Summer 2016 Installs - The Ticking Clock!

[Dos_Box]

With only a couple of weeks left of the summer holidays it's time for us to ask you that all important question.

How are you getting along with you summer workload and how much do you have left to do?

Have you sailed though it and now just sat back to see how it all pans out once the staff and pupils return?

Or are you only halfway there and waiting for contractors that should have been there two weeks ago to finish up before you can complete your job?

Let us know so we can dish out some sympathy and envy (or HobNobs and tea/coffee) and perhaps members can offer you some helpful shortcuts if required.

[mdrabble]

I wouldn't know I'm currently by the pool in Italy - we (that the royal we and I should say my technician) are replacing all teacher desktops (50ish). As far as I know all done and he is just doing sorting odds and ends. If any problems I he will deal with them as when I get back I'm having an ear operation.

 

I am really thankful for his hard work while I'm busy sunning it up on my honeymoon.

[TechieWils]

On the opposite end of the scale compared to @mdrabble I wait for the cold embrace of death as I debate with my self was it really a bright idea planning so much for the Summer. Only had 5 days off for a festival.

 

Jobs Complete:

• New copiers installed and setup on PaperCut
  
• New Managed Print Solution installed with 54 old printers been scrapped or put in to storage for 23 brand new Epson WorkForce RIPS MFDs
  
• New alarm (PA) system for intruders and announcements installed across the site.
  
• 2 computer rooms refreshed and existing equipment rotated round retiring the oldest kit. Oldest machine onsite is now 5.5 years old
  
• BYOD setup with RADIUS to authenticate users
  
• Website migration complete, waiting on staff to provide updated information but that cant be helped
  
• SIMS learning Gateway customised and branded
  
• Year 7 accounts setup on all systems and users rolled over and archived
  
• New DVR's for CCTV systems installed and setup with 2 new camera's installed
  
• Email lists updated
  
• New staff laptops setup
  

 

Outstanding Jobs

• New Hyper-V cluster installed today with P2V taking place over the next week
  
• Back gates and motors are been replaced and put on access control system
  
• Food Tech refurb and data points with AV need to be installed
  
• Reuse old blade servers for RDS farm and provide home access for specific users
  
• Set up SQL for new Computer Science course (help, thinking of using WAMP and doing it that way be advice welcome)
  
• Clean up documentation and move some switch ports to the correct VLAN
  

 

Obviously some of this is down to contractors but we all know what it's like you end up called down to check something or clarify and before you know the days gone. Think I need something stronger than EduHobnobs.

[BassTech]

We're stripping out RM CC4 running on Server 2003 and going Vanilla 2012 R2/Hyper-V, as well as migrating E-Mails from Exchange > Gmail.

 

E-Mail migration was completed first week

Second week we upgraded infrastructure from 1Gbs to 10Gbs, tested & cleaned all old fiber links

The new server hardware got installed & commissioned last week, all user logins & data was also migrated. This week I'm hoping to start the workstation rebuilds & package creation/deployment, and do come GPO configuring

SIMS server migration is being done next Friday

Our technician told me last week he's got a new job & won't be returning

September is fast approaching now, I think I'll just be able to get it all done in time, the site closing at 15:30 doesn't help though!

Edited August 22, 2016 by BassTech

[FragglePete]

Currently rolling out Windows 1607 across the site and I would say I'm about 85% done. Just really mobile devices left to do now and the odd desktop here and there. Currently at 477 desktops done and 1 laptop done. I'm just sorting out drivers for our small pool of laptops and injecting into MDT at present.

 

The week and half wait before this version was released gave us a good chance to get lots of 'little' jobs done around the site without worrying about the deployment.

 

Just crossing my fingers that everything works as expected. I've done so much planning and testing for Windows 10 but there is bound to be a few issues I've missed or cropped up on this version that won't show up until we have a school full of users signing on.

 

Pete

Edited August 22, 2016 by FragglePete

[caffrey]

Been a disaster this year really. Major summer projects got cancelled, ICT-Direct order getting damaged set me back, I've had 3 weeks holidays to squeeze in and the CCTV camera order I came back to was wrong

[Linfit]

Planned to upgrade everything to Windows 10 this summer.

Expected to come back from holiday to find my techs had done it. We had been testing for weeks, had a solid image, should be no problem.

Came back to find that it simply hadn't worked - all sorts of niggles and issues right from the get go. My senior techy had to make the decision about what to do ( I was off grid): try and chase down all the issues or revert back.

He decided, rightly in my view, to revert back so built a clean 64bit Windows 7 image and started again. Whole thing took 4 weeks instead of 2. He's finally gone off on well deserved but brief holiday and I am picking up pieces of sorting out things like printer drivers and odd stuff (most of our old installs were 32bit). A long slog for him, but heroic effort to get it sorted paid off.

At least we have upgraded everything to Office 2016 and we have a nice clean image on everything as a result.

Have been in much worse shape at this time in August in previous years.

