RM Network

[Quackers]

I do resespect you webman, cause i think your web skills are very good, excellent even, whilst like you say it is an educational network, not corporate, Windows 2003 is designed for?

 

Corproate. Putting RM Connect in the middle wastes your departmental budgets. (sorry just come out of the sauna pissed).

 

A few more clicks is worth it my book, 1 click more for you gives english the books it needs instead of wasting the money buying an RM licence to do the same thing. When i started at this school it was RM Connect, my head of IT was VERY scared when i said dump RM.

 

But he was VERY happy, when in the EARLY days of RM Connect 3, he came back from a meeting with other head of IT's at other school, where he could say power button being pressed to desktop fully loaded was 50 seconds, yet CC3 users were upto 10 mins.

 

Sorry an RM Performance Pack sorted that, cause there were "Issues" , so if you paid a bomb for CC3, it will get you logged on before the lesson finishs now.

 

Only place RM Connect 3 is for is where you have no ICT Tech onsite, as CC3 slows your down, it gets in the way, its for monkeys.

[GrumbleDook]

I go back to the example of large corporate network.

 

It is vanilla ... it is setup up to deal with around 1500 users, over 80% of these hot desk on a regular basis, a variety of hardware and bespoke software to deal with.

 

The AD structure has been designed by someone who gets paid large amounts of money ... he codes extra tools ... he builds consoles to delegate control of certain services or functions.

 

The company has a team that runs things when he is not around (which was the idea) and he only gets called in for redevelopment, dealign with the software breaking due to OS patches, and so on ...

 

This is the case in at least 3 FTSE 100 companies ... and CC3 would do for them extremely well.

 

It is horses for courses.

 

Ok ... pro/anti CC3 discussions are vampire threads ... move along ... nothing to see (or any new comments made!)

[PiqueABoo]

CC3 would do for them extremely well.

 

Chances are they already bought OpenView etc. If you have the money in the real-world you buy tools to make management easier. Native Windows management still isn't that good, especially for larger orgs.

[spc-rocket]

Well I can say for a start, we do not pay £100 per connect licence, it is a lot cheaper when buying in bulk, like we do.

 

You don't find any use for Connect 3 - great - don't use it

 

We pay for what we think is a good, solid network system with the tools that give us the freedom to concentrate on better things than RIS issues and VBScripts; and yes, we can use the so-called 'excuse' of "saving time" because it genuinely does, for our situation.

 

What some people seem to forget is that we are in an educational environment - not a corporate network.

 

But that doesn't mean I or my colleagues are deskilled because we have an RM network. Personal development comes in to it and whether you run an RM network or not has no baring on that if you a reprepared to learn (like I am).

 

The CC3 licenses even when bought in bulk is expensive. So rather than being £90 a shot it might go down to say around £65 each when bought with 30-50 or so i guess, - i'm commenting this on what i have found but i still think its expensive and few people have got a point. Now i have been trying to get RM to respond as to what is included in a RM CC3 license but so far they have now got back to me. Also they still instsit on puttin in the RM tutor (i'm not going to comment on how good or bad it is because our school does not use it) when some schools (such as ours) don't use it. They should be an option pick what you want rather than enforcing this i.e. take the printer credits stuff out for people who don't use it.

The starnge thing is that from various people i spoke to some account managers do exclude tutor licenses and some don't so there is an inconsistancy on what they feedback to the customers.

 

As far the RIS and WDS is concerned RM appears to have seen the light as their next version CC4 will be based on WDS. Their current build process has to go down and the worst possible way to image/build PCs in history in my opinion.

 

Ash.

[PiqueABoo]

the worst possible way to image/build PCs in history

 

Naah.. thats a tech with a pile of CDs spending a day in front of each PC.

 

So what is wrong with RMs? I can't see any major difference between that and any uhh.. classic method. (Comparisons with relatively recent WDS/AIK stuff don't count).

[webman]

The RM build process is fantastic, I just wish it was PXE-based.

 

Re: connect licences.. yes, I do agree these are still an additional extra cost associated with CC3 and we'd all love them to be cheaper, but as I've said before - the benefits we get from CC3 far outweigh the cost.

 

CC3 slows your down, it gets in the way, its for monkeys.

 

From our experience - no, no, and we're not I'd rather say that vanilla is for monkeys as you have to code so much to get anything done

 

All the people we've spoken to with vanilla networks seem to have no end of problems locking things down, spending weeks/months solving problems with RIS and 3-hour-per-machine WDS issues.

