Advice on leaving RM

[scotty]

I have been asked to plan a migration away from RM CC3 this summer which as a IT team we are very happy with. We would like to install our own vanilla system with XP and server 2003 and was wondering if anybody out there has been through the same process and may have some advice on things to watch out for or reputable consultants with experience in this field.

 

Scott

[Guest metalmonkey]

Hi Scott

 

We are planning the exact same thing, although we are planning to so it over a number of years.

 

Firstly, we are planning it in small pockets rather than site wide. For example, Geography want 15 PC's, so instead of buying 15 RM CC3 PC's we are buying normal PC's with a cheap server. This gives us the flexibility to play with it, while causing minimal disruption to everywhere else.

 

Secondly, consider buying a Technet subscription! It is very, very useful.

 

You might get a few posts saying 'oh go for it, it's easy and better than RM'. That might be the case but it all comes down to your confidence. We're RM through and through, so much so we have RM stamped on our foreheads. We are not that confident, so we are taking our time.

 

Hope this helps.

[Face-Man]

moved away 4 years ago and have never looked back (apart from the odd snigger at bett :twisted: ). So long ago any advice would be out of date as to how to extract but I would just plan to moth ball their server(s) and get new ones so you can run test before moving your clients over..

[free4440273]

i've been pulling out rm connect systems, at the behest of the lea, at the five schools i work at over the last five years.

[webman]

What are your reasons for moving from RM in the first place?

[Ric_]

i've pulled out 2 in 3 years...

 

i found it easiest to create a new domain, copy the users and their data (I have a script to re-attatch users to their documents) and set up the AD from scratch.

 

you can then RIS your machines and job is a gud un!

 

only my two penneth but it IS one way to do it (possibly not the easiest or quickest but you can document things as they are created afresh rather than potentially inheriting old RM bits).

[Gatt]

Am i the lucky bugger to never have heard of RM CC3 then

 

Also whats the costs of a technet subscription and/or an MSDN subscription?

[ChrisH]

Technet information can be found here

[Dos_Box]

You want a Tech-Net Plus subscription. This comes with full versions of almost all (not dev tools) Microsofts software, and any betas they release. I use it daily and is well worth the £450-ish annual suscription.

[Gatt]

Cheers Dos_box - that sounds pretty much what I'm looking for...

[alan-d]

We ditched RM 3 years ago, we had Ranger installed on the vanilla system (2003) as a sort of stop gap - There were only 2 of us back then. We are now (almost) in a postition to remove Ranger as well.

 

Probably the steepest learning curve for us was package deployment and monitoring, but that is in hand

[Chafftech]

I have been asked to plan a migration away from RM CC3 this summer which as a IT team we are very happy with.

Scott

 

 

If you are happy with CC3 then why are you moving?

[Chafftech]

I have been asked to plan a migration away from RM CC3 this summer which as a IT team we are very happy with.

Scott

 

 

If you are happy with CC3 then why are you moving?

[Quackers]

I have been asked to plan a migration away from RM CC3 this summer which as a IT team we are very happy with.

Scott

 

 

If you are happy with CC3 then why are you moving?

 

 

Somebody happy with RM 8O Maybe they want to be "Real" Network Managers. heheheheh

 

We moved away from Connect 2.4 2 years ago, saw Connect 3 and i ran a mile. (and saved the school £80,000).

 

The best place for help is go to Microsofts web site and download the White Papers for each part, such as Group Policy, Active Directory, RIS etc and it will fully explain how each part works and best practices. Also you have us here which will prob be the best help.

[scotty]

Sorry maybe I should re-word that I meant to say that we are very happy to get rid of RM, sooner the better in my eyes!

[Chafftech]

I have CC3 at my school which I installed ground up, on the whole I am happy with it as it allows a large amount of computers to be run by a small amount of IT support staff. Its cheaper to train up junior technicians as well. Mind you I do have some serious gripes with their lack of service in a certain area (buggy hotfixes).

[Snuffkins]

From what i've seen when CC3 is working it's very good, but i can see why you'd want to move away from it cause it's not often that it is working, lol. My school moved away from it a few years back, but never trust lea support to help you ... First attempt was done by creating a new domain and running the old and new side by side trusted.

 

However that didn't go so well when the RM system was eventually removed. Last year i did it on my own and just bought in two new DC's, vanilla 2003 server and XP clients. You might want to get your head stuck into the GP's so you know what you need to do when it comes to the crunch. I'd say get a couple of machines and build your own test server and client and have a play with them. Get used to it all before you jump in the deep end... And be prepared for staff to be miserable for a while cause they liked RM?

