dave.81 Posted April 29, 2015 Posted April 29, 2015 We've recently taken on management of a local(ish) primary and have been tasked with sorting out the basics of a network to replace the mess a parent left behind who was running it before. We have a VPN setup between sites so they are making use of some bits, MIS, Anti-virus. Currently the plan is new server to replace the current homebrew one in a the comms cabinet running DC, DNS, DHCP. They use Office365 so no need for exchange to run on it. Will look at using Hyper-V and Veeam to then backup to a NAS in the other building they have. Being a small school, 30 pcs and hundred users i dont want to spend £4000 on a server, what kind of spec would be a good for this? Will put some Unifi wireless AP's in to replace the standalone home AP's dotted around and swap the 3 no name switches for POE ones. Anything else i need to watch out for in a primary school or extra's we can run ourselves to save them the money?
NB9457 Posted April 29, 2015 Posted April 29, 2015 You can pick up a server to manage all that easily, a Quad Xeon and 8GB RAM should do it easily, Dell towers are competitively priced, tower or server. Though it may be cheaper to add your own hard disks All easily for around £1k I forgot to mention!
Joanne Posted April 29, 2015 Posted April 29, 2015 Small primary schools are pretty basic in their setups usually. Server, domain, clients... I just have a few group policies that redirect desktops and the like... I think your plans seem fine.
ICTDirect_Dave Posted April 29, 2015 Posted April 29, 2015 We've recently taken on management of a local(ish) primary and have been tasked with sorting out the basics of a network to replace the mess a parent left behind who was running it before. We have a VPN setup between sites so they are making use of some bits, MIS, Anti-virus. Currently the plan is new server to replace the current homebrew one in a the comms cabinet running DC, DNS, DHCP. They use Office365 so no need for exchange to run on it. Will look at using Hyper-V and Veeam to then backup to a NAS in the other building they have. Being a small school, 30 pcs and hundred users i dont want to spend £4000 on a server, what kind of spec would be a good for this? Will put some Unifi wireless AP's in to replace the standalone home AP's dotted around and swap the 3 no name switches for POE ones. Anything else i need to watch out for in a primary school or extra's we can run ourselves to save them the money? Drop me a line, I can spec you up a refurb server for next to nothing that will do everything you need I'll even throw in a couple of years warranty! 2
mikkydoos Posted April 29, 2015 Posted April 29, 2015 (edited) Spec looks pretty spot on. Some pretty cheap Fujitsu servers about. Bit of advice - biggest HDD's you can - my place - no ever deletes anything ever and primary's generate a LOT of data in the form of photos/videos for attainment evidence. Mine do anyway. Why not set up a domain in your forest for them and link them to you via the VPN. You wont have to visit them as much then Edited April 29, 2015 by mikkydoos
Patrick Posted April 30, 2015 Posted April 30, 2015 Seems spot on. One thing to think about, is to have a shared drive to staff and keep all pictures and videos within this drive and sit down and show them how to save to this. If you have roaming profiles for staff and they start saving 1000's of pictures and a few videos in their "My docs" folder, you'll start getting hideous logon times. As mikkydoos said, they might be small amount of staff but they love to photo and video everything and save it. Be prepared for iPads. They love those too.
dave.81 Posted May 1, 2015 Author Posted May 1, 2015 Thanks for the hints, glad i'm heading down the right route, seems odd trying to scale down what we do for something so small. I've been burnt by buying refurbed stuff before so will stick with new with 5 year warranty save any worries on the hardware side. Dell tower with few extra discs purchased seperately seems best route, now just to find a good place to store it in the bag room! Not concerned by iPads we use them here and they are too much work but looks like they are going to get Learnpads instead.
NB9457 Posted May 1, 2015 Posted May 1, 2015 Having used both, iPads. I find learnpads hellish, they break a lot, staff can't use them as easy, chargers are flimsy, tablets are flimsy, cheaply made, painfully slow. I really don't like them anymore, suppose I'm biased. I'd much rather a Mac Mini server or Meraki setup with iPads to be honest, once they're set up (which I agree, is the painful bit), they're easy to manage and very very rarely go wrong. Plus the support and frequent updates from Apple mean the iPads probably gonna have a longer lifespan too.
mikkydoos Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 Thing about primaries m8 is that the staff need so much hand holding. Its the workstations that are going to be a major bum pain for you.
witch Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 Thing about primaries m8 is that the staff need so much hand holding. Its the workstations that are going to be a major bum pain for you. I don't agree. I work in a junior and middle-deemed-secondary and I haven't noticed the staff needing huge amounts of hand-holding Why would the workstations be a pain. Just get good spec, long warranty machines and you are sorted
mikkydoos Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 Because at my place anyway they have an incredible knack of breaking them. God knows how... but they do
dave.81 Posted May 5, 2015 Author Posted May 5, 2015 (edited) Workstations are going to be a slight issues as the budget doesn't stretch do those, apart from upgrading their 60gb sata drives to SSD to help keep them going for another year or 2. Dont know much about the HP microserver are they up to running AD etc or just an oversized home user system? Althought just found the Dell T20 mini server which comes with a Xeon so should be up to the job of what they need. Edited May 5, 2015 by dave.81
mikkydoos Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 Workstations are going to be a slight issues as the budget doesn't stretch do those, apart from upgrading their 60gb sata drives to SSD to help keep them going for another year or 2. Dont know much about the HP microserver are they up to running AD etc or just an oversized home user system? Got one of those. I wouldnt. No power. Depends on how many users / PC's.
NB9457 Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 Workstations are going to be a slight issues as the budget doesn't stretch do those, apart from upgrading their 60gb sata drives to SSD to help keep them going for another year or 2. Dont know much about the HP microserver are they up to running AD etc or just an oversized home user system? Althought just found the Dell T20 mini server which comes with a Xeon so should be up to the job of what they need. Seems a good little server for the price! Just make sure you opt for the extra RAM, not much more money and better safe than sorry, also a bit of future proofing! What's their current licencing situation?
edutech4schools Posted May 5, 2015 Posted May 5, 2015 I find learnpads hellish, they break a lot, staff can't use them as easy, chargers are flimsy, tablets are flimsy, cheaply made, painfully slow. I really don't like them anymore, suppose I'm biased. Got them at all my schools and they still love them. chargers are flimsy They don't come with chargers anymore. They all wireless charge and never had to send one back.
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