LGFL - is it really worth it ?

[xicor]

that would be a very useful tool!

 

 

Wasn't there a trial LGfL product that allowed teachers to authorise and deny individual YouTube videos? You block YouTube for the students, but then there's an LGfL page that they can go to and access the selected videos.

 

I forget what it was called (it wasn't Video Central, that was an attempt to replace YouTube, not harness it), but it seemed a good idea. I guess the fact that I've not heard of it in a while means they stopped developing it.

[JohnJackson]

Hi. Yes there are a host of things being discussed at the moment to make lives easier. Firewall management being one of them. Atomwide recognise that some processes need to be more customer friendly and LGfL has several key requests being worked on currently by Atomwide that will make life simpler and easier for schools. I'm going to make significant investments to overhaul current products and services over the next 12 months that have been relayed to me by schools directly , many of which will help. More will follow soon.

[mukz]

Hi. Yes there are a host of things being discussed at the moment to make lives easier. Firewall management being one of them. Atomwide recognise that some processes need to be more customer friendly and LGfL has several key requests being worked on currently by Atomwide that will make life simpler and easier for schools. I'm going to make significant investments to overhaul current products and services over the next 12 months that have been relayed to me by schools directly , many of which will help. More will follow soon.

 

Hi John,

 

Do you know if the Firewall Management is still on the agenda?

 

Mukesh

[xicor]

we're in 2019 now and this is still a massive issue, not being able to control the firewall is really crippling

 

Hi John,

 

Do you know if the Firewall Management is still on the agenda?

 

Mukesh

[fiza]

we're in 2019 now and this is still a massive issue, not being able to control the firewall is really crippling

The LGfL Technical Conference is coming up, 29th March. Maybe you can get some answers there.

[xicor]

problem isn't their answers, I always get the same thing from LGFL "only we can make the changes you have to submit the form to make any changes to the firewall" its always the classic message - many times I've asked for this to change and I am sure many other people too, in fact one MSP provider I know started moving the schools awak from LGFL just because of that, I don't blame them tbh they even advised me at the time of this issue but I didn't think it would be a problem, this was a massive mistake on my part and I heavily underestimated the inconvenience of not having control over the firewall

[DavR]

I think the problem remains that your LGfL connection isn't just an Internet link, it is in fact a whole network of it's own. For that reason, they're incredibly cagey with their firewalls, because if one school mucks up it's config and lets something nasty in, that doesn't just endanger the school, it endangers the whole London Grid network. I guess this is one of the reasons that Atomwide often seem to take a security above usability approach to things.

 

That said, it is frustrating having to submit a change request for the smallest insignificant tweak. I think there is a middle ground to be achieved where schools get some control over firewalls, but short of a major design change, I don't think they're ever likely to grant full firewall access.

[ITGURU]

Not sure where you are based but have you tried the LEA/Area Broadband? We've been with emPSN/KCOM since the beginning and our 100 mb symmetrical line doesnt cost the school directly, it is funded by the council..

However, another school in our trust are on a 200mb symmetrical connection with another provider and pay £9.5K a year for it.

I will be bringing them back to emPSN as they were before, and a 200mb line with them, is only approx £1500 per year as they need more than the 100mb as the top slice is paid for which reduces the cost.

Once this have been done we will be able to interconnect sites over the emPSN network without needing VPN access.

[fiza]

We have been with LGfL for over 7 years. Firewall and submitting requests for change has never been an issue. The turnaround on requests is pretty quick for us. We moved to smoothwall for content filtering as we didnt like Webscreen 2.0 but now they are unveiling webscreen 3.0 which may bring us back from Smoothwall. Edited February 14, 2019 by fiza

[xicor]

thing is we have 3 different sites and using custom applications and services that occasionally requires changes to the firewall - we're introducing more systems as well - for example when I had to white list a simple application that uses AWS I had to send LGFL hundreds of IP's to whitelist and it was a pain, also with Meraki and other services we use, for a school that doesn't change much yes its ok but for us and our continuous changes its just a nuisance and I won't mention the pain we had to go through just to get our Voip working...

 

We have been with LGfL for over 7 years. Firewall and submitting requests for change has never been an issue. The turnaround on requests is pretty quick for us. We moved to smoothwall for content filtering as we didnt like Webscreen 2.0 but now they are unveiling webscreen 3.0 which may bring us back from Smoothwall.

[fiza]

Possibly different with 3 different sites. I had no problems getting a VoIP trial working, 3CX with Spitfire, through LGfL. Spitfire gave me all the IPs and ports I needed to give to Atomwide.

[Xur]

I've been lurking for a while but felt compelled to reply.

 

From personal experience I've found that getting firewall changes was pretty easy, as long as I had 'all the info'. Mainly where it's connecting to and on what ports. I would argue that the reality is that the majority of schools don't actually want to make firewall changes themselves or have staff on hand who have the expertise to make changes and to troubleshoot if something doesn't work. I think it's viewed as a 'security risk' by LGfL/Atomwide aswell, which DaveAshworth has mentioned above.

