foofighterjim Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 did he say it was free...? last time I looked at SLA Link where charging an awful lot of money for this "free" product...? oh by the way google apps is better. :-) But Microsoft aren't mining school data like Google.
foofighterjim Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 So if I'm not happy they aren't happy. Why is he smiling?
foofighterjim Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 Not mentioned the firewall yet.... Surely that was all covered by we have made some mistakes.
Little-Miss Posted March 19, 2014 Author Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) Haha ridiculous blog post. Maybe they should speak to us... Edited March 19, 2014 by Little-Miss
Little-Miss Posted March 19, 2014 Author Posted March 19, 2014 I'm not happy with their service. I'm having account manager in and I'm going to tell him this. 1
foofighterjim Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 Hey up we got a mention Their on to us, take the cyanide!
jamin100 Posted March 19, 2014 Posted March 19, 2014 Didn't they used to have network manager conferences where there wasn't all the curriculum stuff shoehorned in and I was more technical?? What happened to them? I'm sure I remember going to them back in the day
jcs808 Posted March 20, 2014 Posted March 20, 2014 Didn't they used to have network manager conferences where there wasn't all the curriculum stuff shoehorned in and I was more technical?? What happened to them? I'm sure I remember going to them back in the day That's why I didn't sign up this year.
Little-Miss Posted March 20, 2014 Author Posted March 20, 2014 I went to one when i started here, so like 6 years ago? Maybe they should consider running those again. I met Andy afterwards (with my Edugeek Lanyard ), we spoke very quickly about frustrations, us as IT Support feel. He's got my name now lol. But i might actually get in touch with him.
foofighterjim Posted March 20, 2014 Posted March 20, 2014 I met Andy afterwards (with my Edugeek Lanyard ), we spoke very quickly about frustrations, us as IT Support feel. He's got my name now lol. But i might actually get in touch with him. It was funny how quickly he got out of the ICC after cutting the conversation rather short.
Little-Miss Posted March 20, 2014 Author Posted March 20, 2014 (edited) Erm, he wasn't impressed with a post someone had made previously regarding the firewall. Not a critism of the Geek. It'd would be naive of us to think they don't keep an eye on whats said. Edited March 20, 2014 by Little-Miss
machin05 Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 I think I'm right in saying that Birmingham is the biggest LA in Europe. It goes to show how under-staffed and underpowered they are when you consider how many establishments they have to provide for and support. But that doesn't excuse the basic level of service that they fail to provide. Constant outages and inflexibility were the main reason we left, and we haven't regretted since - especially as I'm still on their text alert system so am seeing how often problems are occurring. In fact we still had issues with them after we moved away. They retained our MX records in their DNS, so every time we tried to email another Bham school we'd get a 3 day delayed bounce-back - this was never fully resolved and we ended up buying and using a different domain name. We still can't carry out our CRISP reports as you need to be connected to the Birmingham Grid in order to transfer the files securely(!?!) - their solution was to go to a neighbouring school that was still connected or go to Lancaster Circus... no parking available though! Anyway, for those that went to the conference, what were their promises for the coming year? - - - Updated - - - I think I'm right in saying that Birmingham is the biggest LA in Europe. It goes to show how under-staffed and underpowered they are when you consider how many establishments they have to provide for and support. But that doesn't excuse the basic level of service that they fail to provide. Constant outages and inflexibility were the main reason we left, and we haven't regretted since - especially as I'm still on their text alert system so am seeing how often problems are occurring. In fact we still had issues with them after we moved away. They retained our MX records in their DNS, so every time we tried to email another Bham school we'd get a 3 day delayed bounce-back - this was never fully resolved and we ended up buying and using a different domain name. We still can't carry out our CRISP reports as you need to be connected to the Birmingham Grid in order to transfer the files securely(!?!) - their solution was to go to a neighbouring school that was still connected or go to Lancaster Circus... no parking available though! Anyway, for those that went to the conference, what were their promises for the coming year?
