To RM or not to RM, that is the question...

[PiqueABoo]

I wouldn't expect any IT Professional who had reservations

 

I'm speaking to the general case in this thread, but RM don't seem to have had too much trouble selling into primary schools (when those schools have the money) which previously had support of some kind. Why?

 

my opinion that a vanilla setup outweighs what an RM setup can deliver

 

A vanilla setup **can** outweigh, again it depends on who made and maintains it. There's no argument that a decent one that doesn't charge per station and for deployable office packages etc. should be cheaper.

 

general rule new CC4 sites aka ones that are not cc3 upgrades work well

 

Again I think the real rule was larger scales. Same code with the same bugs running on both. Not an expert on upgrades, but they have you rebuild all your computers and probably reset profiles(?). What exactly is carried over from CC3 then? Packages but they're not the reason. I have seen GPOs mentioned and I can believe that causes glitches if you were stubborn enough to want to hang on to them. Noting that I haven't seen a patch saying "for sites upgraded from CC3" then what else is specifically causing problems for upgrades?

 

Premise: Majority upgrade = secondary, Majority new = primary. A 5% chance of a problem hits a few PCs at a primary and may not be seen unless they happen of Friday morning when a tech is on site, whereas a secondary tech might get 50 complaints. Similarly for amount of stress on the FR server e.g. more PCs means more stress and more chance of routine trouble if memory usage is an issue.

[Tallwood_6]

Couldnt agree more, CC4 has some fundamental issues and the general feeling i get is RM are now scampering trying to make the best of a bad product. Comparing a Vanilla setup to CC3 is a completly different kettle of fish, that is a mature product that works for the majority of sites small and large quite well.

[Little-Miss]

Wow, ok. This is my first role as a network manager, some members may be of the opinion that i shouldnt be messing with jobs like this if im not sure about what im doing, but thats how i learn. We all had to learn somewhere...

 

There's no way that im going to do this on my own, so im obviously going to need some sort of support.

 

My plan is to buy a new server and get a company in to set up the server to a school standard whilst i shadow them. RM was only an option as i've worked at an RM school i've had some experience of CC3 and liked it. Apparently if i use Link2ICT i've got a little more security with them as they can play mediator with the company ive chosen from them if things were to go horribly wrong.

 

So far i've worked out:

• RM is going to cost more in the long run
  
• Its a bit heavy for some older workstations
  
• Vanilla pretty much depends on how its set up
  

 

I know its not possible for anyone to tell me which one i should go for, and i completely agree its whats best for the school.

 

Our current setup is Winsuite, we have no sort of monitoring tools and no print management so i'm going to start from scratch there. I've been pointed in the direction of impero, which i shall investigate.

 

Maybe what im after is for someone to do some sort of comparison for me....

 

Sorry this is basically some sort of brain dump!! lol

[TechMonkey]

I was also under the illusion that they dialed in for remote support and stuff where necessary?

 

The one thing I can't really fault RM for is their support. It would be the biggest thing I would miss if we went vanilla.

[t4ll1f3r]

However it has to be said that you wouldn't need the same level of support with a vanilla system.

[russdev]

However it has to be said that you wouldn't need the same level of support with a vanilla system.

 

Sorry that depends on skill of person currently employed. Also need to think about what happens in you leave etc as this is primary school this different kettle of fish to secondary school where might be more than one person in IT support department.

 

As always said it is what is best for the school.

 

 

Russ

[TechMonkey]

However it has to be said that you wouldn't need the same level of support with a vanilla system.

 

Depends on wether you know what questions or requests I have been asking them or not?

[gibbo_ap]

from what i have seen and read about cc4 (we are cc3) there are a lot of improvments.

 

one which i will find amazingly useful is that packages allocate whilst the user is logged on. this is done in the background. we have problems with flash 'dropping off', so its a case of allocate then reboot or log teacher/student off, log on as me manual install. cc4 installs in the background and will just start working.

 

the package viewer looks amazingly useful to. especially when doing licence audits. we all know we 'temp' instally software (with only x licences), if a room is out of action, to another room then forget. not best practice or legal but on times is needed.

 

and at the end of the day cc3 is only xp which as much as ppl try to forget this - support etc is coming to an end.

 

saying that it does have its downfalls (cc3). dont know if it is true with cc4 but sometimes i want to run as admin to install a program when a kid or staff member is logged on. actually going to check if there is a hack for this now lol (ideas pls lol)

[sparkeh]

As I think I have said before, you cannot make a blanket statement about which is better, Vanilla or CCx. Both have advantages and disadvantages that you have to weigh up in relation to your own school's needs and resources.

 

Couple of years ago I was in the position at two schools of weighing up replacing their peer-to-peer with either Vanilla or CC3. After an involved investigation I recommended CC3 to one school and Vanilla to the other as they fitted in with what the school wanted.

 

The CC3 school decided that they didn't want me to purely focus on running the network and can honestly say that CC3 has freed me up to work on other projects that the school thinks are important. I can also honestly say that I have learnt more at the Vanilla school as I had to set everything up myself. However, the recommendation I make is not based on what I think is best for me or my career but for the school.

