Network Management Software

[towen]

Hi all,

 

We are currently looking at purchasing some network management software; we've looked at CSE, Viglen Classlink...

 

Can anyone recommed any good suppliers \ software?

 

Many Thanks,

[webman]

There's RM CC3 which is quite popular; and a linux solution called Karoshi. There are mixed responses to RM, CSE and Viglen on the forum of this site - good for some and not for others; it's what works for your school that matters

[Geoff]

What exactly do you need 'managing' beyond what a vanilla W2k3/AD system provides?

[towen]

We have looked at RM, but my pass experience and cost of RM products puts me off!

 

CSE looks quite favourable at the moment, Any comments\views.. on this anyone?

 

We have a complete Windows 2000 Domain structure all clients are Windows XP..

 

Looking at moving to Windows 2003 over the summer....

[towen]

Looking for a desktop management suite really, and ways of being able to control and rollout of software remotely.

[u8dmtm]

If I were you I would avoid the cost of going down a Network Management layer route like CC3 since you are already running vanilla. Many schools (including ours) run CC3 because it's what was in place and the job of moving to vanilla is significant when the network is in constant use. Although some of our machines are vanilla these days.

 

You can use Group Policy to deploy software. What do you want from a "Desktop Management Suite"?

[Geoff]

You can get a long way with Active Directory, MSI's and RIS.

 

For desktop management, beyond GPO's (which are fairly comprehensive) what about Netsupport Manager?

 

http://www.netsupport-inc.com/nsm/netsupport_manager_overview.htm

[towen]

We currently use GPO quite exstensevly to lock down the workstations etc.

 

Most of all we need tools to be able to improve the way in which we manage desktops & applications on machines.

 

Yes, GPO's can manage rollouts of Software, but from experience doesn't bend itself well to the school enviroment.

 

I've also heard alot of bad things about RM which has put us off them completely.. e.g. loss of network control, expensive...

[webman]

With RM, all you really need to pay for is the licenses, you don't have to buy hardware from them.

[Geoff]

Yes, GPO's can manage rollouts of Software, but from experience doesn't bend itself well to the school enviroment.

 

Well, from experience I haven't seen a better method. I think RIS + MSI's deployed via GPO are probably as good as it gets. Fair enough you have to package applications up as MSI's however that's a one off cost.

[wesleyw]

A lot of software, especially for schools, comes with MSI's so it's the best option really. Even if it doesn't you can get free msi packagers or buy a decent packager for much less than the cost of RM software. Also RM uses Winstall 2000 LE or 2003 LE so really its exactly the same system but I believe RM uses text based INI to record whats installed on a machine at any given time!

 

Wes

[alan-d]

Most of what I was going to say has been said above. But if you insist on a package to manage clients etc then Ranger is worth looking at.

 

It's as restrictive as you want it to be, but flexible enough for you to use other packages or vanilla systems.

 

We used it to save us some time when there was only 2 of us. Now there are 4 of us we can keep to being a vanilla site.

[Quackers]

I would 100% not recommend going to the paying money to get somthing like RM Connect, CSE or Ranger. Like others have said you do not need it as you already have a Vanilla network. I think you just need some help from us to make your network do what you want. Can you give us an example of a problem you have with software rollout in detail?

[towen]

Firstly many thanks for all your views with regards to this.....

 

Yes we have a "vanilla" network (i.e. Windows 2000) and have spent alot of time customising it to do what we want it to do.

 

Whilst I appreciate Windows will offer the tools; that we require (remote management,software deployment tools etc) I personally still don't think it's specfically lends itself to "todays" academic enviroment without the requirement of additional tools.

 

I personally don't want to lose *control* of our network by letting network management tool companies take it over and restricting what we can do!

 

I think what I'm trying to say is tools to do the job effectivly and more efficently...

 

We have one and half technician's and one network manager, and have approx 500+ machines on-site) including wireless notebooks

 

- Ranger Suite is now a by-product of RM plc so that puts me off that..

 

Rollout of Software & Remote Management of Computers are our main are requirements.

 

I've had bad experiences with GPO's rolling out and corrupting installations of software so I've left it well alone...

[ajbritton]

Just to throw in my two cents...

 

For software roll-out I would still suggest Group Policy. (be sure to deploy applications to Computers and not to Users BTW) I have deployed hundreds of different packages using this technique, most of which I have repackaged using InstallShield Admin Studio or Wise Package Studio.

 

Repackaging is not a technique which is learnt overnight, however, and there are ways of deploying non MSI based apps using Group Policy. If you need to deploy a non-MSI based app, then provided you can make it do a silent install (most if not every InstallShield based application can be made to do this), then you can 'wrap' it in an MSI using the Windows Installer Wrapper Wizard (see WiKi - Essential software list). The other option is to use WPKG (again, see WiKi - Essential software), which is an alternative to using GP to install software on your PCs.

 

As far as remote management is concerned, it depends on what you need to do. Here are some options;

 

1 - As an admin, you can use MSTSC to remotely log on to XP based PCs to perform diagnostics etc. This does NOT let you 'take over' the PC to see what a user was doing on it however

 

2 - UltraVNC will let you 'take over' a PC to provide assistance or to perform diagnostics

 

3 - Use the 'Computer Management' console (right click 'My Computer', select Manage, when the console appears, right click 'Computer Management (local)' and select 'Connect to another computer'. Enter the name of the PC you want to 'manage' (or browse via AD) and OK. You can also use this feature from within AD Users & Computers by right clicking a computer account and selecting Manage.

