Primary school server rooms

[TechSupp]

Are there any primary school techs on here who have a server room (primary school so it keeps it relevant) who would be willing to send me or post up photos of their room and whats kept inside and what size of school would be handy.

Reason is we are having a new se tion built onto the school and a new server 'area' is now on the cards as existing is too hot and small. Their initial solution was to put a cage at end of an enclosed store area with a vent fan about!!! Spoken to them and made them (planner/construction company) aware if what requirements needed, they can see my point but need some examples to back it up etc.

Edited September 29, 2014 by TechSupp

[ZeroNeg]

Our server sits in the ICT suite and we have an air con unit in the room to help with the temps. We also have a switch box high up so pupils can not get in it. Would love a server room though. Would make it easier.

[TechMonkey]

We have a cupboard under the stairs with an aircon unit, an emergency air vent and a switched power supply incase we need a generator. It is too small and dusty so far from ideal but I would hate to have the servers in a classroom. I'm hoping to convince the powers that be to give us some more space somewhere so we can properly work around the servers, have it a clean room and maybe have some storage but that will probably never happen in my time here.

[synaesthesia]

One of my primaries has an "ICT Store" which I suppose is a server room. Like many it's just a single server setup (sort of, there's a desktop in there running Espresso which doesn't really count).

[dhicks]

Are there any primary school techs on here who have a server room (primary school so it keeps it relevant) who would be willing to send me or post up photos of their room and whats kept inside and what size of school would be handy.

 

We're a prep school, with 400 children from 4-ish to 13 and 160 or so staff. We have a small room split into my office and a server cupboard, divided by sliding doors. A full-height (42U), floor-standing rack inside the cupboard currently holds a 3000VA UPS and 8 rackmount servers, plus switches for our 10GbE fibre-backbone network and several shelves of routers, wireless controllers, spare harddrives and so on. The cupboard is air-conditioned and has 3 16A commando sockets for power - one socket powers the in-rack UPS, the other two are powered by a 9000VA UPS downstairs that also powers half a dozen workstations and switches around the school in case of a power cut (theoretically - we haven't actually got that working yet...).

 

I'm getting keener and keener to get the whole lot moved offsite to a data centre. It's a fair amount of palavar getting a facility like this set up and keeping it running correctly, and I'd quite like the day-to-day provision of power, air conditioning, disk space and computing power to be someone else's problem.

Edited September 29, 2014 by dhicks

[Pete10141748]

We are a large Primary with around 800 pupils. My server room/office (I love the cold ) is shown below;

 

Apologies for the last picture being a bit iffy, there's no way to photo it all properly as it's too narow to get any good shots!

 

I have 6 servers overall, some rack some tower, plus my workstation. Aircon unit to keep it all running cool.

 

I also have an office for my 2 Techie's where most of our spare equipment / parts etc. are actually kept.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Pete10141748

[Alkaline]

Most of the primary's I have worked in did not have a server room, just servers stacked up on top of a normal table without a rack. Slowly getting these sorted but schools are reluctant as they say its working fine why touch it. If you have a school with money then you can get a new room built, air con installed, new racks etc, if they have no money go down B and Q and buy a portable air con unit.

[witch]

Both schools have one stand-alone server

School 1:

Server standing on a high shelf in a roomy store cupboard

 

School 2:

Server on the worktop at one end of a fairly roomy staff workroom

[kevin_lane]

In some ways its quite sad to see things like I get that some times money is an issue but for surely they must understand that certain things should be done properly or am I just missing something

[TechSupp]

Thanks to all who replied, interesting to hear how the rest of the world lives. Have worked at three other primaries and they had 1) Server under a bench in a classroom

2) server in a 6' tall comma cabinet

3) server under a work top in what was then the computer suite.

 

All not ideal. My current school users to be under a work top in the suite until I complained after a a pupil turned it off twice, so we inherited our current cupboard. I'll see if I can sort a picture. With the new build it seems too good a chance to miss. Can only use areas that are there now but there is a good sized store room if I could get my way, engineer wanted to just give us a 'cage' for security and stick them on the floor at the end until I said I needed work space and then showed him all the kit we need to store and mentioned the extra comms cabinet that is required. His comment was it would be a bigger room than the new deputy's room, my answer was 'and...'. Look at it this way, if the deputy or server stops working through heat...which affects the school more? Leave home to think about that one....

[Trapper]

I have a tiny ex toilet. It is locked, and does have a free standing aircon unit venting outside.

 

This will remain as the primary server room when we get our new secondary building (with purpose built server room off my office - yay!). It does the job.

 

I've tried to have it moved into my office and wall off all the electric boxes and meters with it (as we can't use the space anyway), but to no avail.

 

I have put a big monitor and a comfy chair in the server room. Turn the aircon off, and it's a very nice bolt hole to hide away in for a few hours.

[TechSupp]

Shhhhhh...dont tell anyone but that last paragraph is the real reason I need it done correctly!

[Lmsgpm2012]

We are a primary school with 800 kids. The servers are in a rack in my office. The room is 6ft by 15ft with big windows at one side. No aircon and I have 2 UPS, 4 Servers and 2 switches plus my desk with laptop and PC and my benching with various PCs running usually all the time and it doesn't get too hot. It does mean I have turned the radiator off because I never need that one in the winter as it keeps it a nice temp.

