Moving away from LLN - how did it go?

[hallb15]

This is one for the Leeds schools:

 

I know some schools have moved away from LLN over the summer holiday. I was wondering if anyone who has already moved providers has any stories to share about how smoothly the move went, any issues faced etc.

 

Did you have any issues with SIMS or AVCO or any other LLN services like infobase etc...

 

Our SLT is nervous and I could do with some facts to help calm their fears!

Thanks in advance

Edited September 12, 2013 by hallb15

[sted]

not yet but iirc got some moving before xmas one just had a new bt line put in

[free780]

Are you keeping some lln ips and connection for avco etc? As you still have to deal with lln.

[SchoolsBroadband]

This is one for the Leeds schools:

 

I know some schools have moved away from LLN over the summer holiday. I was wondering if anyone who has already moved providers has any stories to share about how smoothly the move went, any issues faced etc.

 

Did you have any issues with SIMS or AVCO or any other LLN services like infobase etc...

 

We've moved plenty away. Access is still available to those services or there's a replacement way to do it.

[hallb15]

This is one for the Leeds schools:

 

I know some schools have moved away from LLN over the summer holiday. I was wondering if anyone who has already moved providers has any stories to share about how smoothly the move went, any issues faced etc.

 

Did you have any issues with SIMS or AVCO or any other LLN services like infobase etc...

 

We've moved plenty away. Access is still available to those services or there's a replacement way to do it.

Thanks, Dave. I was after some specific examples, including costs paid to LLN for access to the likes of Infobase, as I've not managed to get a definitive answer other than 'you can get a dongle for that, they are about £70'.

[sted]

Thanks, Dave. I was after some specific examples, including costs paid to LLN for access to the likes of Infobase, as I've not managed to get a definitive answer other than 'you can get a dongle for that, they are about £70'.

 

you want a specific answer from lln hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[hallb15]

I've had some info from ICT4Leeds, although I think this is the same that was sent out to Heads back in April, but at least it confirms pricing.

What it doesn't confirm though is what the replacement for Infobase is going to be, and how it will be accessed.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please find attached details of the ICT4Leeds Service offer which is still available.

The contract period will be for 4 years and the quote you have been provided with is on a like-for-like basis.

The ICT4Leeds service includes access to InfoBase and AVCO. However, these are to be replaced by 1 April and details will be available in due course.

 

An indication of what would happen to a School on 1 April can be understood from the following advice issued to Schools considering not just leaving LLN but also not taking the ICT4Leeds Service.

Prior to moving outside the Local Authority, whether on the 31 March 2014 or before, LLN Service Desk will respond to any such news by offering a School advice on a number of issues such as either losing or retaining access to some Leeds City Council services (FAB, SAP, InfoBase, Energy unit URL, collaboration zones and the 4Heads website). Typical advice for a School moving outside the Authority would be:

 

• where a school or Academy requires access to SAP,FAB or Energy unit url, this would be provisioned via a token per person. There is a one-off setup fee of £30 (includes p&p) and a charge per token is £60/annum each.

• where a school or Academy requires access to InfoBase, this can be setup at a cost of £30 per person per annum. No token is required and the person is issued with LCC login credentials.

• where a school or Academy wants to transfer data to LCC Children's Services, because AVCO file transfer will no longer be available, the process is to use the schools2schools portal.

• if a school would like a back-up of their

• SharePoint site on a secure USB hard drive,

• email and calendar content (PST file) for all users on a secure USB hard drive,

this can be arranged but will be at a cost to the school of £790+vat for one or £990+vat for both. This is an identified process provided by Capita.

• there is no option for a school to retain VOIP and numbers cannot be transferred.

• where a school has cctv provided over the LLN, this will no longer function.

• where a school has a website hosted by Leeds Learning Network, a school will also need to ensure alternative hosting provision is made.

 

I hope the above is helpful.

If you have any further questions or require copies of any other documents from the ICT4Leeds Service pack sent out in April please contact me.

[hallb15]

Are you keeping some lln ips and connection for avco etc? As you still have to deal with lln.

 

We're planning on keeping the LLN service alive and running it with one PC connected until April 2014, which we can remote into as and when required.

AVCO is being replaced by school 2 school (s2s) which is a government service.

Any other services we might need will be done on a dongle basis for those that absolutely require it.