 

4 - If you want to browse the files system on a remote computer, as an admin you can browse to \\(computername)\c$

 

5 - If you need to access the registry on a remote computer, using REGEDIT, you can 'connect network registry'.

 

6 - If you want to execute code on remote computers you can use the excellent PSTOOLS from System Internals. These tools also let you view the active processes on the PC (this can be very handy in a group policy software install gets 'stuck' during installation)

 

There really is very little that you can't do in terms of software installation or remote management with the standard windows tools or a couple of bits of freeware.

 

I think the strength of the network management systems is in their user/desktop management, monitoring, security and reporting functions.

 

Whatever you decide to do, it's obviously your choice, but as was mentioned elsewhere in the thread there are many very experienced EduGeeks who will be happy to help if you decide to steer the righteous course of Win2K3, XP and a few select third party add-ons!

[towen]

Thanks ajbritton, for your comments, again much appreciated!

 

Seems to be many people here with expert knowlege of ICT in education...

 

My experience of GPO's and Software deployment dates back to the initial rollout of Windows 2000 Pro \ Server, perhaps things have changed, I don't know although we are planning to upgrade our servers to Windows 2003 over the summer months, perhaps that might see some improvements to to this. (I am due to attend the MS AD 2003 Course so that might shed some light on this)

 

Application roll-outs - This is a very much close to my heart (esp. as Senior Techie!) I seem to get the Software deployment job... I've spent many an hour replicating software installs on a classroom with 30+ machines in, extremely time consuming! And proves very difficult at times to get into ICT suites to actually perform tasks like this, This is one of my many objectives for a network management suite... also deployment of Software and updates to software to staff wireless laptops is a real nightmare, as none of the teachers seem to want to let go of there laptop, it's like a small child to them!!

 

Remote \ Interactive Control of Client machines - Well yes a great util, untill a few weeks ago we had no means of interactively connecting to machines across the network, yes RDP was a solution but it did not offer the ability to interact with the current logged on user. We have recently purchased ABTutor and I must say it been a brilliant piece of software! At a great price.....

 

Alot of the other ideas suggested (4,5,6) we already utilise and have been for while...

 

As for reporting \ monitoring this is somthing that would probably prove quite useful longterm, something to think about if we decide to go down the route of purchasing some sort of network management suite....

 

Any thanks everyone for your comments I will let you know about our decision on whether or not we purchase a suite of utils or not......

[Simcfc73]

We have Reminstall for software rollout which used to work really well until I let the license slip and now it won't let me run it.

 

It allows you to deploy / uninstall on rooms or the whole school using MSI's using multicast. Its very fast and worked really well when I used it.

 

We also have Interjigsaw from Akhter which is pretty good. Its a nice front end which allows you to create users by just putting in their name and it creates everything for you.

 

I can't justify the cost of these to be honest as I can do everything with a vanilla 2003 install. They do make life alot easier but wheres the challenge in that

 

Think they charge about £10 per client for both Reminstall and Interjigsaw.

[Dos_Box]

I would not bother with RM, Viglen et-al as all they do is re-badge mainly free active directory tools. I would however recommend Net Support Manager and Net Support DNA to provide you wiuth remote and classroom control. DNA gives you extra abilities like software packaging, app deployment, inventory, internet monitoring, licensing and firewall. Not bad. We are looking to buy this in the autumn.

[kingswood]

We use CSE- if you want an indepth look at their stuff I can give you lots of info (the school has been with them for 7 years now). They are quite good- have their moments like every other solution out there (including "vanilla"). I suppose it depends on the size of your network. We are approaching (fast) 700 machines (laptops, admin and curriculum- with some Macs thrown in). It's nice to have (for the school too) an extra layer of support.

 

CSE have quite good engineers- and I can pass on some names to you if you PM me. We have had trouble with some of their tools in the past- but with their new .NET software arriving soon it would be worth your while taking a look at what they do and getting a demo. On the management side the CSE ToolKit helps you manage application deployment (Prism Deploy), Printer Management and Deplyment (scripts etc), group policies (they plop them in for you and you can then tweek away), and project folders, VLE solutions, internet tracking/application blocking blah blah blah. An aweful lot of it is a Godsend. And that isn't knocking the vanilla method (I would like to do that too) but you will often find that you still need some tools to get you working properly. Enter CSE who offer a packaged solution that you still control but that makes your job easier (a little anyway).

 

As I said- get in touch with me if you need more information.

 

Paul

Systems Manager, The Kingswood School Corby

[gcheeseman]

This thread has given me some really good insight into the options available, but has anyone got some indicative pricing to compare CC3 / Ranger / Classlink?

 

Free is great, but I'm interested to know what the paid for solutions actually cost.

 

Many Thanks.

[Simcfc73]

Reminstall for us is £10 per client. Interjigsaw is £10 per client and I think they charge you per server and a setup fee.

[Norphy]

This may be a sledgehammer/walnut situation but what about SMS server to deploy software? It isn't especially expensive on a Select licence.