BECTA Technical Specification Working Group

[CyberNerd]

I see, cat6 on the backbone for 1Gb/s and cat5e elsewhere, I can't argue with that !

PS. your ISP sucks almost as much as ours - RM by any chance?

[DMcCoy]

Backup: Daily media should be stored in a fireproof safe? Um, no its going to stay in the tape library with all the other tapes. All weekly tapes are exported/imported every week and are held off site. If the school burns down then there is more to worry about than 4 days worth of data. I wonder how we are supposed to allow the students to do everything they might need to do for thier work, particularily audio and viedo work if there is no where to store this data or back it up to removable media in a sensible amount of time and for example tapes.

 

ii am going to disagree here as you have got duty in law to keep data safe and also look at admin system losing 4 days worth of data is a major deal.

 

Russell

 

I do keep my data safe, but the problem is this goes against the way tape librarys work. The tapes are designed to stay *in* the library. If I want to take a tape out I have to export it through the software, it then gets ejected into the loading slot. If I want to put one in I have to import it then have the software rescan the library. It is like this because import/export is not supposed to be frequent. I automate the weekly export after the backup finishes. All imports have to be manual however. A business would have the tape library in a different location, I cannot.

[DMcCoy]

I see, cat6 on the backbone for 1Gb/s and cat5e elsewhere, I can't argue with that !

PS. your ISP sucks almost as much as ours - RM by any chance?

 

The issue is it is recommending cat6 as an upgrade for cat5e, but at the current time there is no benefit, it just costs more money.

 

On the ISP front, yes it is RM, Segfl. I have had many arguments with them about many things, mostly their fault. I did get them to agree to do all my change requests in one go and got 6 public ips and 70 firewall rule changes done

[GrumbleDook]

Some thoughts on my summary before I start writing it in earnest.

 

The presumption of FITS being fully implemented is a large one. FITS has time and cost implications on its own even before we look at the technical and functional specifications. Perhaps more assistance with training and implementation is needed before most of us go any further.

 

The specifications may not *be* a shopping list, but that is how it would come across when taken to the people that sign the cheques. As part of a running replacement program then it does indeed set down guidelines and the *shall*, *should*, etc is helpful to prioritise things.

 

The implementation of all of this relies on a certain amount of funding being available, even if you do spread it out over a reasonable time. It is nice that money is not being ring fenced by county now ... but that is no guarantee that it will be allocated decently in the school budget ... after all, a Head or bursar may decide that there are greater priorities (capital builds, books or maybe even more staff!). Although there is a push for 3 and 5 year planning for IT Infrastructure, let's be honest ... how many of have that in place and with the complete backing of Senior Management? More emphasis on this to Senior Leaders in schools would be nice (it also means that we can get things down on paper about the direction an individual school is going).

 

We also have to make the unfortunate comment that a stumbling block will be who makes the decisions about where things are going ... people have given recent examples of Senior Leadership not having a clue ... others have shown that it is the Local Authority or RBC that is the block ("We know best ... do as we say!") and there needs to be a greater level of accountability on this.

 

There are a number of areas in the specifications that have raised concerns themselves. Most are issues down to cost, time or the simple reality of whether we think they are as important (or more important) than Becta do.

 

I will collate those mentioned so far, with the corresponding arguements for and against.

 

Any more to add?

[CyberNerd]

I think the real problem with the tech spec not any of the technical solutions that they recommend, but is the fact that it is largely optional, AFIK the specification it is not enforced by either incentives or disincentives (although I understand that it will form the basis of a contractural requirement for BSF schools).

 

I informed SMT of the tech spec when I read it in November, but they decided they would *completely* ignore the document despite it being (IMO) an overall strategy to improve ICT. The attitude was simply that SMT know better about ICT related matters than a team of ICT specialists employed by Becta, which of course is completely ridiculous. This particualrly annoys me because SMT will happily spend thousands on the latest technological fad without investing in infratructure or having any concept of TCO.

 

The whole point is that its an overall strategy that would raise standards, its something that I personally try to work to but find I often can't because (sensible) ICT decisions are overruled by SMT

[Geoff]

Spyware: Shall have access to spyware protection? Are there any really good commercial spyware products? When we move to Symantec 10.1 in the summer it should have some spyware protection. I am far more worried about rootkits than spyware, although they are often used together.

 

The sunbelt antispyware is decent. centralised management/deployment/reporting etc. Everything you'd want really.

 

http://www.sunbelt-software.com/

 

Edge firewalls would be more of an issue if I had *real* internet access, but I do pass most data through a debian vm running shorewall.

 

The amount of junk that floats in from my LEA's network is depressing. Try putting snort on your debian box and see how much it notices. I bet you wont be happy.

[russdev]

I think the real problem with the tech spec not any of the technical solutions that they recommend, but is the fact that it is largely optional, AFIK the specification it is not enforced by either incentives or disincentives (although I understand that it will form the basis of a contractural requirement for BSF schools).

 

I informed SMT of the tech spec when I read it in November, but they decided they would *completely* ignore the document despite it being (IMO) an overall strategy to improve ICT. The attitude was simply that SMT know better about ICT related matters than a team of ICT specialists employed by Becta, which of course is completely ridiculous. This particualrly annoys me because SMT will happily spend thousands on the latest technological fad without investing in infratructure or having any concept of TCO.

 

The whole point is that its an overall strategy that would raise standards, its something that I personally try to work to but find I often can't because (sensible) ICT decisions are overruled by SMT

 

I see what mean but a lot of it is for bsf but then best way is get lea involved see if can get site survey done by lea techies and ask them to put into report that future upgrades should be in line with becta standards.

 

Then you are halfway there as smt cant argue as much as...

 

Russ

[russdev]

Sorry to be a vampire raise old post from the dead My Grumbledork sir have you got any updated copies of the spec that you can share.

 

Russell

[GrumbleDook]

Publicly available on the Becta website (found using their search engine ... not Google!)

 

Industry and developers - Technical specification: institutional infrastructure - Becta

[russdev]

doh

 

Thanks

 

 

Russell