Moving from CC3 to something else?

[reggiep]

Hi All,

I recently moved schools from a Ranger running on Server 2003 to a CC3 network.

I moved as the post was a shorter journey to work, I did not move to be running a CC3 network with a separate admin network!

I have been told that funds will be in place next year to upgrade the system to CC4 BUT that is not the route I want to take. I would ideally like to combine both networks and get back to a Server 2003/2008 setup with Ranger on top.

 

 

My last school transferred from Novell to Ranger BUT we got a third party in to install the system.

Now I can manage a Server2003 network BUT I might struggle with the initial setup, such as GPOs that might need to be set up at the beginning.

 

Can anyone let me know of any pitfalls that I might face and how hard it would be to combine both networks?

 

Thanks

[Butuz]

Out of interest what do you not like about CC3?

 

Butuz

[cookie_monster]

It all depends on your skill level and what support you might have really. You will need good knowledge of Active Directory, ideally VB script for login scripts, knowledge of creating MSI packages, creating and managing users in bulk and migrating their data and..... (you see where i'm going)

 

We moved from RM 2.4 to a vanilla 2003/2K/XP network about three years ago and joined our networks at the same time. We got rid of the old admin server at this point and migrated all of the data to the 'curriculum' netowork (which of course just became the network) we then upgraded any 9x clients to 2K or above and joined them to the network. The important pare here is to seperate admin data into seperate folder structures with completly different share permissions so students cannot gain access to it (a good well managed share/permissions setup should be as good as seperate hardware really) you can also hide the shares to provide an extra stumbling block. Other than that 'joining' the networks was pretty straight forward.

 

The move from RM was a bit more of a pain as you need to create new packages and review what RM applications you will have to make do without. Then there is the creating of all of the new users and migrating all of your data, if you're going with Ranger they provide tools to assist with this but i would recommnd trying to go native as it's quite a £££ saving.

Edited April 28, 2008 by cookie_monster

[reggiep]

Out of interest what do you not like about CC3?

 

Butuz

 

Er, I'm not sure I have enough RAM installed on my machine to type all my reasons but the main reason has to be cost. £90 per machine for a license is ridiculous. I pay just over a third of that for a windows license.

Having used ranger and CC3 in the past I rate Ranger much more highly.

 

That will do for now

[torledo]

i would echo what cookie said, and while i think it's important to know something like vbscript and use it's power within a windows server environment to make you're life easier....it's better to walk before you can run. Starting off working with batch files if you haven't already got the experience is a good first step as you can get by most of the time with batch when creating login scripts.

 

That gives you time to get up to speed with vbs to do some more advanced automation.

 

The reason i say that is that MSI creation, AD experience won't have the same learning curve as vbscript. Particularly if you've not done much procedural programming.

[bossman]

@reggeip you may think £90 per workstation is a rip off but if you buy them in batches of 50 it is greatly reduced to £72 per station.If you then consider what you get for your money with all the management tools that come with that license then you would not think it so expensive.

If you had to purchase all the tools from third parties it would defo cost you an arm and a leg. I don't think by getting rid and converting to another platform would help you price wise as you would be starting from scratch again which would take considerable time which in your case would be costly.

I have often thought of moving away from RMCC3 but when I factor in the variables I come to the same conclusion, it has done what I want it to for 5 years no major problems and it is paid for so I use it.

Having looked at CC4 it has lots of new features which will advance our network to the next level and will not cost us a fortune as they are only upgrade licenses at £45 each which will not break the bank and we will get a whole host of new tools for the teachers to use which will benefit me an webman in the fact we will be able to delegate a lot of tasks back to the teachers.

Everyone to their own but we have administered the CC3 in a very similar way to a vanilla system at times using GPOs and the AD and it just works.

Obviously if you mess without knowing the impact it will have on your network then that's your own fault and no one else's and this I feel could be attributed to other CC3 installations.

[jmcdermott]

I originally moved from a lot of classlink 2000 networks to one single school running a cc3 network which i found to restricting for my experience, so i think after about a year of running with cc3, i had the pleasure of formatting the server and building a server 2003 domain with xp clients. To me this one of this best moves i have ever made but as stated in other posts if i did not have a good understanding of active directory and vb script i do not think i would have been able to set the whole thing up with out paying someone to come in and do it for me, which would probably cost a lot more than £90 per license.

[cookie_monster]

Yep as stated above it depends on your technical experience an knowledge. Setting up a network properly is not a straight forward task and if you aren't sure what you're doing you really will need to get outside help. The going rate for a company will be approx £600 per day so you could rack you a week full of work for them to come in and install your new servers, create your Active Directory, users and some knowledge transfer and then you're on your own again unless you pay them for ongoing support.

