June 26, 2013 by synaesthesia

[BassTech]

Same here...

 

And here!

 

Looking at moving from CC4 to Vanilla now

[Modey]

Much the same as a few others here. Intending to switch from CC3 to vanilla MS setup in the summer. Already have the infrastructure in place and are using Server 2012 for Hyper-V v3 etc... Not sure if we'll bother with SCCM yet but are already using MDT ready for the various ICT suite upgrades.

[Tara]

I'd hope you mean 2008R2... although you should really consider Server 2012 (it is much better)

 

Why do you feel 2012 is better Rick? I'm about to start that CC3 to Vanilla server learning curve, and settled on 2008 R2 as there seemed to be little difference between the two. We don't plan on using VM. Is there something I'm missing?

[synaesthesia]

Why use an already obsolete operating system - by 2 versions. There's point one. Longer support for relevant software, perhaps including SIMS (not sure how far the roadmap is for that)

Better DFS, ReFS, dedupe...

[Norphy]

For me there is no one specific feature but there are a few which are useful

 

AD Recycle bin GUI

File Dedupe

iSCSI hosting

Booting a physical server from a VHD

Virtualisation improvements

Much better Core installation

Server Manager is actually worth having now

 

That's by no means exhaustive, there's a lot there in terms of new features.