markman Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I have been asked to think about what I would want in our new school (ICT) once we become an academy. Was hoping to ge to BETT but a hospital appointment and my techie being on a course has finished that idea, so. Question: What would be on your wishlist for a new system within a school / academy? Security is an issue here so I would want metal encasements like Stone Computers and Forefront suppply or similar. I would 'like' to see security cameras in ICT suites. We will be a arts and media college so Apple Macs will be needed (worried about these as next to no knowledge of them ). On the infasturcture side, I haven't thought about yet.
broc Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 Question: What would be on your wishlist for a new system within a school / academy? Simple; for me and the technicians who work with me to still have jobs worth doing 1
dhicks Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 Virtualised servers And somewhere to put them - a couple of floor-standing server cabinets, complete with decent cooling and UPS (which is why you want them floor-standing, decent rack-mount UPS' are heavy). You'd preferably want two cabinets, well physically separated, with a fibre connection running between them to mirror data. Specify cat5 cable everywhere, including the floors of classrooms. Don't forget power sockets, too. Especially in music, get the deepest set floor sockets available, the adapters for music keyboards stick out otherwise. -- David Hicks
Domino Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 Virtualised servers is that really what you'd ask for over everything in a school - something thats not really hard or expensive anyway? my top priority would be extendability. Schools tend to buy/plan for the here and now, and forget that things might change. Double wide cable runs, extendable power deployment, server racks/aircon and proper spacing for not only server rooms but a workshop also. ...or maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical
Hightower Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 is that really what you'd ask for over everything in a school - something thats not really hard or expensive anyway? To do it your way might not be expensive
tmcd35 Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I'm with Hightower here! You shouldn't underestimate the importance of a solid network infrastructure that is designed with future expansion and reliability in mind. I'd put Virtualisation and a good SAN at the heart of that from day one, personally.
markman Posted January 12, 2009 Author Posted January 12, 2009 Hopefully we will get enough money to do any work properly. We are having a go with virtualization before the academy takeover, should be online over half term. We are using VMWare on Linux (Ubuntu), not completely sure about the ins and outs yet but backup of the domain controllers is pretty straighforward! You are right about the here and now but some of this is controlled by budgets and what is available at the time. A workshop would be great, I have just mamaged to bag a small office to run a helpdesk but it isn't big enough to do any work in.
broc Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 A workshop would be great, I have just mamaged to bag a small office to run a helpdesk but it isn't big enough to do any work in. I don't want to appear unduly pessimistic... but I would check if you are to be part of a managed service. If you are, then you need to find out who will be supplying & maintaining the hardware, and what the plans are for support. You may find the design and implementation of the infrastructure is done by a third party for example, with little input from the schools (especially the ICT support staff). In my new BSF school for example, I have been told there is no accomodation planned for IT Support staff; this means no office space, no workshop, very limited storage space & server space. I have also been told there are no plans to have any IT rooms as such (the school may have a media suite with desktop PCs, but that's all). It looks like most servers will be offsite, at a remote datacentre. We have yet to see the final design for ICT. My understanding is that IT support onsite will be reduced to one technician, with no Network Manager, hence the lack of accomodation.
Hightower Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I'm with Hightower here! You shouldn't underestimate the importance of a solid network infrastructure that is designed with future expansion and reliability in mind. I'd put Virtualisation and a good SAN at the heart of that from day one, personally. Yeah, and a nice fiber channel in.
markman Posted January 12, 2009 Author Posted January 12, 2009 (edited) Which LEA are you under Broc? I am at a Manchester school and will be under the control of Ramesys. Edited January 12, 2009 by markman
kevin_lane Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 sounds pritty harsh enviroments lol can you breath ?
Butuz Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 All I want is some proper 5 year funding a'la BSF. I could do alot with some cash! Butuz 1
andib Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I am at a school in Manchester due to go live this September, unfortunately the funding available doesn't stretch very far once you take out costs such as IP Telephony, Wireless, CCTV and Cashless Catering, it leaves very little money with which to be innovative.
marco84 Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 markman: it sounds like you are writing the output spec for BSF in your authority. If this is the case, as far as I am aware you cannot specify technologies. For example all rooms to be cabled with cat6. You can only state what you would like to be able to achieve with said equipment. Hence the term output spec.
broc Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 Which LEA are you under Broc? I am at a Manchester school and will be under the control of Ramesys. @markman PM Sent
torledo Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 is that really what you'd ask for over everything in a school - something thats not really hard or expensive anyway? my top priority would be extendability. Schools tend to buy/plan for the here and now, and forget that things might change. Double wide cable runs, extendable power deployment, server racks/aircon and proper spacing for not only server rooms but a workshop also. ...or maybe I'm just too jaded and cynical I don't think there's anything wrong with asking for blade servers and i also think it's quite important.....it's actually a very sensible purchase from the point of view of having scalability for your servers.....blades can get quite expensive when you factor in FC and ethernet switches integral to the chassis, redundancy of components and a fully populated chassis and software licensing for vmware. I wouldn't take any chances, i'd order a blade system based on future requirements now, becuase one or two blade vendors have previous when it comes to discontinuing compatible blades for older chassis. You don't want to buy a blade chassis and worry about not being able to get new modules and servers. SAN would defintely be on the shopping list also. And scalable NAS or a NAS gateway to connect to the SAN storage. And get all the licensing you need for the SAN as you'd get discounts off inital purchase that might not be available late on. If your going to do it from scratch might aswell do it right. You can make a case for every area.......UPS and aircon are also crucial.
Face-Man Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I bought Blades and it was the worst thing I ever did... Far better (if you have space) to buy big boxes and virtualise the server software so you can move it to a different big box when that one gets to old/fails etc. Blade chassis mean you have to buy from the same supplier who then discontinues that model and your stuffed
torledo Posted January 12, 2009 Posted January 12, 2009 I bought Blades and it was the worst thing I ever did... Far better (if you have space) to buy big boxes and virtualise the server software so you can move it to a different big box when that one gets to old/fails etc. Blade chassis mean you have to buy from the same supplier who then discontinues that model and your stuffed That's why i say overprovision if you've got the budget on blades, or alternatively go with a manufacturer who can atleast provide a decent level of backward compatability with new blades or will continue to support and sell older blade chassis. IBM have been strong in this area. I'm guessing you went with a HP or Dell. Vendors have to balance adding new features with not leaving existing customers out in the cold, i still think they're trying to get to grips with that. The argument for going with one big box is a good one mind you......there's a school of thought that says a big four socket box is better than blades for virtualization.......but seeing as you can get dual and quad socket blades i don't see why blades aren't equally as good for virtualization. The thing with blades is you'd want reduancy of all components so that you've got that protection that will allow you to carry on managing the box if a mgmt module, I/O module or power supply goes down. For me the biggest plus point is reducing the amount of cables in the back of the rack to manage....if you've got a SAN you've got a lot of cables and external switches to manage with even a modest number of rack mounted servers. With blades it's aggregtion in a box....that can be handy. I'd still keep a 2 socket box or two lying around for DR.....not confident enough to put all eggs in the blade basket just yet. They can't match big unix iron for RAS....maybe one day.
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