Dos_Box Posted June 14, 2005 Posted June 14, 2005 By now if you haven't twigged on there are quite a few of us from the North West. This is because I run a forum in Lancashire for all Lancashire schools' technical staff to have a massive whinge. Or at least thats what it feels like. It is a closed froum due to the nature of the information contained on it, but hihly successful non the less and allows me to pass on their views to those at comittee level. We are quite lucky in Lancashire in that we own our own network infrastructure which allows us to put in internet feeds of up to 100Mbps to most of our secondary schools, this also creates a problem in that we struggle to allow schools VPN, tunneling and access to pupils files from the outside world, bu we are woring on it. For tis speed of connection they pay a minimal amount each year whilst receiving free web hosting, web mail and a Sophos subscription. Each school is run as a seperate entity and most employ a network manager and technicians and can run their affairs in whatever way they see fit. I'm just curious as to how the rest of the UK's schools gets their internet connection? Are you tied in with people like RM or Viglen (spit, spit) and do you think that you could do better? Let us know here please.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 Any school with fibre connections. Telewest provides the service and links straight into the server farm at county hall.
Ric_ Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 But have you swapped out the 10Mbit NIC from the gateway machine yet?
ChrisH Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 Oh well to many hills round here and a railway bridge seperating us from the main road. Oh and it's an NTL area
Ric_ Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 Oh well to many hills round here and a railway bridge seperating us from the main road. Oh and it's an NTL area I believe that NTL and Telewest work together to provide fibre feeds (type in the postcode to find out). As for the bridge, where there is a will...
RobC Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 Fujitsu managed service across the district. We've got a 34Mb pipe into the Server farm at the main school & then I think it's 2Mb lines into every other secondary school (but don't quote me on that). Most of our primaries are in the process of getting broadband & the rest are on ISDN. The only pain is, we're still using 10Mb Cisco switches throughout the schools.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 The only pain is, we're still using 10Mb Cisco switches throughout the schools. 8O Are you NT 4.0 still? You might as well be.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 Which county is that Russ? *Could you add it to your sig please?
Diello Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 SEGfL through Unisys - can't quite remember what goes into the Maidstone farm, but we get 6mbit to each secondary - soon to go up to 10mbit. It's a pain as it means we can get no control externally, remote support, etc.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 How do you make your feeling known or are you cut off from the decision making process?
RobC Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 8O Are you NT 4.0 still? You might as well be. XP Pro clients & 2003 Server. Takes the kids a minute or so to log on with limited profile sizes, takes me over 5 minutes cos of the crap I end up with in my profile! (I just stay logged on all the time now.) Although funnily enough, I have recently upgraded our 2nd network (Computing/Bus Studies, no I'net connection) from NT4 to 2k. Logon times there are circa 3 seconds.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 You have roaming profiles?! Horrible, horrible, horrible.
Diello Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 How do you make your feeling known or are you cut off from the decision making process? Well about every 2 or 3 months there is a generally a LEA meeting for something or other which allows you to grab one of the broadband team and hurrang them over something. Short of that, it's just constantly phoning them trying to get something done.
Dos_Box Posted June 15, 2005 Author Posted June 15, 2005 We have a dedicated forum run by me where I can let schools know what is going on without a fax or circular getting 'filed' before reaching the people who need to know about it. When I attend meetings which involve schools IT networks I ask if people need any input and can put their views forwards. We have a dedicated schools helpdesk run for us by our councils IT services dept, which provides a ticket service for schools. From what I can gather we have a pretty decent setup compared to other LEA's. Some are very, very poor apparently.
MkII Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 Powys County Council *bow's down* provide our internet feed across a WAN. Last I heard there was a 110Mbt feed from County Hall which is then shared out downwards. The county is quite big and sparsely populated - the lowest in Europe I understand. The backbone is a microwave link. We have an LS2 line and all secondary schools have at least a 10Mbt connection. Primary schools are on this system too and because they're so remote some of them, work is in progress to get them up to speed. They've just signed up to a big contract with BT for ADSL. The benefits to us are Central firewalling and filtering [response is not too bad - it takes a day for a normal block request or immediate if there's something serious]. We all have space on a central webserver with as much space as we need. VPN is now an option, though because of the expense we're scrambling around trying to find a cheap way of doin' it . Our relationship with the central IT dept is not a happy one. They treat us like we're getting something for nothing, which is probably true. We also have an internal IT Techs forum [setup by Nathan/Tarquel], but it's not really used much - there are only about 15 High Schools in total anyway. We have a mailing list which has been very useful, and people make good use of that, and we meet quarterly meeting [this may now be just three times a year ] at a central location to meet real people and people 'in the know'.