 

CC4 is a different kettle of fish though. From the limited experience that I have with it, functionally, I like it a lot. I now have a school that is seriously considering it and have to make a decision soon. SR1 trials appear to have gone well and after speaking to a few people who have installed SR1 I am much encouraged.

 

I also have to say that RM support is on the whole excellent and don't recognise the comment about 1st line monkeys at all. The cost element is a factor but if you are a primary school without a full time tech then I think it is very useful indeed.

[Jamo]

from what i have seen and read about cc4 (we are cc3) there are a lot of improvments.

 

one which i will find amazingly useful is that packages allocate whilst the user is logged on. this is done in the background. we have problems with flash 'dropping off', so its a case of allocate then reboot or log teacher/student off, log on as me manual install. cc4 installs in the background and will just start working.

 

the package viewer looks amazingly useful to. especially when doing licence audits. we all know we 'temp' instally software (with only x licences), if a room is out of action, to another room then forget. not best practice or legal but on times is needed.

 

and at the end of the day cc3 is only xp which as much as ppl try to forget this - support etc is coming to an end.

 

saying that it does have its downfalls (cc3). dont know if it is true with cc4 but sometimes i want to run as admin to install a program when a kid or staff member is logged on. actually going to check if there is a hack for this now lol (ideas pls lol)

 

Havent some of the features of CC4 been available in Vanilla setups for a long time (eg BITS) CC4 seems to be playing catchup on some features which others have already got. We have CC3 here, and have to say its a very stable system, a few issues like profile corruption are more common than I would like but other than that it seems pretty good. Def agree that the RM system really slows up the older PCs.

[Theblacksheep]

one which i will find amazingly useful is that packages allocate whilst the user is logged on. this is done in the background. we have problems with flash 'dropping off', so its a case of allocate then reboot or log teacher/student off, log on as me manual install. cc4 installs in the background and will just start working.

 

Package allocation trickle is just BITS and can be done with a vanilla system.

[apoth0r]

However, the recommendation I make is not based on what I think is best for me or my career but for the school.

 

That is why you should come work with me! "Making a difference, one school at a time..."

[Tallwood_6]

CC4's BIT's package alloaction doesnt work nearly as well as RM make out nor does the package assigment overview.

SR1 has been a success thus far but they have had limited exposure to larger sites which is why they are taking an image of our servers this week to test out SR1 before upgrade before hand which is very handy for us but does raise some concerns. CC4's current implimentation isn't well load ballanced unlike a vanilla setup and relies heavily on the Forest Root, with no replication of the Postgres Database for which all the CC4 bits are held. CC4 WSUS also can only be installed on the FR, its all stuff to think about, you will definatly need a beefy server for that role especially on a larger network.

[Jamo]

CC4's BIT's package alloaction doesnt work nearly as well as RM make out nor does the package assigment overview.

SR1 has been a success thus far but they have had limited exposure to larger sites which is why they are taking an image of our servers this week to test out SR1 before upgrade before hand which is very handy for us but does raise some concerns. CC4's current implimentation isn't well load ballanced unlike a vanilla setup and relies heavily on the Forest Root, with no replication of the Postgres Database for which all the CC4 bits are held. CC4 WSUS also can only be installed on the FR, its all stuff to think about, you will definatly need a beefy server for that role especially on a larger network.

 

Arent the RM tools still limited to a 4GB RAM server? Though it depends what you call a beefy server. Spoke to my friend who works in a large company, laughed cus our SIMS server here is about as powerful as his phone lol

[witch]

I think your best bet would be to go and visit some local schools to see what they have got.

I work in two schools, one managed, one not and the glaring difference for me is that on the managed one, other people (trusted, lovely people of course) can do things like setting up users, changing passwords etc through an interface which means that they can't break anything else.

On a vanilla, in my experience, it ain't so easy.

In a primary, there is very limited time and technical staff so you need to consider this.

If you DO go vanilla, see if there is someone on here who could come and help you set up the basics, as this is the scariest part! You don't quite know what you want until you haven't got it, if you know what I mean.

As for RM, not long ago I did a direct comparision between RM and two others and RM were very much more expensive -and they had irritating things like charging you for every new machine on the network (others did "1-100' machines)

[Theblacksheep]

CC4's BIT's package alloaction doesnt work nearly as well as RM make out nor does the package assigment overview.

SR1 has been a success thus far but they have had limited exposure to larger sites which is why they are taking an image of our servers this week to test out SR1 before upgrade before hand which is very handy for us but does raise some concerns. CC4's current implimentation isn't well load ballanced unlike a vanilla setup and relies heavily on the Forest Root, with no replication of the Postgres Database for which all the CC4 bits are held. CC4 WSUS also can only be installed on the FR, its all stuff to think about, you will definatly need a beefy server for that role especially on a larger network.

 

Interesting Tallwood.

 

Is the exchange integration package done yet? (nov 08 release date)

Is there a version reporting tool on the servers?