 

A local RC school is contemplating moving back to RM CC3/4 after 4 years of 3 different half-managed and vanilla networks which we think is only in their best interest.

[Oops_my_bad]

I think you all scared the OP off (and scared him from the job) now we have re-visited this can of worms?

 

**BREAKING NEWS - CC3 NETWORK OWNERS INVITED TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE**

 

All CC3 Network Managers will be invited to Buckingham Palace dates will be posted, the itinerary is as follows:

 

10.30am....all managers meet up in the Regents Park for final dress rehersal and welcome speech by Mayor of London..

 

11.45am...all CC3 servers will form a semi circle around the gates of palace for press/media.

 

12.30pm...her Majesty will greet all managers in palace grounds she will be presented with (I LOVE MY CC3) tee-shirt...

 

13.30pm...her Majesty with other members of the Royal family will discuss the benefits of tuning CC3 compared to Vanilla.

 

14.30pm to 1700pm....all owners will line up in front of her Majesty and she will display the Ceremonial sword and each owner will kneel and proudly be Knighted....(GOOD TASTE FOR EDUCATIONAL COMPUTING)....

[webman]

Hey... don't mock the I LOVE CC3 Tshirts

[Butuz]

Their current build process has to go down and the worst possible way to image/build PCs in history in my opinion.

 

Ash.

 

Its a very good way of building / imaging workstations that are not all identical. I am pretty sure there are not many schools out there that have actually standardised on one particular workstation type, and then replace them every 3 years. This makes imaging very easy and this is why corporate networks dont tend to need RM's build process. However if you rewind to a network where you have maybe 40 different workstation types with an age varying over 5 years - THEN RM's build process comes in extremely useful. Norton ghost etc on the other hand would be the opposite of useful.

 

People who bash RM, usually have only had experience with a badly set up / badly run CC3 network.

 

Andrew

[bossman]

@Butuz:

I totally agree with you having ran a CC3 network for 5 years now with no major problems.

 

Unfortunately the school opposite us has had 4 vanilla networks implemented in the past five years which they are still having problems with. They have asked us if they can look at how our network is implemented as they are looking at moving back to RM.

 

This is not a snipe at vanilla networks but just an example that problems occur on any type of network it is how you manage those problems that count.

[spc-rocket]

Their current build process has to go down and the worst possible way to image/build PCs in history in my opinion.

 

Ash.

 

 

People who bash RM, usually have only had experience with a badly set up / badly run CC3 network.

 

Andrew

 

Not true we run CC3 across 750 stations (yes 750) and the software side is not too bad especially with lock down etc. Of course we do standardise on equipment from Dell and therefore could the build process could be better. Also if you notice many posts on communities forum you will find that people wstill have problems with the build process when the PCs are not from RM - seems to me they are trying lock people into buying RM hardware. Of course the RM will build find because they have tested this, if the build process for really flexible then there should be easier way to build non-RM PCs. Now obviously they have thought about the feeback and comments because CC4 will have build process based on better technology which is not only better but more managable and also well documented even outside the RM land.

 

I'm making comments here because our team have a high-level skill set and therefore could see alternatives to the current RM build process and are actually thinking out of the box rather than drilling in the idea that RM process are great and wonderful because they are so much in bed with RM.

 

Ash.

[Butuz]

Well personally here we have a wide selection of computers - lots of different types of RM, Dell, Dan, HP/Compaq and a couple of no name nasty ones. All will build correctly as long as you have loaded the correct network drivers into the build area. Workstations that can not be built tend to be el-cheapo ones that have network cards with no DOS drivers available - not really RM's fault to be honest.

 

A for your team having a high level skill set - thats all well and good (well, its very good!) but what if your team were to leave, or even god forbid the red bus syndrome happened - you were all going to a technical seminar together and your car was crashed - all of a sudden your school has a system implemented by high level staff - and those high level staff are not there, any temorary staff the school can get will probably not be high level, all of a sudden your school may be in big trouble.

 

This is one thing RM gives you - firstly you may be able to get some temorary staff in to help manage your network - if they read the RM user guide etc, or even went on an emergency managing CC3 course - they would probably do a decent job of doing the day to day stuff. Secondly - RM will support you in an emergency situation, with their engineers dialing in to help etc.

 

If the horrid situation described above were to happen I would be willing to wager a CC3 school could cope far better than a Vanilla school. and this is one situation where most people do not take into account when chosing a network system.

