Microsoft to move out of the education market?

[Areku]

I met my boss to plan this too.

I don't think you will need to learn account setups from linux, as far as I know SAMBA uses standard windows tools at the front end, once it is set up.

My plan is (in order):

1) File servers - migrate to Samba (actually I did this years back)

2) Print Server (CUPS and Papercut on Linux)

3) Migrate NPS to FreeRadius

4) Migrate SIMS to hosted SIMS (I asked Capita about the MSOffice requirement on hosted SIMS already)

5) Migrate Terminal Services to some sort of Linux RDP and only run non-windows apps like this.

6) DHCP, DNS to Linux

7) Migrate Active Directory to SAMBA 4.

 

I think that covers all the windows server side that we run. Still need to find the requirements of hosted SIMS.

 

Should be fun.

 

that is one of the most helpful things I've seen in a while, I've had quite a bit of Linux desktop experience, but not so much of the back end infrastructure. Time to look into samba4.

[nathan]

Are you guys not jumping the gun a little or is it something you had planned for a while?

[Achandler]

Jumping the gun, maybe a little it might depend when your current agreement runs out ofcourse. People may have two years to "go live" with a Linux backend, which we all know really means 2 summers and 2 Easter (if your school allows downtime then).

 

If the Linux backend works fine for students, such as file server etc, then you could reduce your CAL requirements massively to only Office staff or not even Office staff depending on your MIS requirements.

 

You can easily move from linux backend to the cloud too, so planning to tackle the costs through a Linux backend is probably a good idea. Then when Microsoft finally give more detail on their plans you are already ready either way.

[Vlad_the_Emailer]

Hiya,

 

For servers, I tend towards either Ubuntu (or Debian which is the distro that Ubuntu was built on), or CentOS. The advantage that Ubuntu has is Canonical support if needed and a very large and active support forum. Debian has is an immense amount of pre-packaged software (that trickles down to Ubuntu) and many developers like the fact that it's a fairly stable, vanilla distro which makes their job easy. The Debian software management tool (apt) is also excellent.

 

At the moment I have CentOS on my mail server, our weather station runs Debian 8 and our webservers are on Ubuntu. Long term I see them being moved to Debian as the current OS versions reach end of life.

 

To summarise, Debian or Ubuntu.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Vlad_the_Emailer

[nathan]

With the whole Linux thing, what is there version of GPO and how do you manage desktops remotely?

 

We run Zabbix and it's proxies on ubuntu server around our schools but thats about it at the moment.

[Geoff]

If are serious about a Linux back end (or even your front end), please learn about configuration management software. I don't care which one (although we can have that discussion over in the *nix forum if you wish). You're life will be vastly easier if you orchestrate your infrastructure with one of these tools and sets you up perfectly for Cloudy based DevOps in the future. It's also a super desirable skill on your CV. Edited February 3, 2016 by Geoff

[Areku]

Are you guys not jumping the gun a little or is it something you had planned for a while?

 

wouldn't jumping the gun be rolling out the alternate solutions now?

 

I would like to think of it as preparing plan B (with A leaving the Current infrastructure in place, swallowing the cost).

[Geoff]

You can at least look at the feasibility and costs involved in such a migration even if you have no intention of going through with it.

[localzuk]

Are you guys not jumping the gun a little or is it something you had planned for a while?

 

I'm already doing feasibility studies for various changes, so adding this problem into the mix is more work, but not jumping the gun. A lot of schools will be thinking the same.

 

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

[smithson83]

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

 

Yes, but... Why put of till tomorrow that which can be postponed indefinitely

 

EDIT: in all seriousness, until @Dos_Box hears back from "The (MS) Man", I'm just trying not to lose my head whilst making SLT/Finance aware the proverbial may well be hitting the fan in not to distant a future.

Edited February 3, 2016 by smithson83

[Simcfc73]

Life is like a box of chocolates

[nathan]

oh i'm not disagreeing with planning - far from it. i was under the impression that some folks were going ahead with it which is what my comment was about - perhaps i got the wrong end of the stick.

[Vlad_the_Emailer]

With the whole Linux thing, what is there version of GPO and how do you manage desktops remotely?

 

We run Zabbix and it's proxies on ubuntu server around our schools but thats about it at the moment.