[Tallwood_6]

Well know 64bit yes, all they can do is server 2003 enterprise which will address more than 4gig using PAE. Beefy for an RM CC4 FR would be 2x2.5ghz Quad Xeon with 8gb RAM if you have a site with more than 400 stations, our 2x3ghz Daul Core Xeon job with 4gb of RAM is struggles especially if you are rebuilding stations or assigning packages while god forbid people are actually using the network.

Same server on CC3 never even broke a sweat.

[Tallwood_6]

Interesting Tallwood.

 

Is the exchange integration package done yet? (nov 08 release date)

Is there a version reporting tool on the servers?

 

No exchange integration yet but thats only for 2003 anyway.

No version reporting tool that i know of.

No ACL Detective

No Network Recycle Bin

No Automated RM Updates

No Renaming of workstations

No RM Auditor, Logon & Web Monitor (not that you would want it)

 

I do sound somewhat negative about CC4, its not all bad and for smaller secondarys and primarys i can definatly see a benefit.

[Guest monkeyx]

One of my biggest issues with non vanilla systems.Almost any tech support company can help you out, or non RM school can help with problems if you stick with vanilla. Indeed google can be very helpfull

 

I know of some primary schools that are not able to get local support becuase they run RM systems. This is not a good thing.

 

If RM is so good why do very few (if any) non educational establishments use it? Please do not tell me about how special schools are etc etc etc. Most staff could be trained to the basics if required. Even RM users/adminsitrators require training.

[bossman]

@t4ll1f3r:

From what I read on here it is mostly vanilla network questions which need to be answered so how does this sit within this post?

 

I have ran a CC3 for 7 years now and not needed any SLAs for 6 from either RM or LA and have utilised AD and GPO of windows system when needed.

 

Initial costs are a little bit more than vanilla but long term these costs are recuperated from being able to do things quicker without having to script this and that so that you can get on with managing the network and giving the help to teaching staff more so.

 

Knowledge is a wonderful thing and lasts forever but Time is in short supply.

 

Little-Miss if you have the time then go vanilla if not then CC4 it's a choice only you can make.

 

good luck in making it

[Lee_K_81]

I personally dont like CC3 (never looked at 4) infact our local infants school were so unimpressed they dumped them after about 6 months, they were having a complete nightmare with the workstation installs, roaming profiles, etc. It all depends on your available time. Also do you work there full-time or are you shared (ooh err) between several schools. Do you have full control or is there a ICT co-ordinator getting involved adding users, trying to do some of the management.

 

There is nothing really that RM offer that cant be achieved in a vanilla setup even if you do have to go out and buy the occasional third party app for it.

 

To put it simply, which do you have more of, time or money?

[Little-Miss]

Hmm, i'm full time. ICT Co-ordinator does have some say but since ive been employed has left the network managment to me.

 

I dont have much of either at the moment! Money or time! Spend most of my time fire fighting, I think though sorting out the network would free up a lot of my time, so putting it that way, i dont have a lot of money - at all!

 

Should i be including 3rd party software in my calculations...are these needed straight away or just things that could be added when needed. Like i said we dont have any sort of print managment or what not so we're not losing out.

 

Will have a look on the forum or might start another thread about recommended software.

[TechMonkey]

As ever though it is swings and roundabouts. I have seen some questions on here and thought wow, we have it quite good as we have no problem with particular problem as it is covered. Or a security issue has come up and I've run the proof of concept and it immediately gets smacked down. Other things people have mentioned I have though that would be nice to be able to do.

 

Alot of the problem people have with RM are historical from when it was a very closed system or from an attiude that RM is for those that lack skills or you lose control of your network. I guess the same for those that dispised Novell or anyother tool that helped out.

 

As for the comment about training, everyone needs training, vanilla admin, rm admin, vanilla user, rm user. Can a user walk in and use an rm system without training? Of course! Can an admin? A competent one should be able to yes.

 

But all I can reiterate is what others have said. Work out what is best for the school. Get RM in and they can give you a demo, see other schools, compare costings and work out if you have the time, access to the training and money to do either option. We did this between the jump from RM2.4 to CC3 & although we actually intended to go Vanilla we decided in the end that it would make more sense to go CC3. We will be looking at the same decision in the next couple of years & I have a strong suspision the decision will go the other way. We shall see.

 

The only concern I would have is that currently CC4 does look a bit of a shambles. CC3 took about a year, year and a half to settle which is when we came in and we bypassed many of the horror stories we had heard about. We are staying put until roughly the same time frame asn then we shall see. That could sway your decision if you need to upgrade now.

[PEO]

during a demo of CC4 the managemnt interface crashed creating a user. that says alot imo when its on one machine and its not supporting more than 100 machines. not a great selling point.

 

and in comparison it is a great deal more expensive to go for compared to other products.

 

and you will find this out when you get your quotes in. we have to get a minimum of 3 qoutes in when we spend over X amount of £££££.

[Theblacksheep]

during a demo of CC4 the managemnt interface crashed creating a user. that says alot imo when its on one machine and its not supporting more than 100 machines. not a great selling point.

 

We went on a 3 day CC4 training course and got about 1/2 a day of use because it was so broken.