NB We don't use LLN for VoIP, CCTV, website, sharepoint etc...

I'm certainly not paying £790+VAT to get staff emails dumped on a USB drive. Even if it means me doing all 85 staff manually!

[hallb15]

Well I've run into my first issue with Office365 and LLN.

In Office365 I can receive email from anywhere else, just not from a LLN email address.

 

I've logged a support call with LLN Servicedesk...

 

Has anyone else come across this?

[Mayki5]

While not with LLN, we've had a similar issue appear on SWGFL. Schools that have migrated from SWGFL's RM Easymail to Office 365 stopped receiving emails from other schools on RM Easymail for a while. Although our MX records were correctly set for Office 365, and this was working well for external contacts, it seemed that SWGFL had internal MX records still pointing at RM Easymail, which was being picked up by anybody sending from an Easymail account inside SWGFL's network.

 

Only thing to suggest here, is that LLN ensure that any internal MX records that still points at their internal hosting is removed, so that schools still on LLN are resolving the correct Office 365 MX record, as set on your DNS Service.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Mayki5

[john]

While not with LLN, we've had a similar issue appear on SWGFL. Schools that have migrated from SWGFL's RM Easymail to Office 365 stopped receiving emails from other schools on RM Easymail for a while. Although our MX records were correctly set for Office 365, and this was working well for external contacts, it seemed that SWGFL had internal MX records still pointing at RM Easymail, which was being picked up by anybody sending from an Easymail account inside SWGFL's network.

 

Only thing to suggest here, is that LLN ensure that any internal MX records that still points at their internal hosting is removed, so that schools still on LLN are resolving the correct Office 365 MX record, as set on your DNS Service.

 

Would agree with that, we had a similar issue for a while with North Yorkshire any school that had opted out of the provide mail onto local mailservers were struggling with emails to each other as some internal routing was changed and made a mess. Once they cleared it up all was good and fine

[sted]

Well I've run into my first issue with Office365 and LLN.

In Office365 I can receive email from anywhere else, just not from a LLN email address.

 

I've logged a support call with LLN Servicedesk...

 

Has anyone else come across this?

 

we had that over the summer hols as a company we use office 365 and all lln emails were going into the junk folder for all users looks like ms have flagged them as spam carriers in the end we whitelisted them

[IrritableTech]

@hallb15 I might be a bit late on this one, but I'll DM you my contact details. We stars using an alternative provider over the summer holidays. Happy to chat about the positives and pitfalls to avoid.

[hallb15]

While not with LLN, we've had a similar issue appear on SWGFL. Schools that have migrated from SWGFL's RM Easymail to Office 365 stopped receiving emails from other schools on RM Easymail for a while. Although our MX records were correctly set for Office 365, and this was working well for external contacts, it seemed that SWGFL had internal MX records still pointing at RM Easymail, which was being picked up by anybody sending from an Easymail account inside SWGFL's network.

 

Only thing to suggest here, is that LLN ensure that any internal MX records that still points at their internal hosting is removed, so that schools still on LLN are resolving the correct Office 365 MX record, as set on your DNS Service.

 

Well it looks like this is very similar to my situation. LLN (or CAPITA) do seem to still have some control over our domain as they are able to setup aliases for internal emails (from LLN accounts to my office365 account on the school's domain)

Question is, how do I get full control of my school's domain so that LLN/CAPITA no longer have anything to do with it?

[john]

Well it looks like this is very similar to my situation. LLN (or CAPITA) do seem to still have some control over our domain as they are able to setup aliases for internal emails (from LLN accounts to my office365 account on the school's domain)

Question is, how do I get full control of my school's domain so that LLN/CAPITA no longer have anything to do with it?

 

If it is a .sch.uk Domain your school owns it and for a small fee (think it is £10) you can ask Nominet to forcibly change the registrar on it and give you access back to the new one you wish, so you choose a new registrar such as CS New Media, setup the DNS with them in-advance ready to go, get nominet to change the tag and off you go. You will have to prove you are the school EG letterhead paper, letter signed by head on it etc... We did discuss it at my place as an option should the LA not be willing to work with us but they did in the end which was much better for all concerned.

[SchoolsBroadband]

FYI LLN have asked to come and have a meeting with us to discuss how to help schools transition and regarding keeping certain services up and running.

