No AD Filtering with Lightspeed for now

[ticker]

cheers @LukeC, we only have to suffer it for another week we move over next week.

[LukeC]

Only another 2 and half for us too!

[Arcath]

Just got info through for my first school (simple primary - no ad needed/used)

I'm confused as it seems with no proxy setting - I can get on T'internet

And with PAC file settings I can get on the internet

 

Whats the advantage of using the PAC file?

 

Simon

@SimpleSi The pac file just contains one line saying go direct so its a bit useless. Last time I spoke to them about it they said it was "just incase they changed the settings in the future" but as I pointed out to them if they are saying we can use no proxy a change in settings would have to be slowly rolled out in the future so we still have time to change anyway.

[sammy42]

Apparently we need to fill in a form to state that we have changed over. Have been told its on the posts on the school portal anyone seen it on any of the post about light speed. I have checked but cant find it or am I going blind

[ChrisH]

Apparently we need to fill in a form to state that we have changed over. Have been told its on the posts on the school portal anyone seen it on any of the post about light speed. I have checked but cant find it or am I going blind

 

Your not the only one!

[carnforthhigh]

We have had it through on the portal. It is listed as "Connect2Education Lightspeed Filtering - Confirmation of Switch Over". It gives you a link which takes you to a page with a simple form to fill in. We got ours on 25th Feb.

[Arcath]

I'd heard that only the phase 1 schools had to confirm that they had been transferred

[jhothersall]

Well I'm phase 2 and compelte my change over did have to enable automatically detect settings in IE to ,make it work with our local Eclipse.net (Web page with Sliverlight, SQL based with automatic AD logon)

[buzzard]

On a plus side I can now use Meraki Manager to manage the PC's and Servers now they don't use a proxy setting

[ChrisH]

Hmm you cant seem to unblock things in the locked categories eg sourceforge download servers! I have put it in the ready made allow policy which I have done with some other sites but this seems to be the way it's set up.

[ChrisH]

Well it's as I thought; if a site is in a locked category it cannot be unlocked. You have to submit a request to LightSpeed to get it recategorised ! downloads.sourceforge.net is classed as computers.filehosting but kent.dl.sourceforge.net (or any other mirror) is categorised as security.virus and as such is locked.

[buzzard]

having a load of issues with this in the school i look after, how do you get in to change these groups/classifications? I guess I'm dependent upon OCL actually supplying me with the info... Oh well not long left till April and a move to a new connection. You'd have thought they'd have left it until after April, why school that are leaving OCL have to do all this messing around for 2 weeks is crazy!

[buzzard]

Chris, I assume we request it to OCL and they pass this on to LS? or can we go direct to LS?

[sammy42]

Buzzard

 

I am in the same boat as you, I get the impression they are using the schools that are leaving as their testing of the system.

[ChrisH]

You have to submit the request yourself to:

 

Take A Look Inside Our Internet Filter and Antivirus Databases - Lightspeed Systems

 

This is an automated response to your review request submitted on 3/11/2014 4:41 AM (PST) for kent.dl.sourceforge.net.

 

Review time: 3/11/2014 7:47 AM

Logged category:

Updated category: security.virus

Review reason: SUBMITTED FROM ARCHIVE: This is a locked category on our top tier and as such cannot be overridden by our provider. This is the source for a lot of open source software and as such it needs to be available to schools. Can this please be re-categorised into the same category as its parent domain sourceforge.net

 

 

If the category has not been changed the database team has determined that the site is categorized correctly in accordance with our published category descriptions. If you still feel you need to access this site please contact your local system administrator.

 

* Depending on the configuration of your local system, this update may take anywhere from 1 to 24 hours to reach you.

 

Lightspeed Systems

Database Team

 

 

I can't tell if that means it has been changed or it's saying check it later and if it hasn't we haven't approved it .

[Arcath]

Checking on it now in the Categorized Sites bit it says its now in the security category.

[DarkAlliance]

you can put the request direct to lightspeed and they will look at the classification. As far as I am aware OCL pulls the settings down from LightSpeed so LightSpeed have the final say

[Arcath]

Just had a chat with OCL about the lightspeed agent and AD integration in general, their stance atm is that if you use AD filtering on lightspeed your doing it at your own risk as they don't support it yet.