[TechSupp]

Thought I'd better say what equipment I had saying as everyone else has kindly donated their info.

School currently has approx 450 pupils but extension will take that to nearer 700. Server room (cupboard) has two desktop servers, my pc (dual processor which seems to chuck out a lot of heat), emergency blade server (which is nit sorted yet as it does chuck out a lot of heat therefore not on and a pending project), small micro PCs to run suite display tv, ups and two monitors. Like others no requirement for any heating! Only ventilation is where I removed the glass pane above the door when we very quickly found out about the heating issue.

[Jamman960]

We currently have 6 servers(3 in the process of being retired) in a 42u rack - we're independent prep school with upto 320 pupils ranging from 2.5 to 13.

 

 

Needs a bit of a tidy up again had everything nicely labelled but that went to pot

 

When I first started coming here we had a single server under a table in the IT suite which then became 2/3 servers in a small ex darkroom on a table followed by the rack being squeezed into a cupboard off my office. its now been moved into the main area of my old office and had aircon installed

 

 

 

I managed to acquire the rack for free and luckily our existing servers were rack mountable.

 

In my previous job I saw many senior/secondary schools with 5+ servers stuffed under benches in the IT office so its not entirely a primary thing

[hallb15]

Its amazing to see the vast differences between schools. There doesn't even seem to be a link between the size of the school (number of pupils) and the amount of ICT equipment and ICT staff.

We are a large primary with 730 pupils and 85 staff. We have 3 servers. The main server rack is in my office, which is now air conditioned as of July this year. The rack has the main server, two NAS boxes, Espresso desktop 'server', plus several switches, 148 Cat5e patch points, fibre patch panel and digital telephony cabling which go underground to the main school building.

The other servers are in the admin office, and the caretakers office in the main building.

 

There's just me, the ICT Manager, no techies although there is talk of getting an apprentice in.

 

I'd post a photo but it really is a mess and I don't have time to tidy up!

Edited September 30, 2014 by hallb15

[MattDLEA]

School 1: about 350 students. Sever room is a stock room in the back of the IT Room, no windows , no aircon ( aircon in IT room but is always turned off as its to cold for the staff/students) I have a table with my admin PC on and a desktop server sat next to it. On a shelf I have a NAS box and a espresso server then a wall mounted rack with 2 switches in.

Talk is we will be getting a portable server cabinate with our new server and still keep the old box to.

 

School 2 : is a bigger victorian building bout 600 students have 4 data cabs around the school. Main server room is also photocopier room gets really warm, no aircon. we do have a server rack there but it mainly holds switches as both new servers are desktop versions

[scotyboy56]

I have 3 primary school servers, all 3 of them are a whole room.

One has two servers in and all of the switches and stuff for the school in with nice air conditioning, and its perfect.

Another one is just a room with a server and a mac mini in, and a small cab, and a filing cabinet and ladders :S

The last one is a room that is also used as a storage room for the laptop trolleys and stuff, but it has 2 servers and all the school switches and nice benching and chairs for me to sit and relax

[Joanne]

I'm in a 2 form intake with 320ish kids. My server(s) are in the reprographics room, which is about 2m x 4m. Photocopiers down one side, work top down the other, above which is a switch cabinet. Servers and UPS sit on the worktop, next to a stapling area! The door has to be kept open all day to keep it cool enough. I went in during the holidays after the door had been closed and it was stifling. I need to submit some plans for aircon!

[Oaktech]

 

Say hello to the cupboard. A week ago I couldn't even see the floor.

[sparkeh]

Primary with 600 kids and we have 1 main server room, 1 small server room in the second building, a small cab in the newer FS area and a shelf in the cleaners cupboard for the new extension.

 

Main room has a large cab housing the VM host, server running HAP+ (being retired) Sherston cache, Sims server, UPS, switches, Smoothwall UTM, router, Ruckus controller (main/active), CCTV storage (and probably a load of stuff I can't remember).

 

Second room houses the switches for the second building, Ruckus controller (backup/standby) and backup server.

 

The other bits are just for extra networking gear to extend network to new areas.

[LeMarchand]

All the primary schools I've worked at have been around 200-250 children.

 

1: Server room was a tiny dark, unventilated cupboard. Now the server is sat on a worktop in a small room that doubles as the IT office. Still no cooling (or heating).

2: Server on floor in smallish room that doubles as the IT office/dumping ground for anything vaguely IT or electricity related. Hot in summer, cold in winter.

3: Server in what may be a purpose-built "wardrobe" in the head's office. I think the plan is to fit some sort of door one day...

4: Small cupboard with skylight covered to try to reduce heat.

5: Moved from on top of desk in IT suite to office and then to poorly-measured small "box". Later moved off site to a cupboard that provides access to parts of the ventilation system(?) in affiliated school.

[hallb15]

Well done @Oaktech I wish I could get my room that tidy!

[stevenlong1985]

Hes a shot of mine.

Primary school in Birmingham, 600 children.

 

4 physical rackmount servers, 1 SAN box, 1 NAS, 1x retired Proxy box

other cage has a ruckus ZD 3000 and a old tower server for lync

Edited November 10, 2014 by stevenlong1985
needs more words

[TechSupp]

Been a while but just thought I would update this thread, here is my new server room, getting to move in on Monday. Not the biggest of rooms but I'm not complaining, its a room and its bigger than the current one....and I now have air con!