Bloody Frog! We own the server & the warrany expired!??!

[chazzy2501]

Something that wasn't passed onto me during the purchase of our Frog VLE (3.5 years ago) is that the server provided was in fact our property and were are responsible for it's upkeep! When we purchased Frog we were told that the only on going cost was £3800 /pa for support. Well, if buying a new £5000 server every 5 years (if you purchase additional warranty from Dell) and paying frog to migrate it isn't an 'On going' cost what is?!

 

Urrrgh! I guess we don't have to renew the server but I don't want to run an important server outside of it's warranty!

 

OK I thought, can we virtualise the frog server? FROG: Yes it'll cost £5000 (the price of a new frog server!) What a rip!

 

Anyone P2V'd a frog server (just can't think of a way to virtualise the ILO)

[Willott]

If the Equipment becomes

inoperable, the Customer shall:

2.1 subject to payment for installing the FrogTrade Software on the replacement equipment, be entitled

to use the FrogTrade Software on any other equipment purchased by the Customer to replace the

Equipment.

 

According to that, ask them for a break down in the £5k price (ie what aspect of it is the hardware and what is the cost of software migration) - then either look elsewhere for hardware or do a virtual install - and tell them that you'll be paying only what has been quoted for software migration, and if they have an issue you can discuss anti competitive behaviour with them .

[dhicks]

Anyone P2V'd a frog server

 

Our ex-Frog server is now quite happily running XenServer, if that's any help - the actual hardware works just fine. If Frog runs on a Linux-based OS of some kind then those are generally pretty simple to move accross to a virtual machine, just set up a VM with the same size disks and copy the data accross.

 

How much was the warrenty renewel from Dell, by the way? It sounds like we bought our Frog server the same time you did, and the warrenty now needs renewing.

[mthomas08]

I didn't know that, I thought it was always covered by Frog....

 

Oh well I got a new job so don't work in the frog school any more and its being scrapped there as well.

[chazzy2501]

@willot where are those t&c's @dhicks waiting for quote to buy retrospective warranty.

[Willott]

They were on the original proposal from Frog

[ICTDirect_Dave]

If you dont want to spend a fortune but still want to keep the server running and under warranty I think I can sell you 3rd party onsite support on a rolling yearly deal for a fraction of the cost

 

Let me know if you want any more info

[bossman]

@all:

 

What's a"Warranty?"

 

Is this a "Guarantee" of nothing ever going wrong or if it does will they put it right to the point of where it went wrong?

 

Hmmmm! Must get me one of those!

 

Save me from having to do it!

[Edu-IT]

@all:

 

What's a"Warranty?"

 

Is this a "Guarantee" of nothing ever going wrong or if it does will they put it right to the point of where it went wrong?

 

Hmmmm! Must get me one of those!

 

Save me from having to do it!

Well nobody can guarantee things won't go wrong, so I'd say its about what will happen when things do go wrong.

[bossman]

@Edu-IT:

 

Stop spoiling my fun and taking what I say seriously! hehe!

 

You should know me by now?

 

I will always let people know when I am being serious

 

Anyway what brings you out to play today? Not got much work on?

[Edu-IT]

@Edu-IT:

 

Stop spoiling my fun and taking what I say seriously! hehe!

 

You should know me by now?

 

I will always let people know when I am being serious

 

Anyway what brings you out to play today? Not got much work on?

Not today, no, just been laying down in the IT suite. As you do.. ;-)

[frogwoman]

Be grateful your server didn't develop a disk issue during an Ofsted inspection and then find out you were out of warranty and had to fix it yourself....... Edited June 28, 2013 by frogwoman

[mthomas08]

Off topic question but what would Ofsted care about in regards to online learning?

 

I had been told by a certain head of ICT at another school that they will only care about what's on paper.

[sparkeh]

Off topic question but what would Ofsted care about in regards to online learning?

 

I had been told by a certain head of ICT at another school that they will only care about what's on paper.

