The Best School Network

[ceebster]

Hi Guys

 

I have a question for you all.

 

We have Thin Clients, laptops and Fat Clients. We user terminal services for the TC and laptops and have local apps on the fat clients.

 

I have lots of servers - and just wonder, if i wanted a world class IT system to go with our school, how would you guys go about it.

 

What woud you put in for managing Apps, and printers, TS sessions etc ??

 

2003, 2008, 2008r2?

 

Xp Vista or 7

 

Which way would you goes do it

 

Thanks in great anticipation :-)

[SC-UK]

I think "the best school network" really is unique to each school. A good network will suit the needs of the school and the users the best way possible.

[u8dmtm]

I think a world-class network does not depend on OS (within reason) but on whats on top of it, its reliability, how its suported and how well it meets the needs of its users.

[mattx]

The best network, is no network at all.

Pen and paper - can't beat it. Hardly ever fails.

[ceebster]

Touche!

[bizzel]

Backups take forever to run though!

 

Pen and paper - can't beat it. Hardly ever fails.

[powdarrmonkey]

C:\> create worlds best network

create worlds best network: unknown command

[tmcd35]

The best network, is no network at all.

Pen and paper - can't beat it. Hardly ever fails.

 

Until you run out of Ink, Paper or loose the pencil sharpner

 

Also some members of SEN (teachers?) may have a problem here too

[mattx]

C:\> create worlds best network

create worlds best network: unknown command

 

You forgot to say please.

 

Until you run out of Ink, Paper or loose the pencil sharpner

 

I'll get my sandbox out and use my finger until further notice....

[gshaw]

It's an interesting question, can you ever achieve perfection (or a really good imitation of it at least!) at any point with IT?

 

I see so many different models and surveys of finding out how far up the automation scale you are etc but have you ever seen or heard of an example of such a network... where everything auto provisions, no manual input or workaround fixes required.

 

All the hardware runs lightning quick, apps auto update without fuss all with minimal effort.

 

Hmmm... doubt it... Adobe still make software so it can never happen

[beeswax]

I think "the best school network" really is unique to each school. A good network will suit the needs of the school and the users the best way possible.

 

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? errr...no it's BSF.

[SC-UK]

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a monster? errr...no it's BSF.

 

Exactly.

[powdarrmonkey]

It's an interesting question, can you ever achieve perfection (or a really good imitation of it at least!) at any point with IT?

 

My imaging process is near perfection - one F12 to boot, one enter to confirm, and an hour later it's ready for login with all software, drivers, etc (the image is empty, software is all done on demand so I can move a machine from art to music without a problem).

[PiqueABoo]

if i wanted a world class IT system to go with our school

 

You can't afford the hardware.

 

That aside, it pretty much has to be virtual these days and you ought to want failover. There's ESX but I might be tempted to use Server R2 HV now. Thereafter, the basic problem is compatibility with the applications you need to run.

 

The OS for (virtual) servers: I'd use 2K8 x64 right now and 2K8 R2 whenever the 3rd party software you need has fixed it's compatibility problems.

 

The OS for (virtual) terminal servers: Depends on the apps you want to run - do they work on that version of the server OS?

 

The OS for (fat) workstations: I'm still happy with XP because everything works on it, no one in their right mind is going to do anything new with Vista, but the world hasn't had enough experience of Windows 7 yet. Again do all the apps you want that have to be "fat" work on Win7?

 

The manglement: Well there's always that SCCM, SCOM but they, especially the second one, appear to need dedicated staff (who do nothing else) to figure out and use.

 

This time next year I expect to be saying 2K8 R2 + Win7 and they get you some desirable things, but yes I agree that OS is only part of the picture and it absolutely does depend on careful/clueful (genuine requirement driven) design and nurturing.

[PiqueABoo]

can you ever achieve perfection (or a really good imitation of it at least!) at any point with IT?

 

You can if you (know how and) make it yourself i.e. have complete control of whatever-it-is. I made something very ambitious/serious earlier this year, it obviously does exactly what I want and although this never ceases to amaze me, it just carries on working.

 

Otherwise probably not, because you're dependent on all that 3rd party stuff which should be perfect by now, except they keep rewriting it and making you buy the "new improved" buggy version.

[azrael78]

The manglement: Well there's always that SCCM, SCOM but they, especially the second one, appear to need dedicated staff (who do nothing else) to figure out and use.

 

I haven't tried SCCM but I'm running SCOM and I've figured it out for the most part and I HAVE to do other things... but SCOM is a complicated beast. But once it's mostly in and working, you can more or less leave it to it's own devices and make checking the alerts part of a daily maintenance task.

 

(We are almost at that part - yay)

 

Az

[budgester]

My imaging process is near perfection - one F12 to boot, one enter to confirm, and an hour later it's ready for login with all software, drivers, etc (the image is empty, software is all done on demand so I can move a machine from art to music without a problem).

 

How do you do this ?

[powdarrmonkey]

How do you do this ?

 

WDS to deploy an image, careful manipulation of sysprep to pull in the right drivers, and lots of post-install registry hackery to do things like install management software, set some options, manage a couple of reboots and trigger software installation. Oh, and active directory pre-staging to allow automatic naming.

 

It used to have an extra step - presenting a pendrive with the wireless settings during postinstall - but now we have radius that comes from group policy, so that extra step is replaced with coffee now.

 

The image itself takes about 15 minutes to pull, sysprep about another five and software installation between 20 and 40, after which there's a final reboot and the user sees a normal login screen.

Edited September 11, 2009 by powdarrmonkey

[gshaw]

You can't afford the hardware.

 

The manglement: Well there's always that SCCM, SCOM but they, especially the second one, appear to need dedicated staff (who do nothing else) to figure out and use.

 

 

I've had SMS for what feels like ages now and still trying to convince myself I want SCCM, eventually it'll have to be upgraded... hopefully before the next imaging cycle

 

Also got SCOM at the last Campus Agreement renewal... beefy bit of kit that I started putting on but had to leave for now as we've lost a tech and generally had a mental summer here... really want to get it sorted though as I've got two 22" TFTs mounted on the wall just waiting for a pretty network status map to be permanently on display