[GTX]

Its nice to see people appreciating their colleagues. People normally moan about it when i do stuff at our place (Only tech in the company) Edited August 22, 2016 by GTX
Swearing >.<

[TechMonkey]

We had a fairly easy summer this year after a nightmare one last year. New Phone system was the biggest job. We've replaced a few boards and imaged a large batch of tablets. Beyond that the biggest issue was updating the numerous online services staff have bought that have to be done with CSV uploads. Of course they all use different columns, or column names and all need to be nursed through so has taken ages.

 

The biggest smile was brought to my face when one supplier replied to my email asking if SSO was on their roadmap with the statement "We do not collaborate with our competitors so this is not something we will be looking at. We offer SSO across our products". I did have to respond that if they thought they were in competition with MS and Google than they were seriously deluded and that due to their inability to keep up with modern technology I will have to evaluate the cost of our time to update their system manually against the usefulness and educational content.

 

We are playing with a few pet projects, AD SSO, Direct Access and the like, beyond that it will be now finishing of and tweaking the various bits of INSET i have to do and checking everything is in working order for them all coming back.

[mrbios]

Roughly 40 new network points installed in varying locations around the school

New fibre optics between each of the buildings leading back to central location (yay no more patched OM1 junk!)

New switches, those new fibers are now running at 10GB/s

New internet connection gone in place too, same speed as before but new provider and back to using in house equipment for firewall and filtering.

50 Aerohive wireless APs installed to those new network points

Configured 63 voip phones

Setup freepbx

Installed all the phones into various locations, and had a couple of new network cable runs to areas that had none....still got one of those left to do (stupid swimming pool)

phone lines transferred over from our IDSN30 to SIP last friday, that's a tidy £3800 a year saved, and no more nasty digital/analog phones!

moved all 1200+ student mailboxes into office 365

4 new doors gone on to the paxton system as well, the whole of 6th form are going to be getting ID badges this september, which should prove interesting.

 

Next up:

Setup sims to be single sign on

Setup VLE to be single sign on (just realised, they never called me today and should have!)

Testing out a new printer and photocopier sometime this week and for the duration of September at no cost (Ink based printers and photocopiers! but it's not as bad as you'd think, if the sales bumf is to be believed....i'll have to report back on this one if anyone is interested)

 

All that, and we found a ferret on site, that was a fun day.

[2097]

Replace all servers , V-sphere 5-6 migration , New San and data migration

GFI and Eset Upgrades - web versions

Solus 3 implementation

 

They are some of the larger things done this 6 weeks by myself . Great fun !

[Sagima]

I have personally

 

replaced estream server

set up sports centre vpn, wireless, firewall, phones

mostly updated the urls of all of web services

replaced every wifi point (68 of them) and the controller. Added 4 new ones

done the servers windows updates

switches firmware updates

added new vlan for the cctv system

added routing between vlans at both sports centre and schoo site

replaced 6 switches with poe switches. I even did the repatching into the new cabinets because we couldn't always get the old panels out with the cables still attached - If I never use a punchdown tool again it will be too soon

updated exchange

surveyed every classroom and office to check wifi coverage

 

the others have been

 

setting up firefly

updating isams things

installed 80 new computers

reimaged 300 others

pat testing all the new equipment

installed a wifi bridge to a new building

installed new phone server

 

I still have a whiteboard of things to do but i'm told only the adfs thing is urgent for this holiday

 

Update Ruckus Certs on R500s

enable selective ssl inspection for staff and pupils

adfs sso

use ssid with radius rtaher than targetting different ssid at different radius servers

use sccm for windows 10 updates

update ad security and distribution groups

licence new staff and students on o365

wifi survey of all boarding house rooms and common areas (about 70)

migrate VMs between virtual hosts for resource balancing

replace transceivers on about 10 om4 links so they run at 10gig rather than 1

Edited August 25, 2016 by Sagima

[jcs808]

A few hiccups but we're almost done. Just waiting on electrician and painter to finish in one room and we can put the computers back. We replaced 100 PCs, due to finances we normally would have done 200.

We've had a few staff in today for GCSE results and one person wants their PC moving and IWB on a different wall. Never mind that there aren't any data or electrical sockets there. It's OK though, they had it authorised by the head teacher before we broke up?

[Dos_Box]

Times up folks!

I know some of you have induction days today for the new pupils, but Monday is D-Day!

So, who is ready for a whole week where your summers work becomes reduced to rubble whilst you fend of hundreds of password resets (and that's just the staff!)?

Edu HobNobs and coffee will be available in the behind The Red Door forum as of 9am Monday morning.

[AJWhite1970]

We are going to miss our deadline but not by much. One science lab is half done but we hit a snag late this afternoon with some cables (caused by external contractors) and one of the DT labs has only just been finished by the sparkies so that will be done on Monday. We've had SF in yesterday and Y7 in today but Monday they are all back...

 

Spending the weekend locked away in a dark room gently rocking back and forth