 

However you might get them in for a few days as insurance and find you're quite comfortable to carry on with the day to day maintenance and not take out extra support.

Edited April 28, 2008 by cookie_monster

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

Hey reggiep - We moved from CC3 to Vanilla last year and I still have the scripts (cacls etc to create users and such) and all the GPO backups from how we set it up at first.

 

I know these won't be perfected for your site but should save you some work - let me know if you want them.

[reggiep]

Hey reggiep - We moved from CC3 to Vanilla last year and I still have the scripts (cacls etc to create users and such) and all the GPO backups from how we set it up at first.

 

I know these won't be perfected for your site but should save you some work - let me know if you want them.

 

If I could look at them that would be great.

 

I do understand most aspects of a non RM CC3 network as I man aged one for 4 years until 3 weeks ago!

But as for setting one up from scratch i wouldn't like to bet my house on being able to set one up without a few hiccups.

I am a complete dunce when it comes to VB script but I did set up a kixscript for the likes of printer networking and drive mapping BUT I did wonder how other people have done it.

[Jose]

good move, we are in the process of chucking this overpriced spyware out.

 

We are in a very advanced stage, we have moved 70% of desktops and laptops onto vanilla clients. In order to do this just create a OU outside of the cc3 establishent bit in AD.

 

Block inheritence on the newly created OU, this will stop most of the cc3 gpos from applying.

 

Create machine gpos for the desktops computers

create user gpos by using loopback processing

 

Use WDS to deploy your desktop images.

 

There are several different ways to export/move users after that use ntfsfix to reset permissions on user areas.

 

The hardest thing you will have to do is get every department to give you a detailed list of all software that they need and it which room.

The technical side is easy but the communication of getting all information from different departments is hard.

[reggiep]

@Jose

 

Thanks for feeling the same way as me!

I would ideally like to unwrap a sparkly new hp server and install a new server 2003/2008 and styart right from the beginning.

 

I guess I could play with a workstation with it on first and create my own practice domain!

[russdev]

Bad choice (sorry jose couldn't help myself)

 

Just because you can manager a non cc3 network doesn't mean you should. It all depends on various factors such as your time, what happens in get hit by the red bus, cost moving away vrs cost of new network (remember in my view it takes at least 8 weeks to move to have a new network working with out issues.

 

RM networks will always cause arguments on forums like this so down to choice (by that I mean not just us as needs to be best for whole school). I know i couldn't do my job with out rm network but I do lot more than manage the network and with just me cc3 provides stable platform to work upon.

 

Anyway that is my view jose and other people have there view and me and other people have a view.

 

Russell

[Jose]

@Jose

 

Thanks for feeling the same way as me!

I would ideally like to unwrap a sparkly new hp server and install a new server 2003/2008 and styart right from the beginning.

 

I guess I could play with a workstation with it on first and create my own practice domain!

 

in the summer if you do remove cc3, its always best to start from scratch because the rm cc3 stuff screws around with the active directory.

But in the mean time moving the desktops over to a vanilla build would make your life easier later.

 

We are at the stage now where all we have to do is format the C: drives of the domain controllers and reinstall 2003 server.

We would then sysprep all desktops to join the new domain.

Theres always different ways of doing it depending on demands on your time.

[Quackers]

It’s a lot easier than you think, just start now. Have the two systems running side by side, and slowly get it right before going live with it. There is loads of information and help out there, like here. Then think what you can do with the thousands of pounds you have saved not buying RM Connect licenses, so of benefit to the school, and also to you as it will make your skills so much more.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

in my view it takes at least 8 weeks to move to have a new network working with out issues

 

We did it in 8 days - It was last Easter so didn't even have a full fortnight because of the bank holidays, and we managed to take a half day on the last Friday. This was on a network of around 12 servers, 450 desktops and over 120 laptops with me and my old network manager - oh, we had to call the term time tech in for 1 day to help out with the ghosting.

 

You can prepare beforehand and if you do this it will minimalise downtime.

 

I have all the scripts etc (which aren't vb but even simpler .bat files) on my external HDD - will call out to the car sometime today to get them for you.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

It’s a lot easier than you think, just start now. Have the two systems running side by side, and slowly get it right before going live with it. There is loads of information and help out there, like here. Then think what you can do with the thousands of pounds you have saved not buying RM Connect licenses, so of benefit to the school, and also to you as it will make your skills so much more.