 

Andrew

[kkkk1]

Their current build process has to go down and the worst possible way to image/build PCs in history in my opinion.

 

Ash.

 

Its a very good way of building / imaging workstations that are not all identical.

People who bash RM, usually have only had experience with a badly set up / badly run CC3 network.

 

Andrew

 

Andrew Andrew Andrew, oh my god I never thought I would hear anyone say that. You must be in a very small minority. RM's build in my opinion is it's weakest feature, after attending many Seminars I've spoken to RM engineers and they freely admit their build process is weak and this was in front of hundreds of people. This is going to be addressed in CC4 thank goodness. As for previous comments regarding not having alot of experience of builds etc I have set up RIS on our Admin Network and you can RIS an XP image with all apps installed etc etc in 28mins. Also I used to work for NatWest and have created Ghost images etc for those guys, again it takes around 30 mins or less, not clocking on for two hours on a decent machine.

[localzuk]

Well personally here we have a wide selection of computers - lots of different types of RM, Dell, Dan, HP/Compaq and a couple of no name nasty ones. All will build correctly as long as you have loaded the correct network drivers into the build area. Workstations that can not be built tend to be el-cheapo ones that have network cards with no DOS drivers available - not really RM's fault to be honest.

 

A for your team having a high level skill set - thats all well and good (well, its very good!) but what if your team were to leave, or even god forbid the red bus syndrome happened - you were all going to a technical seminar together and your car was crashed - all of a sudden your school has a system implemented by high level staff - and those high level staff are not there, any temorary staff the school can get will probably not be high level, all of a sudden your school may be in big trouble.

 

This is one thing RM gives you - firstly you may be able to get some temorary staff in to help manage your network - if they read the RM user guide etc, or even went on an emergency managing CC3 course - they would probably do a decent job of doing the day to day stuff. Secondly - RM will support you in an emergency situation, with their engineers dialing in to help etc.

 

If the horrid situation described above were to happen I would be willing to wager a CC3 school could cope far better than a Vanilla school. and this is one situation where most people do not take into account when chosing a network system.

 

Andrew

 

I reckon there are likely to be more engineers out there who know vanilla w2k3 than there are who know CC3... Seems how 99% of businesses use 2k3 and not CC3.

[Butuz]

Yes but people who have worked outside education are not likeley to want to work in education unless they win the lottery? How many experienced engineers that have worked in business do you know that would apply for an ICT Tech job in a school?

 

Andrew

[localzuk]

Yes but people who have worked outside education are not likeley to want to work in education unless they win the lottery? How many experienced engineers that have worked in business do you know that would apply for an ICT Tech job in a school?

 

Andrew

 

If it is an emergency situation, like you stated, then you would approach a company to do the job... There are more companies with vanilla knowledge than CC3.

 

I was replying to your emergency situation.

[damienharrison]

Ooooppssss I seem to have pressed the red button and started WW3 and all I asked was a simple question.

 

How many experienced engineers that have worked in business do you know that would apply for an ICT Tech job in a school?

 

I did!!! Company I worked for went bust and luckily i ended up landing on my feet.

 

Thank you all for your information, should help me should I get shortlisted for the job (closing date was last Friday)

 

Cheers

 

=0)

[bossman]

I have worked in industry for 26 years before working in education and most use management tools other than the basic server tools.

 

In a fast moving environment you need management tools that are both robust and time saving. Having to daily write scripts to this and scripts to do that is quite labour intensive and could best be put to better use don't you think.

 

CC4 is win2k3R2 and i will be moving that way in the near future. This doesn't mean that i prefer RM to a vanilla setup as i am MCSE qualified and therefore would be capable of using vanilla, it is that it suits the schools needs as a solution that many other schools would like also.

[bossman]

@kkkk1: As for using RIS and creating an image for deployment I can do that in 5 mins using Acronis workstation build and deploy using Acronis remote server.

 

Horses for courses my over eager friend and as the years role by there will undoubtedly be many more solutions. The key is to find the solution that bests fits the needs of the establishment and also their budget.

[m25man]

@Butuz:

Unfortunately the school opposite us has had 4 vanilla networks implemented in the past five years which they are still having problems with. They have asked us if they can look at how our network is implemented as they are looking at moving back to RM.

 

If they have to ask that, then clearly the skill sets the network admin staff possess are woefully inadequate.

