[sims] Summer 2013 and XP

[sted]

Ouch! Even with XP, running SIMS .net on a device with 512MB RAM must be a struggle!

 

Capita recently update their Hardware spec guide. While it's a rough spec sheet designed to meet all needs in various school sizes, 2GB is now the minimum recommendation for SIMS use, with 4GB recommended. Add FMS, Discover etc to the mix and the recommendation goes up!

 

the pcs in question are pupil suite pcs so don't have sims luckily but 7 year old Fuji e2500's are common in my schools luckily 2 school are upgrading their suites from these over summer but even then they are getting shipped to class though I might try win 8.1 on them they don't do 7 well enough for aero so imo they arnt capable of running win7

[FN-GM]

Im sure the school could find money to replace 100 machines. At £500 a wack

[Gibbo]

You wouldn't even need to spend £500.

 

In my neck of the woods our local council's SIMS team invite staff to attend the regular SIMS meetings. Its usually a bursar or someone senior in the office who attends. At these meetings they always make the roadmap clear.

 

If you don't go to the meetings its the Network Manager's job to watch stuff like this and insist on upgrades.

[Sheridan]

insist on upgrades.

 

All very well - but when you've just had redundancies and theres nothing left to spend you're not in a position to insist on anything.

[localzuk]

All very well - but when you've just had redundancies and theres nothing left to spend you're not in a position to insist on anything.

 

The thing is, the school still has to operate - redundancies or not. If the system they use for managing the school doesn't work because they haven't kept it funded then they can't run the school properly.

 

You need to write down the urgent need for replacements and send it to the head. Highlight the Capita deadline, when XP runs out of support (and therefore the school being open to risk and therefore not complying with their legal obligations under principle 7 of the DPA), the minimum specs that SIMS requires and make it clear that without funding, SIMS will simply not work properly - which could put the children at risk due to data being inaccessible.

 

If you put it all in writing, and they still refuse to do anything, then at least you're absolved of the responsibility - you can then do what you can to keep it running (which will be very little, but still).

 

Remember - whatever the finance people tell you about the school having no money, it isn't normally true. It is simply a case of being a low priority area in their eyes and they feel other areas are more important.

[Edu-IT]

Remember - whatever the finance people tell you about the school having no money, it isn't normally true. It is simply a case of being a low priority area in their eyes and they feel other areas are more important.

Until their machine stops working and then suddenly it rises up the list. I imagine FMS will stop working too on XP so there's a selling point.