Kinda depends on the inspector you get. Had one where we tried to push our VLE usage and the inspector said "What's a VLE?" - on the flip side I know of inspections where they have been dead keen to see what's going on with the school's VLE.

[mthomas08]

Now that makes sense to me, for me having "anywhere" learning is the next best thing for schools, especially higher education. This person was very anti VLE/Online learning and as a result was very Anti Frog. He was happy with a basic system and didn't want to change, to me if it benefits the kids and improves their education then surely that's a good thing.

[Tallwood_6]

Something that wasn't passed onto me during the purchase of our Frog VLE (3.5 years ago) is that the server provided was in fact our property and were are responsible for it's upkeep! When we purchased Frog we were told that the only on going cost was £3800 /pa for support. Well, if buying a new £5000 server every 5 years (if you purchase additional warranty from Dell) and paying frog to migrate it isn't an 'On going' cost what is?!

 

Urrrgh! I guess we don't have to renew the server but I don't want to run an important server outside of it's warranty!

 

OK I thought, can we virtualise the frog server? FROG: Yes it'll cost £5000 (the price of a new frog server!) What a rip!

 

Anyone P2V'd a frog server (just can't think of a way to virtualise the ILO)

 

I had exactly the same experience I had always assumed the price we paid which is thousands per year covered both software and hardware support. During install they market the server as an appliance gave us no input with regards to spec or warranty, now two years later they turn around and go by the way you need to pay x for a warranty renewal from Dell and pay x for a memory upgrade. Ohh and no we don't support a virtual it virtualised.

[localzuk]

I don't get the "we don't support virtualised" thing. What difference does it make to them?

 

I had some info off them for disaster recovery procedure last week and they indicated that with FrogOS they will be supporting virtual environments.

[Tallwood_6]

I don't get the "we don't support virtualised" thing. What difference does it make to them?

 

I had some info off them for disaster recovery procedure last week and they indicated that with FrogOS they will be supporting virtual environments.

 

I think they will support frogos virtualised but not frog3 or the combo of both.

[chazzy2501]

FrogOS is a "free" upgrade if you already have a Frog3 server! BUTTT this free upgrade will require a server RAM upgrade and may run crappy this will also drive your support costs up a further £2500 plus £2 per pupil!

 

Bargain it's free and I can't afford it.

[localzuk]

FrogOS is a "free" upgrade if you already have a Frog3 server! BUTTT this free upgrade will require a server RAM upgrade and may run crappy this will also drive your support costs up a further £2500 plus £2 per pupil!

 

Bargain it's free and I can't afford it.

 

It doesn't put your support costs up. It reduces them according to the letter I've got. Ie. it replaces the old support charge with the new pricing scheme.

[chazzy2501]

if I don't hit a cap then the support will be only £100 more.... Phew!

[speckytecky]

We got quotes to extend (by 3 years) on our Dell Curriculum Server. Shopping round saved us a heap.

[Dan_ATR]

Frog sounds rip off... We use moodle, vitalized on a VMwear server.

[mthomas08]

Think you need to see what frog offers before you say that

 

Currently have moodle here and there are a large amount of options provided with Frog which to be frank would take any moodle expert years to setup and design. And by that time Frog would have developed further, still agree its very expensive but compared to what other VLEs are offering Frog is still one of the best. Staff here have begun to feel angry at the clunky feel of moodle and the basic feeling of it, which is why they have looked else where for cheap options e.g. RealSmart.

[gshaw]

Think you need to see what frog offers before you say that

 

Currently have moodle here and there are a large amount of options provided with Frog which to be frank would take any moodle expert years to setup and design. And by that time Frog would have developed further, still agree its very expensive but compared to what other VLEs are offering Frog is still one of the best. Staff here have begun to feel angry at the clunky feel of moodle and the basic feeling of it, which is why they have looked else where for cheap options e.g. RealSmart.

 

Just out of interest what features have you found people prefer over Moodle?