 

Anyone that has to depend on 3rd party management overlay products to manage the schools network are either;

 

1. Clearly to stupid to do it any other way.

2. Under staffed to the point that is the only real way to keep ontop of it.

3. Grossly underpaid so therefore couldn't give a toss!

 

Which one of those caps fits them!

 

I have yet to find a network manager worth his salt that wasn't glad to be rid of CC3, personally I prefer to have my taxes spent on paying a techies salary than lining the pockets of RM shareholders!

[PiqueABoo]

if you notice many posts on communities forum you will find that people still have problems with the build process when the PCs are not from RM

 

People don't post about sucess. But that's typically because CC3 appeals to monkeys[1] and a lot of them aren't very clueful about drivers i.e. the idea that they might have to get some "custom" drivers for their exotic hardware. Even when they do understand that part, they often don't realise that maintaining a comprehensive library for every gizmo on the planet is a non-trivial task, not least because of the poor quality of some of the driver packages, in particular their INFs. The BTS forums bear witness this (driverpacks.net).

 

[1] Not the same thing as "all people with or all people who like CC3, are monkeys"

 

This is one thing RM gives you

 

Another is you get me working for you for free Seriously... I often pinpoint/workaround bugs in CC3 and RM may comprehend and patch them for everyone one day. Trouble is that also means I'm working for RM for free

 

There are more companies with vanilla knowledge than CC3.

 

Sure and if people really are good at Windows they'll cope with CC3 in about the same time it takes them to cope with any random Vanilla system and much faster the next time because it's a standard config. Vanilla isn't a standard and there's no telling how long the next one of those you meet will take to decrypt. See 4 below.

 

Which one of those caps fits them!

 

One? What about:

 

4) All of the above.

[_Bat_]

I have read a fair few of the posts on here but I am still very confused as to how a set of tools that do a similar job to a vanilla setup but make life a lot easier/quicker for the network manager is a bad thing?

 

To me it just seems like these people (and they do exist) who refuse to do anything at all using a GUI if it can be done in the command line. Most GUIs were designed to make your life easier and jobs quicker. Not the other way around.

 

Before anyone says anything, I have had experience of RM networks before as I spent five years with one in school (in which I did mess around with the admin account rather a lot... but shhh, don't tell anyone).

[GrumbleDook]

One of the problems with vanilla systems is that most of us who have rolled them out over the years in the various flavours (W2K, Server 2K3, 2K3R2) are at the point of where we can roll it out an we know pretty much the standard structure, GPOs, etc that we know work ...

 

But my setup will be different to PiqueABoo's ... and different to Dos_Box's ... and so on. Just small things but if they are undocumented it could be important.

 

Also ... some people prefer to lock things down more, other try to be more relaxed ... some prefer roaming profiles, some mandatory, it goes on.

 

A pre-built setup that gives a standard that is easily followed is not a bad thing. Remember who excited we got when we looked at LNM? A free alternative to doing what RM commercially do? We didn't slag it off as dumbing down our skills ... we just wanted to look at it as a set of tools to help deploy things faster and more easily, but still allow us to have flexibilty.

 

Folks ... please ... disagree with RM over costs, disagree with the performance of Classlink, rant about CSE missing a tool compared to other systems ... but stop having a go at people that use these systems *BY THEIR OWN PROFESSIONAL CHOICE* over a vanilla setup. Most people on this site using these solutions have brains enough to be able to decide what is good and what is not ... most are well informed.

[bossman]

@Tony:

 

Thank you for the intervention as this always seems to be a them and us confrontation.

As i have said in all my posts about CC3 i have never been derogatory about any of my fellow professionals and i would wish the same from them.

This forum is for everyone to get acquainted and to learn and teach skills to other people from all skill sets and backgrounds.

 

Can we not be professional and agree to disagree then move on permanently.

[Butuz]

Anyone that has to depend on 3rd party management overlay products to manage the schools network are either;

 

1. Clearly to stupid to do it any other way.

2. Under staffed to the point that is the only real way to keep ontop of it.

3. Grossly underpaid so therefore couldn't give a toss!

 

Which one of those caps fits them!

 

I have yet to find a network manager worth his salt that wasn't glad to be rid of CC3, personally I prefer to have my taxes spent on paying a techies salary than lining the pockets of RM shareholders!

 

8O :!:

 

Any Network Manager worth their salt puts the needs of the school first rather than the needs of their own ego.

 

Butuz