 

That's what caused a lot of problems here when they did it first, they wanted it to look and work like RM without the cost and any time spent in getting it ready??? I think it was done over two weeks which sounded like quite a while but in reality turns out not to be the first time you try it...

 

But from experience it is very much the best option to remove RM completely and just start over. Do it over the summer if they don't mind the network being down for the whole break and you'll be fine... It takes a bit of effort but very much worth it.

 

You want to look at package deployment using the GP's and research RIS, or just spend some money on imaging software, but if your confident enough with RIS there's no need to. Again just setup a test server and clients and start playing...

[russdev]

I have CC3 at my school which I installed ground up, on the whole I am happy with it as it allows a large amount of computers to be run by a small amount of IT support staff. Its cheaper to train up junior technicians as well. Mind you I do have some serious gripes with their lack of service in a certain area (buggy hotfixes).

 

this is where rm helps and you hit nail on head..

 

if got a ict support team then rm benafits start to become les and less but for small team one two two people benfaits are greater as we can spend less time focus on network set/creation and more on the day to day jobs....

 

russ

[webman]

We have been RM CC3 since 2002 and I must say, touch-wood, we've had very few problems, and it doesn't cost us a fortune. There's only the servers and the licenses that we've bought from RM and two initial ICT suites of 30 PCs. We haven't spent anything with them for over a year now (last item was set of licenses). I'm not singing their praises too much (personally don't agree with some of their policies/products/pricing and so on) but the network runs well. A few of the features we like it for:

 

* Software package building + allocating is usually a breeze if the software's good enough

 

* Rebuilding machines is as simple as booting from a floppy and responding to a few questions (or even do it remotely if the workstation can boot into Windows and contact the servers)

 

* Automatic shutdown of machines on an evening

 

* Remote (re-)imaging of workstations

 

* Selected staff can reset pupil passwords via the RM console

 

* Remote access to user homedirs (WebDAV)

 

* User type GPOs to disable features, for example pupil's can't run EXEs from MyDocs or USB drives and they can't view the address bar in WinExplorer

 

I can't see any advantages of replacing our domain with vanilla 2003, it wouldn't make sense. What we have, works. It isn't broke so we don't plan to fix it

[PiqueABoo]

The tech time argument is definitely the compelling one. Said it before on usenet (to some slight hissing): I reckon it would take me 12 months to replicate all the useful bits from scratch. Obviously that's not the same amount of time it would take to get something more pragmatic up and running.

 

The thing that bothers me about RM is the overall quality. After all this time I'd have thought it would all be nailed down (code/script/driver management/UIs et al), but I feel like I'm dealing with an ad-hoc collection of beta code.

[Quackers]

The tech time argument is definitely the compelling one. Said it before on usenet (to some slight hissing): I reckon it would take me 12 months to replicate all the useful bits from scratch. Obviously that's not the same amount of time it would take to get something more pragmatic up and running.

 

The thing that bothers me about RM is the overall quality. After all this time I'd have thought it would all be nailed down (code/script/driver management/UIs et al), but I feel like I'm dealing with an ad-hoc collection of beta code.

 

I have to agree with the Tech argument too. Running a vanilla system means i have more time to do other jobs. The Vanilla system has been in place for more than 2 years now and has had down time of once (for less than 2 mins because of a bluescreen on one of the servers) It took 1 month to have fully in place and working and does just that works. The most technical job i have to do now is creating users, since i designed the group policys, active directory layout and scipts i know what does what and so i the event of a change or problem i can find out what very quickly, without having to phone RM and wait to see what the problem is. If i have other issues i have the Microsoft Knowledge base which normally has the answer without having to login or have a support agreement.

 

When i look back to how much time i have wasted on the old Connect 2.4 system we had in place before hand when RM released a patch only for all workstations to need a rebuild because it fucked them up, i'm glad were "normal" now. Will not make the same mistake twice and give RM our money, were not blind.

 

Taking into account the money savings, tech time saved (and not have to apply performance patchs because logon takes 10 minutes 8O ) going non RM seems very sunny. But obviously if your already have RM Connect 3 in and its working for you and your not planning to expand then going vanilla might be pointless and you will not save money, you'll just have the kids asking there manager at work when they have left school "where is RM Explorer?", "how do i logoff?, i cannot see it in the bottom right hand corner" or when they get to College/Uni "What does 'Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to logon mean?"