russdev Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 Which county is that Russ? *Could you add it to your sig please? sorry will add it now leicestershire... Russ
tarquel Posted June 15, 2005 Posted June 15, 2005 did i hear my name mentioned? 10M connection to all schools? Yeah, maybe a switch connection but its faster on my 2M broadband connection at home lmao *sighs* I'll sort the VPN solution if its the last thing i do - aint paying PCC for the pleasure - no sir-ee ...plus the extra benefits of the kit is gonna be well handy I dont think we actually *have* a relationship with the central IT - but popular, we are not, no doubt. *giggles at people in the know* Mark is used to my usual ranting by the way folks - as always, no disrespect at him Regards all, N.
Guest richard Posted June 17, 2005 Posted June 17, 2005 I suppose we are a bit of an odd ball as we have a 2 meg ADSL connection with Easynet which we have had for a 2 years with a 3 week break when we joined the county grid but pulled out due to crap service. Oh and by the Dos_Box our connection was originally supplied by Viglen who we have used as our supplier for the last 4 years.
KeithFermor Posted June 26, 2005 Posted June 26, 2005 We are one of the few schools in the area to have a 10Mb BT LES10 service connection, with an internal 100Mb network. The LEA has a central Web Marshall proxy which can be individually configured (or removed) for linked schools. Many schools are to be connected through land and wireless services through the LEA provided service - but to general consternation about the ability of the LEA to satisfy all schools data needs! Its nice to have a 10Mb pipe, but sometimes I wonder if there is anything in it! Internally, we have a CAT5e network, fibre linked hubs and dang awful unmanaged EtherWAN switches (from outer mongolia possibly?) - data goes in and has been known to come out, not necessarily in 'order the right'. Must say that with the plethora of games (both DLL and web based) and the high probability that a mis-spelled search word brings up some porn pic or text, then a Walled Garden for Secondary is an appealing concept! No individual profiles for students (or staff) but I provide a mandatory profile on our (yuk!) NT4 domain network - with the vast majority of users on Windows 2K wkstations. No funds for anyfing more yet. Keith Fermor ICT Slave and minion Somewhere in hilly Yorkshire
Ric_ Posted June 27, 2005 Posted June 27, 2005 No individual profiles for students (or staff) but I provide a mandatory profile on our (yuk!) NT4 domain network - with the vast majority of users on Windows 2K wkstations. No funds for anyfing more yet. Finally - someone else with a povvit NT4 domain! How hard is it to lock down?!?! Roll on the Summer!
KeithFermor Posted June 27, 2005 Posted June 27, 2005 NT4 Lockdown (CLANG!) 1. Students share a mandatory profile. 2. Students have their own profiles for Netscape & Firefox based on an original with setup of favorites. 3. Windows 2K has local policy set based on image for different wkstation types. 4. Local policy deletes local cached profiles, removes name of last logon, hides ALL drives except Student home and shared area (Read only). Access to any local drives is removed - includes CD & FDD. This then forms a precurso to Windwos 200X platform and use of AD. 5. User accounts all have description with Year and Tutor Group. 6. Scripts are used to generate new users accounts and set home directory access. 7. Student home directories are stored under named Year group folders (again to facilitate move to 200X User objects in future). 8. PDC has responsibility for account authentication & validation only. 9. DHCP, WINS, SQL, Student home directories, Application programs - all exist on separate Windows 2K Servers. It just about works...
Geoff Posted June 27, 2005 Posted June 27, 2005 The NSA guidelines for NT4 security are a good reference too: http://www.trustedsystems.com/download/NSAGuideV2.PDF
E1uSiV3 Posted August 8, 2005 Posted August 8, 2005 I have a newly fitted 10Mbit fiber link from telewest courtesy of the BGfL (o well you cant have it all), theres a big projecto going on where telewest are dropping in about 700-800 fiber links in across birmingham for all of the councils facilities and its all vlanned with QoS. should be interesting... as for lan side ive got a gbit backbone (running on cat5e! lol) with 100mbit to all desktops and 80211b/g to the laptops
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