Michael Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 It depends at what angle you look at things - statistically since the new firewall, have their been more outages than the last 12 months? It my opinion, yes by far and unfortunately (as I am sure Link2ICT would agree) the new firewall has introduced absolutely no benefit so far. Until these core issues are resolved, no other 'fancy' services/options call it what you like will start to be introduced. The problem is, how long is this going to take? It is very much like asking 'how long's a piece of string', but in that case, keep the communication channels open. At the moment things are incredibly quiet and Link2ICT (if they wanted to) could have addressed the wider audience on Wednesday but they didn't. Although you can't blame anyone directly for these problems, you could argue (at the same time) schools are paying, so is it at schools expense and do schools have a right to know? Looking at things from another angle, Zimbra hasn't been a success story in a long time. Link2ICT unfortunately failed to upgrade Zimbra 5, then introduced a poorly thought out policy of deleting user accounts, then were forced to upgrade to Zimbra 8 which also introduced a whole range of problems. If you talk to the right people in Link2ICT, they actually agree with everything I've written above - and as a result, since migrating to the likes of Office 365 - it's been extremely successful and problems are typically end user, rather than technical. With regards to the firewalling/filtering, Link2ICT do, do a good job, but then again some Academies have decided to continue using Link2ICT services and others move away completely. Does this mean it's below standard? No of course not! Anything is possible with a great deal of thinking, researching and consulting the right organisations/people. So hypothetically, if we do reach the magic 12 months since the new firewall was installed and the problems are still there, then maybe you could argue, I have a point - schools do have the right to start questioning 'Is this good value'? And I don't just mean financially - I mean (more crucially) from a service delivery point of view. - - - Updated - - - It depends at what angle you look at things - statistically since the new firewall, have their been more outages than the last 12 months? It my opinion, yes by far and unfortunately (as I am sure Link2ICT would agree) the new firewall has introduced absolutely no benefit so far. Until these core issues are resolved, no other 'fancy' services/options call it what you like will start to be introduced. The problem is, how long is this going to take? It is very much like asking 'how long's a piece of string', but in that case, keep the communication channels open. At the moment things are incredibly quiet and Link2ICT (if they wanted to) could have addressed the wider audience on Wednesday but they didn't. Although you can't blame anyone directly for these problems, you could argue (at the same time) schools are paying, so is it at schools expense and do schools have a right to know? Looking at things from another angle, Zimbra hasn't been a success story in a long time. Link2ICT unfortunately failed to upgrade Zimbra 5, then introduced a poorly thought out policy of deleting user accounts, then were forced to upgrade to Zimbra 8 which also introduced a whole range of problems. If you talk to the right people in Link2ICT, they actually agree with everything I've written above - and as a result, since migrating to the likes of Office 365 - it's been extremely successful and problems are typically end user, rather than technical. With regards to the firewalling/filtering, Link2ICT do, do a good job, but then again some Academies have decided to continue using Link2ICT services and others move away completely. Does this mean it's below standard? No of course not! Anything is possible with a great deal of thinking, researching and consulting the right organisations/people. So hypothetically, if we do reach the magic 12 months since the new firewall was installed and the problems are still there, then maybe you could argue, I have a point - schools do have the right to start questioning 'Is this good value'? And I don't just mean financially - I mean (more crucially) from a service delivery point of view.
Tricky_Dicky Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 I think you make some very valid point Michael and yes on the whole the internet provision isn't that bad. However, what really annoys me and would be so easy to fix is the transparency. If there is a problem, tell people about it as soon as you know and then when it's fixed tell people, in detail, what happened, why it did and how you fixed it so it isn't going to happen next time. Yes 450 schools is a lot, but in terms of network size you don't have to look very far in to the corporate world to find much much larger and more complex networks. There are plenty of people out their with the skills to manage a network of this size and these are the sort of people that need to be employed. In regards to buying power, then I think it's a shame that Andy doesn't think it's worth their time to sell things to schools. If we think back to Tempus, everyone had one of those servers and on the whole they weren't bad and it meant that everything was set up the same in each school which makes maintenance and problem solving much easier. If Link2ICT could setup a strategic alliance with a similar company it would be fantastic as there are many schools now running very old server 2003 Tempus boxes and they don't know who to turn to. There are also some awful cowboys out their who will rip them off blind. IMO though, a lot of these small schools and nurserys really should have a virtual server inside Link2ICT HQ that is managed for them. But that would involve Link2ICT actually thinking a bit differently and taking a risk.
machin05 Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 Personally, I think it internet provision is wholly unacceptable and has seemingly gotten worse since we left.
foofighterjim Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 As I said to my account manager; in terms of the QoS up until the Firewall issue I was fine and the reduction of connectivity costs (for us) has been welcome. However the lack of control over filtering both in terms of URLs and content is still a big issue for me. As @Michael points out these features may well be on their way but I am growing impatient of throttling back my own development strategy waiting for a 3rd party. - - - Updated - - - As I said to my account manager; in terms of the QoS up until the Firewall issue I was fine and the reduction of connectivity costs (for us) has been welcome. However the lack of control over filtering both in terms of URLs and content is still a big issue for me. As @Michael points out these features may well be on their way but I am growing impatient of throttling back my own development strategy waiting for a 3rd party.
