IT Budget 2015 - What's your big spend?

[Dos_Box]

Following on from yesterdays main UK budget announcement it's about time we asked what it is you have got your sights on for this years big spend?

Please fill out the poll and we'll see what this years purchaing trend is.

[Steve21]

Where is it Mr Dos? (May be me being blind)

 

Steve

[localzuk]

Creating a single, MAT wide network infrastructure. So, switches, servers, wireless, desktops, laptops, the works really!! Well, if it actually happens that is. It may or may not.

 

If it doesn't, then replacing a suite's thin clients with new devices, unifying our print estate with new HP ProX inkjets. That's about it!

[featured_spectre]

Other: Everything got a refresh.

 

Wifi

Servers

Desktops

Laptops

Switches

Internet service

Telephones (mobile)

SANS

NASBOX

 

On top of this, all machines are being upgraded to SSD where possible, and then VOIP is next on the list.

[tmcd35]

I have an annual revolving budget/replacement strategy so there is rarely a big project so to speak that would be "this years big spend". Usually the biggest spend is a suite of 31 PCs. This year is the exception to prove the rule - we're (hopefully) getting managed WiFi installed over the summer, that will then get assimilated into the annual replacement cycle and the biggest individual spend will go back to being a suite of PCs.

[sparkeh]

Servers! I will finally be able to replicate our VMs to a backup server. Yay \o/

[Joanne]

CleverTouch boards will probably be the most expensive thing I'll be getting this year. Finishing off the site-wide installation!

[pcstru]

We do a lot on rolling replacement, which means 120+ PC's a year as standard. This years focus will probably be on Projectors/AV but I'll also be kicking off some kind of exercise looking at replacing our PBX and 200 phone extensions.

[Dos_Box]

An interesting piece of information I found out last week when speaking a school govenor is that their midlands based school could get an interest free loan over a few years from their LEA which allowed them to fit a whole wireless infrastructure on one go rather than stageing it over a 2 or 3 year period and risking having redundent kit by the end of it.

Anyone else ever applied for a loan from their LEA?

Edited March 19, 2015 by Dos_Box

[sparkeh]

An intersting piece of information I found out last week when speaking a school govenor is that their midlands based school could get an interest free loan over a few years from their LEA which allowed them to fit a whole wireless infrastructure on one go rather than stageing it over a 2 or 3 year period and risking having redundent kit by the end of it.

Anyone else ever applied for a loan from their LEA?

Interesting, can you tell us which midlands LA @Dos_Box?

[Dos_Box]

Interesting, can you tell us which midlands LA @Dos_Box?

 

I think it was Staffordshire.

[truebluesteve]

Rolling refresh of PC's and Projectors in the main.

 

Our budget starts in September so the work will actually mostly be in 2016.

[clockend25]

I have about four suites that are overdue a refresh. If I can get one in before September rolls around I'd be delighted.

[CamelMan]

Other: Complete Domain replacement, bringing in 3rd party help to get it done right over the summer. They are the biggest cost!

[3s-gtech]

Plenty on AV, but perhaps more on SSDs for existing PCs.

[Oaktech]

a third of my budget spend this year is going to @ICTDirect_Dave to replace 50 laptops that my predecessor has been fudging for the last 5 years when they should have just been replaced.

 

Of the remaining 2/3rds, 1/3rd is going on consumables, 1/3rd on licenses and internet connectivity.

[LeMarchand]

Other: What is this "budget" that you speak of?

[Nibiru]

What is this strange word "budget" you speak of?

 

 

Half a dozen decent projectors to replace the oldest ones on the site is about as much as I can look forward to here.......

 

EDIT ^^ snap!

[jtoland]

Replacing entire backbone of a schools network and I only work there half a day a week so all fun lol

[Sylv3r]

We would be looking at our infrastructure (switches) and a Managed WIFI rollout.

[Jamman960]

Our biggest spend is likely to be site wide WiFi, hopefully we can also replace a large portion of our workstations as well as starting our tablet trials.

 

I think we've got the governors on side and taking it seriously following our recent presentation, we've been getting half the amount we need to keep things ticking over in recent years and its beginning to show

[Iain.Faulkner]

An interesting piece of information I found out last week when speaking a school govenor is that their midlands based school could get an interest free loan over a few years from their LEA which allowed them to fit a whole wireless infrastructure on one go rather than stageing it over a 2 or 3 year period and risking having redundent kit by the end of it.

Anyone else ever applied for a loan from their LEA?

 

At my last school (in Stockport LEA), we loaned just over £300k from the local authority and did a complete server refresh, replaced all desktops and did an IT Suite revamp (new desks, cabling, flooring, painting, lighting etc etc), I believe that once they'd repaid that loan, they've since taken out a second one of slightly less (approx £200k) and done a full wired infrastructure replacement, site wide wireless and also purchased a significant number of iPad's.

 

Certainly it is possible, and it is an option we're trying to find out if it's possible to do in my current LA.

 

In terms of our plans....

 

Main expenditure will be a complete replacement of all network switches, cabinets, termination of points, running a lot of fibre (we barely have any currently) replacing some existing copper, adding some new and rerouting some of the existing copper. Alongside that will be a site wireless project and potentially some sort of mobile device for all staff. Let's hope we get the money :-)

[Arreks]

Everything! New laptops, more clevertouch boards, new WiFi APs, maybe some new desktops for us in the tech office!

[snoerre]

- current servers/SANs/VMWare licensing warranties will end 2015 in both of our datacenters

- So we need:

+ new server: ~20x 2x Intel 12 Core CPUs, 3 TB RAM,

+ 2 new SAN: ~1 PB

+ backup appliance. No tapes anymore

+ 10Gbe switches

+ VMWare Cloud + NSX

 

One of our sellers gave us a quote with HP server/SAN/backup: ~2.5M € plus taxes. That´s crazy)...

Edited March 29, 2015 by snoerre

[mrbios]

Considering the future state of school budgets i feel the timing of this years replacements has come good....we've got extra money we've asked for this year. big spends being:

New SAN

3 x Servers

30 x Staff laptops on a lease

1 IT suite

iSCSI switches

 

Hopefully with these replacements we'll now have a reliable and up to date infrastructure, backup solution and a lab environment for training and testing purposes. The only thing we should need to replace next year is our wireless infrastructure, then it's just focusing on PC replacements for the following 3 years...and considering we're looking at potentially reduced budgets as of next year, that's all fallen pretty well on timing.