 

I'm kinda happy that I don't have to make the changes, certainly without a GUI!

 

I don't want management, but more visibilty of the firewall config would help. Particularly when it comes to troubleshooting and knowing exactly what is open.

[JohnJackson]

I will be announcing something called Freedom2Firewall at the conference. I recognise the frustration around firewall management. Our focus is on keeping the LGfL network safe but we need to find a way of balancing that with Trust and Empowerment for colleagues who have the skills to do this without having to follow an elongated process that takes too long.

[fiza]

I will be announcing something called Freedom2Firewall at the conference. I recognise the frustration around firewall management. Our focus is on keeping the LGfL network safe but we need to find a way of balancing that with Trust and Empowerment for colleagues who have the skills to do this without having to follow an elongated process that takes too long.

Sounds like there are going to be some very interesting announcements at the Conference. Looking forward to it.

[JohnJackson]

Fiza, lots of useful and practical stuff at BETT. Atomwide and LGfL are working on Freedom2Firewall ahead of the conference ... more to follow ...

[DrBeaker]

In the Midlands we have something similar with RM called the DGFL. We get Internet, firewall, servers, network, backup, some desktop support, phone support amongst other things provided as part of the contract.

 

How would that compare to the LGFL out of interest?

[MS2011]

We have been with LGfL for over 7 years. Firewall and submitting requests for change has never been an issue. The turnaround on requests is pretty quick for us. We moved to smoothwall for content filtering as we didnt like Webscreen 2.0 but now they are unveiling webscreen 3.0 which may bring us back from Smoothwall.

 

Agree with you regarding content filtering. We can’t run a report against AD users or granular filtering. As we don’t use USO accounts.

 

Can’t cap internet bandwidth to Ad users/groups.

 

No integration to onsite firewall/router ( LGFL) to on prem Ad

[mukz]

Agree with you regarding content filtering. We can’t run a report against AD users or granular filtering. As we don’t use USO accounts.

 

Can’t cap internet bandwidth to Ad users/groups.

 

No integration to onsite firewall/router ( LGFL) to on prem Ad

 

Webscreen 3 allows AD users/groups, we also do not use USOs and for ages have used Lightspeed.

[MS2011]

Webscreen 3 allows AD users/groups, we also do not use USOs and for ages have used Lightspeed.

 

But extra cost for lightspeed.

Mailprotect, not full Cotrol. You can’t create any rules beforehand. You need to wait for spam email to delivered to your inbox and then you go to mailprotect and block it.

[mukz]

But extra cost for lightspeed.

Mailprotect, not full Cotrol. You can’t create any rules beforehand. You need to wait for spam email to delivered to your inbox and then you go to mailprotect and block it.

 

Yup you are right there! Thats why we will be moving back to Webscreen once it is released.

 

We dont use MailProtect, we have Office365 and was given the option to not use MP anymore

[DavidYoung]

I think that LGfL is now much more competitive than it was a few years ago and they are definitely listening to schools' needs. For example, we are piloting the Freedom2Filter platform which is a native Netsweeper implementation without any Webscreen overlay on top which came about becuase of direct feeback from us and other schools after conversations with Netsweeper, Atomwide and LGfL staff starting at BETT a couple of years ago.

 

The new value-added additions like Meraki, Sophos and Neverware are making the service very cost-effective to schools that use them and with the inclusion of Adobe licenses soon, has the potential to see real-world savings or at least nice upgrades to potentially older software (We're looking forward to upgrading CS6 at one of our sites and saving around £1k on CC at the other).

 

As much as I have struggled with Atomwide and LGfL's approach to requests in the past (default answer always used to be 'no'), we never found the firewall process too burdensome and the networking team at Atomwide are pretty good at working with us to troubleshoot firewall requests. The attitude from both Atomwide and LGfL has also changed in the last few years to try to work out how to achieve every request we have made recently.

 

We were ready to start looking at alternatives but they are now moving in the right direction and are now representing good value for our schools.

[FishCustard]

Agreed, their attitude has definitely improved. Firewall requests generally get actioned same-day without any back-and-forth questions.

 

I used to feel like I was being interrogated when I asked for something, not any more.

[MS2011]

Yup you are right there! Thats why we will be moving back to Webscreen once it is released.

 

We dont use MailProtect, we have Office365 and was given the option to not use MP anymore

 

Do you use gridstore? And how much you pay ?

[mukz]

Do you use gridstore? And how much you pay ?

 

We use the free 100gig for our DC and MIS Server, other than that we have Backup Exec our backups for everything until all is moved over to onedrive/sharepoint, at which ppint we will review once again as we will only have 2 physical hosts/1 cluster left on site.

[smoothwall]

Just seen the Pledge 2020 letter that went out to my schools thanks to John jackson we are getting a free upgrade, a big thank !