 

If you're running Windows desktops, you can use the group policy manager on one of the clients to admin the GPOs on the Linux server. Are we talking Linux clients?

[nathan]

yeah Linux clients, i've got experience using Linux as a server but not much when it comes to managing linux desktops. Edited February 3, 2016 by nathan

[Geoff]

I refer to my earlier comment about configuration management, one aspect of that is bascially GPOs (You can consider Linux configuration management systems as SCCM + GPO if you want an analogy). Although terminology differs between the tools, it's the same basic theory. For example Salt Stack has a concept of 'states'. You can ask salt to enforce a configuration 'state' for a group of machines. This can be as simple has having paticular software installed, or you can enforce a uniform configuration for the software and ensure the service is running on the machines in the group.

 

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/topics/tutorials/states_pt1.html

Edited February 3, 2016 by Geoff

[nathan]

I understand the configuration side, but i'm talking about locking things like the desktop or taskbar down. Or is it a case of they can mess around with settings and they will be overwritten on next login?

[Dos_Box]

*UPDATE*

I've been promised an answer to all of your questions by some point this afternoon. I'll post them up as soon as I receive them.

[Geoff]

I understand the configuration side, but i'm talking about locking things like the desktop or taskbar down. Or is it a case of they can mess around with settings and they will be overwritten on next login?

 

Linux isn't a homogeneous system like Windows. If you want to lock down the graphical interface you will need to choose a desktop windows manager that will let you do this, both Gnome and KDE will let you do this for example.

 

https://www.maketecheasier.com/configure-linux-for-children/

 

That said, Salt can aggressively manage the files on a system (In Linux everything is a file) and thereby enforce a default configuration.

 

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.file.html

 

If you combine these two aspects together, you get what you want.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Geoff

[Oaktech]

Interestingly I've had a discussion with finance and SLT and given them the worst case scenario as presented by Kate at Millgate of our £2,500 license increasing to £9800.

 

I was expecting there to be wailing and gnashing of teeth, cries of 'won't anyone think of the children' and suggestions of going fully apple/chromebook-GAFE but no, there was much shrugging of shoulders and saying of things such as 'just make it as cheap as possible' and 'well, we'll have to pay it, the world of business uses MS, we'd be doing the children a disservice to use anything else'

 

Oh well.

[Geoff]

'well, we'll have to pay it, the world of business uses MS, we'd be doing the children a disservice to use anything else'

 

This isn't a good argument, it is increasingly not the case that the world revolves around Microsoft software.

[nathan]

Linux isn't a homogeneous system like Windows. If you want to lock down the graphical interface you will need to choose a desktop windows manager that will let you do this, both Gnome and KDE will let you do this for example.

 

https://www.maketecheasier.com/configure-linux-for-children/

 

That said, Salt can aggressively manage the files on a system (In Linux everything is a file) and thereby enforce a default configuration.

 

https://docs.saltstack.com/en/latest/ref/states/all/salt.states.file.html

 

If you combine these two aspects together, you get what you want.

 

Thanks, I'll have a play around.

[mavhc]

thanks guys, I've added your suggestions and links to Schools - Linux Wiki - Wikia

 

Feel free to contribute with more details

[Simcfc73]

Interestingly I've had a discussion with finance and SLT and given them the worst case scenario as presented by Kate at Millgate of our £2,500 license increasing to £9800.

 

I was expecting there to be wailing and gnashing of teeth, cries of 'won't anyone think of the children' and suggestions of going fully apple/chromebook-GAFE but no, there was much shrugging of shoulders and saying of things such as 'just make it as cheap as possible' and 'well, we'll have to pay it, the world of business uses MS, we'd be doing the children a disservice to use anything else'

 

Oh well.

 

I think this is what I expect too, make things as cheap as possible and wait and see the damage.

[Gibson335]

Yes, but... Why put of till tomorrow that which can be postponed indefinitely

 

EDIT: in all seriousness, until @Dos_Box hears back from "The (MS) Man", I'm just trying not to lose my head whilst making SLT/Finance aware the proverbial may well be hitting the fan in not to distant a future.

 

+1 for this.

[dcwhitworth]

+1 for this.

 

I'm not telling anyone until I have clearer information, don't want any knee-jerk reactions/decisions going on. A delay of a few days (or even weeks) isn't going to make any difference.