 

Exactly the reasons we changed over (this was at my old school). RM screwed us around too many times, namly one sales representative who I won't mention by name, but instead by S.B. (no, not their initials either!).

 

Anyhow, it got to about Christmas 2006 and S.B. heard that we were getting sick of her - so she set up a meeting with the head and tried to get us into a whole lot of bother. Now we had a close relationship with the head as he loved technology so he wasn't having any of it - which is about the time the NM said f*** S.B., we'll go Vanilla, save the school some money and get some good experience out of it for ourselves.

 

So, we got two new servers (which we needed anyway) and instead of sticking them onto CC3 we locked ourselves in a room and started setting these up (Mainly GPO's etc) - then came the big day, the first Monday of Easter. We made a cup of coffee, had our sausage sandwich and we were off. The NM double clicked on the copyUsers.bat file and we watched the new network slowly set itself up.

 

Honestly - You can do all the prep beforehand. Takes a couple of days to finally switch your servers over. The biggest part (esp most time consuming) is ghosting all the machines for the first time.

[russdev]

@quacker

 

Not simple as that as pointed out still got to buy licenses for all other software that you get with connect licenses often found that more expensive (in fact cheaper to buy tutor 3 than it is to buy net support school).

 

But then people can be Blind when it comes to RM But then people moving way from rm network very often do not do a proper total cost ownership no way I would change any network with out one but that is me.

 

 

Russell

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

Show of hands: How many techs here can 'hand on heart' say that the majority of their staff actively use Tutor3?

[russdev]

Show of hands: How many techs here can 'hand on heart' say that the majority of their staff actively use Tutor3?

 

By way tutor was just an exmaple and yes have quite few staff use it here. But then every school is different so what is good for you is not good everyone.

 

Lets stop anyway as we are going into what is better thread we will just leave it at every school is different and what is good for you maybe not goof for someone else.

 

Russ

[dgsmith]

Show of hands: How many techs here can 'hand on heart' say that the majority of their staff actively use Tutor3?

 

None, because it's completely unreliable! We use it for network management purposes, and except for the odd occasion when it crashes, it's superb! For staff though, it just hasn't been tailored properly and these "addons" are very hit and miss!

 

We have contemplated a move to vanilla a few times, but don't feel our experience is sufficient enough to both manage and support a vanilla network, and the support from RM, however much frustrating at times it can be, is something we'd not want to do without. I don't want to sound pro-RM, as there are plenty of times we have felt very cheesed off, but considering it on the whole, I don't think we'd benefit enough to warrant a move.

[Guest kerrymoralee9280]

Every school is different so what is good for you is not good everyone.

 

So by this I hope you mean Vanilla is a possibility for any school on here? I hate the attitude of "if it isn't broke" - Yeah, it isn't broke and it does seem to run ok, but if we did this *put whatever you want to do here* it would be ten times better.

[reggiep]

Show of hands: How many techs here can 'hand on heart' say that the majority of their staff actively use Tutor3?

 

Last school I was at had Ranger remote which is the same software with a different badge. We had a hardcore of about 10 teachers who used it all the time for limiting website access and keeping an eye on the darlings but most teachers just walked round the room keeping an eye on them in the traditional way.

[reggiep]

So by this I hope you mean Vanilla is a possibility for any school on here? I hate the attitude of "if it isn't broke" - Yeah, it isn't broke and it does seem to run ok, but if we did this *put whatever you want to do here* it would be ten times better.

 

You have hit the nail on the head there Kerry.

I know I can stumble on as it is at the moment with CC3 taking some the hard work away from me or I could take the leap and go for something else which could be so much better in the long run.

It would be a scary leap because the whole school is relying on me to provide a decent working network and it could go horribly wrong if they came back from the summer hols and found a network and network manager in tatters!

 

I think the getting a new server and setting up way in advance is going to be the route for me.

 

If I'm honest the hardest thing about moving away from RM is having that umbilical cord severed and not being able to ring them and shout "HELP" at the top of my lungs?

Edited April 29, 2008 by reggiep

[Jose]

If I'm honest the hardest thing about moving away from RM is having that umbilical cord severed and not being able to ring them and shout "HELP" at the top of my lungs?

 

We don't bother using the RM support here, take a look at your logged calls and try to work out how many of these problems would not have occured on a vanilla system.

 

I pretty sure you will find that most of your logged calls will be asking for solutions/fixes for their fisher price mananagment tools.

 

does anyone remember their password syncing system to enable you to run 2.4 and cc3 at the same time, what a croc and a bad way to integrate two systems.