Michael Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 I think you make some very valid point Michael and yes on the whole the internet provision isn't that bad. However, what really annoys me and would be so easy to fix is the transparency. If there is a problem, tell people about it as soon as you know and then when it's fixed tell people, in detail, what happened, why it did and how you fixed it so it isn't going to happen next time. Yes 450 schools is a lot, but in terms of network size you don't have to look very far in to the corporate world to find much much larger and more complex networks. There are plenty of people out their with the skills to manage a network of this size and these are the sort of people that need to be employed. In regards to buying power, then I think it's a shame that Andy doesn't think it's worth their time to sell things to schools. If we think back to Tempus, everyone had one of those servers and on the whole they weren't bad and it meant that everything was set up the same in each school which makes maintenance and problem solving much easier. If Link2ICT could setup a strategic alliance with a similar company it would be fantastic as there are many schools now running very old server 2003 Tempus boxes and they don't know who to turn to. There are also some awful cowboys out their who will rip them off blind. IMO though, a lot of these small schools and nurserys really should have a virtual server inside Link2ICT HQ that is managed for them. But that would involve Link2ICT actually thinking a bit differently and taking a risk. Again it depends what angle you look at things - treating everyone the same has its pros and cons. Every school is different and should be allowed to innovate in its own unique way. I agree 'some' schools have made costly mistakes, but with tighter budgets, I think most schools are now a lot wiser and do push harder for better quotes. As for the virtual server idea - it's good and bad. It's good as everything such as Active Directory is managed centrally, but then it means you're relying on everything travelling down a 10Mbps pipe. It's extremely unrealistic and many Primaries are unfortunately in a catch 22, where they cannot afford the 100Mbps upgrade, but they're using all of 10Mbps quite regularly. An on site server is still necessary - even for the likes of accessing files, server hosted applications and MIS systems. - - - Updated - - - I think you make some very valid point Michael and yes on the whole the internet provision isn't that bad. However, what really annoys me and would be so easy to fix is the transparency. If there is a problem, tell people about it as soon as you know and then when it's fixed tell people, in detail, what happened, why it did and how you fixed it so it isn't going to happen next time. Yes 450 schools is a lot, but in terms of network size you don't have to look very far in to the corporate world to find much much larger and more complex networks. There are plenty of people out their with the skills to manage a network of this size and these are the sort of people that need to be employed. In regards to buying power, then I think it's a shame that Andy doesn't think it's worth their time to sell things to schools. If we think back to Tempus, everyone had one of those servers and on the whole they weren't bad and it meant that everything was set up the same in each school which makes maintenance and problem solving much easier. If Link2ICT could setup a strategic alliance with a similar company it would be fantastic as there are many schools now running very old server 2003 Tempus boxes and they don't know who to turn to. There are also some awful cowboys out their who will rip them off blind. IMO though, a lot of these small schools and nurserys really should have a virtual server inside Link2ICT HQ that is managed for them. But that would involve Link2ICT actually thinking a bit differently and taking a risk. Again it depends what angle you look at things - treating everyone the same has its pros and cons. Every school is different and should be allowed to innovate in its own unique way. I agree 'some' schools have made costly mistakes, but with tighter budgets, I think most schools are now a lot wiser and do push harder for better quotes. As for the virtual server idea - it's good and bad. It's good as everything such as Active Directory is managed centrally, but then it means you're relying on everything travelling down a 10Mbps pipe. It's extremely unrealistic and many Primaries are unfortunately in a catch 22, where they cannot afford the 100Mbps upgrade, but they're using all of 10Mbps quite regularly. An on site server is still necessary - even for the likes of accessing files, server hosted applications and MIS systems.
foofighterjim Posted March 24, 2014 Posted March 24, 2014 Yep and that is why we have to hold them to account if we don't do this then they ain't going to move forward. They do have another problem here. With the firewall issues I managed to get the staff here to understand that it was not our fault (eventually). As a result now my SLT are extremely sensitive to any downtime of the internet connection and they (and me) want to look at our options. Did anyone ever find out any information about the knowledge base article Link (allegedly) have to compare their service against others? I don't think I can undercut the price by much anymore but the added flexibility alone is enough to still make me want to have a good look at this. - - - Updated - - - Yep and that is why we have to hold them to account if we don't do this then they ain't going to move forward. They do have another problem here. With the firewall issues I managed to get the staff here to understand that it was not our fault (eventually). As a result now my SLT are extremely sensitive to any downtime of the internet connection and they (and me) want to look at our options. Did anyone ever find out any information about the knowledge base article Link (allegedly) have to compare their service against others? I don't think I can undercut the price by much anymore but the added flexibility alone is enough to still make me want to have a good look at this.
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