 

This is happening in a couple of weeks so I'll let you all know how its gone.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[hallb15]

@john thanks - I wish it was that simple. I paid nominet to transfer the registra to heart internet back in April. I do have control of the domain, which is why I'm stumped as to how LLN can still have any influence over it.

[hallb15]

FYI LLN have asked to come and have a meeting with us to discuss how to help schools transition and regarding keeping certain services up and running.

 

This is happening in a couple of weeks so I'll let you all know how its gone.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

Thanks Dave - I'll look forward to hearing your experiences!

[sted]

FYI LLN have asked to come and have a meeting with us to discuss how to help schools transition and regarding keeping certain services up and running.

 

This is happening in a couple of weeks so I'll let you all know how its gone.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

might be something to do with the face that everyones abandoed them like rats from a sinking ship lol. Last heard only 2 high schools were staying with them through all of leeds

[jonnykewell1]

hallb15 - speak to user themightymrp he is using office 365 and is still on LLN and it seems to be running well at the minute, he's had a few issues along the way which he now might be able to help you with.

[john]

@john thanks - I wish it was that simple. I paid nominet to transfer the registra to heart internet back in April. I do have control of the domain, which is why I'm stumped as to how LLN can still have any influence over it.

 

So you have full access to your DNS records for it via Heart Internet and know what they all are and nothing is point to LLNs systems / you know what they all are? If so I'd suspect that LLN are doing some DNS spoofing internally at LLN to reduce traffic going out of the WAN and back in again, for example within the WAN it may bring your IP to an internal IP rather than your external one to save out and in when you were part of LLN which they need to remove so it has to go out to resolve.

 

A way to tell ask a fellow school who is on LLN still to do lookups for your stuff in DNS from an LLN connection and you do the same from a non LLN connection see what you get. For example do an MX lookup on your domain school.leeds.sch.uk see if that brings any clues in. That is how we spotted issues with our connections in Yorkshire a good time ago and pointed it out to them and it was slowly resolved.

[wroberts]

So you have full access to your DNS records for it via Heart Internet and know what they all are and nothing is point to LLNs systems / you know what they all are? If so I'd suspect that LLN are doing some DNS spoofing internally at LLN to reduce traffic going out of the WAN and back in again, for example within the WAN it may bring your IP to an internal IP rather than your external one to save out and in when you were part of LLN which they need to remove so it has to go out to resolve.

 

A way to tell ask a fellow school who is on LLN still to do lookups for your stuff in DNS from an LLN connection and you do the same from a non LLN connection see what you get. For example do an MX lookup on your domain school.leeds.sch.uk see if that brings any clues in. That is how we spotted issues with our connections in Yorkshire a good time ago and pointed it out to them and it was slowly resolved.

 

We had this when we forst moved from lln around 2 months ago and its because some of our internal lookup zones were forwarding towards domains that LLN had setup ! Curric.local etc ! Now we have removed them as dns suffixes from clients we now get proper dns lookups ! Try searching for that might solve your issues !

[Marshall_IT]

I've not moved away from lln get, but I'm hoping to have get the final items installed and have the leased line up and running over half term.

 

I've had issues with mail from lln going into junk to. I've got a call logged with Ms. I've set a whitelist up but it wasn't working. It is now.

 

Also I should be upgraded to the latest office 365 on the a 17th. Just in time.

 

I have to leave the order for the dongles tomorrow.

 

Will update you when it's all done.

[hallb15]

I've not moved away from lln get, but I'm hoping to have get the final items installed and have the leased line up and running over half term.

 

I've had issues with mail from lln going into junk to. I've got a call logged with Ms. I've set a whitelist up but it wasn't working. It is now.

 

Also I should be upgraded to the latest office 365 on the a 17th. Just in time.

 

I have to leave the order for the dongles tomorrow.

 

Will update you when it's all done.

Do let us know how you get on. Our new line is being installed first week after half-term so I'll keep you posted.

@wroberts Its sorted now - I never got an answer as to what they did but a call was raised with CAPITA and a few days later it started working. I've just got the junk email issue to sort now...

[hallb15]

hallb15 - speak to user themightymrp he is using office 365 and is still on LLN and it seems to be running well at the minute, he's had a few issues along the way which he now might be able to help you with.

@themightymrp did you have the issue of all LLN emails going straight to the junk folder?