 

I personally don't see any reason not to, I've used lightspeed with @SchoolsBroadband and its exactly the same so unless OCL do something to break it there shouldn't be a problem.

 

As far as the agent is concerned it doesn't work at all and due to their lack of support they cant/wont tell me if its my settings or theirs that are stopping it.

 

I was told it would be a couple of weeks/beginning of april before they would be rolling it out to schools. (I have heard this before though)

[soveryapt]

Meh .. OCL .. my recommendation, get out of the "dark side" when you first get chance to one of the various people who actually know what they're doing and recognise that actually, we're the clients and therefore we have a voice in what is happening .. I've moved away from the Online Services (still have SIMS Support with them as they have schools over a barrel with them holding the main licenses) but I'm still having problems with OCL.

 

School's (in my humble opinion) need to grow a pair and stand up to OCL and not let themselves get trampled by their bullying tactics .. but as I say, that's just my humble opinion ..

 

As for Lightspeed, from what I heard it is meant to be a good product, it's just a shame as with anything else the OCL lot get their hands on, it's broken in the way they supply it. They just don't seem to have the technical knowledge that they once had back in the Westfield days, but hey, they did get in bed with BT, and we all know that their expertise exists in the form of scripts shipped out to the far eastern call centres ..

[Cache]

School's (in my humble opinion) need to grow a pair and stand up to OCL and not let themselves get trampled by their bullying tactics .. but as I say, that's just my humble opinion ..

 

 

I would love to be able to take this stance, however I can't justify £5k-£10k a year more for an equivelent connection which is all that is stopping me at the moment....

[soveryapt]

I would love to be able to take this stance, however I can't justify £5k-£10k a year more for an equivelent connection which is all that is stopping me at the moment....

 

Really? More? I've saved around 50% by moving away .. What connection do you have currently?

[Arcath]

Really? More? I've saved around 50% by moving away .. What connection do you have currently?

 

Most of my primaries are in none FTTC areas, to get a 10Mb connection like the one they have now they would need to get more than one leased line which causes the cost to rocket up. We've had a couple of schools in FTTC areas get other connections that are a lot faster and a lot cheaper.

[soveryapt]

Most of my primaries are in none FTTC areas, to get a 10Mb connection like the one they have now they would need to get more than one leased line which causes the cost to rocket up. We've had a couple of schools in FTTC areas get other connections that are a lot faster and a lot cheaper.

 

Ah, I see .. have you considered Radio Links? I can highly recommended Boundless Comms (Boundless Superfast Broadband) - I use their service myself at my house. They don't currently have an educational facility (i.e. with filtering and all that jazz) but they are investigation options at the moment as they've had a number of people ask them about it.

 

You can get an idea of the areas they can currently cover here .. Coverage

[Cache]

Really? More? I've saved around 50% by moving away .. What connection do you have currently?

 

We are currently on a 100meg CLEO installed fiber. Dropping to a 50meg link on a bt installed connection (even provided by someone like Schools Broadband) would still cost us around £5k more then we are currently paying to OCL. There is only one possibility of matching the OCL price currently and it's dependant on a number of different parties to work making it difficult. Other companies such as Virgin Media when I've gone through various suppliers I've got have come back and refused to quote because there is no access point close enough for them to make it viable.

 

Problems of being in such a rural area.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Cache

[soveryapt]

We are currently on a 100meg CLEO installed fiber. Dropping to a 50meg link on a bt installed connection (even provided by someone like Schools Broadband) would still cost us around £5k more then we are currently paying to OCL. There is only one possibility of matching the OCL price currently and it's dependant on a number of different parties to work making it difficult. Other companies such as Virgin Media when I've gone through various suppliers I've got have come back and refused to quote because there is no access point close enough for them to make it viable.

 

Problems of being in such a rural area.

 

Eurgh .. Might be worth (I know the coverage map is primarily Lancashire) contacting someone like Boundless (see my previous post) to see whether they have an option as they do FTTM (Mast) options, so may possibly be able to do something, but it all depends on what cost you're paying for that fibre line from OCL. I don't suppose (thinking out loud) you're anywhere near the B4RN project are you (b4rn.org.uk) as that could be another option, though I think they're more North Lancashire than Cumbria.