SOLUS 3 field trials

[PhilNeal]

We have begun to field trial SOLUS 3 through LAs and schools that we know. I'd love to be able to involve a couple of schools from this community that have had difficulties with the current version of SOLUS.

 

SOLUS 3 will be delivered in two phases. The first (in autumn 2009) aimed at automating deployment of SIMS on workstations, the second (in 2010) at deploying and managing the rollout of SIMS on servers and workstations.

 

SOLUS 3 phase 1 is capable of placing an agent on workstations that install or upgrades SIMS. This agent will download and apply SIMS workstation upgrades in the background without involvement by the users , it will also enable auto deployment of any infrastructure needed for SIMS, in the case of phase 1 this will apply .net framework 3.5. There is a monitor that shows which machines have had agents applied successfully etc.

 

If you are interested in taking part in testing SOLUS3 phase 1, please email [email protected].

Edited September 14, 2009 by PhilNeal
Fuller text

[Jamman960]

I'd be very interested in taking part, it sounds like it'll take alot of the headaches away from the updating process.

[vikpaw]

I'd love to try this Phil, as we have some rather slow machines and a few bottlenecks.

Auto-update of SIMs would be great for the first day back and after any other upgrade so they have no excuses for not taking the register with Lesson Monitor.

[EduTech]

I would also be very interested in this, I'll send an email later this morning when i get 5 minutes.

 

Thanks,

 

James.

[PhilNeal]

Thank you to those schools that have signed up. Excellet feedback - so far!

[IrritableTech]

I have to admit, I'm not convinced by SOLUS 3.

 

I completed an upgrade last night on the server (at a time convenient to me), and my workstations have all upgraded this morning with the minimum of fuss. All using SOLUS 2.

 

I want to be able to decide when upgrades are applied. I don't want capita to decide for me. I can see the advantage to smaller schools with little or no regular technical help.

 

We all know that occasionally upgrades break something. I prefer to wait a little bit to see what problems people have before updating my schools server.

 

Please tell me, you can turn off the automated server upgrade process right?

[enjay]

Until such point as Capita can consistently release versions of SIMS which they don't pull within a week, there will always be a 10-foot pole between me and automatic updates.

[Jamman960]

Must admit I'd never have the sims updating process fully automated, I always wait a while before deploying the latest version etc but having it push the updates to pcs rather than clients being updated when the user wants to use the program should make a big difference.

 

At the moment the "Head of IT" here wants me to update the pc's myself to avoid having teachers wait 20mins before they can use sims in the mornings. Having the PC's woken up during the night and updated would be ideal... currently the only time I get away with updating is outside of term time.

[vikpaw]

I don't really want the server to auto-update but i'd like the workstations to do so, once i've decided to update the server.

I'm hoping that's a possibility....

[zag]

Does this fix the need to have local power user rights for the logged in user?

 

Thats been a nightmare ever since we started to use sims.

Edited September 16, 2009 by zag

[PhilNeal]

SOLUS 3 is not about us deciding on when you upgrade (LA may manage this for you) - its about making the whole process smoother. An upgrade that is applied on your command avoids bottlenecks at registration time and tells you when and where there have been failures.

 

There should never have been a need for elevated rights after SIMSPERM has been run. SOLUS3 avoids you even having to visit a new machine to install SIMS.

Edited September 16, 2009 by PhilNeal
Reads better - I think!

[mullet_man]

don't know if I'll have the time to test it, but it sounds great.

 

There's always the few machines that don't update correctly, so if this helps that would be good news.

[IrritableTech]

Does this fix the need to have local power user rights for the logged in user?

 

Thats been a nightmare ever since we started to use sims.

 

Your users shouldn't need Power User rights. Find your simsperm.bat file, and either run that against a group of users that need to use sims, or copy the permissions into a new GPO and assign that way. I prefer the second method.

 

The upgrade of clients is easy once you get the permissions set right. Let me know if you want me to explain further.

 

Thanks for your reply Phil. As long as I can decide when the server upgrade is to be done, I'll be happy.

[enjay]

SOLUS 3 is not about us deciding on when you upgrade (LA may manage this for you) - its about making the whole process smoother.

 

So I would still have the option to wait 3 weeks after the release date, and only when I'm satisfied it is safe, initiate the automatic update - yes?

[PhilNeal]

Nick - yes the choice is still with schools.

[enjay]

Nick - yes the choice is still with schools.

 

In which case, I would be keen to install it, although there's too much else on my desk right now for a field trial. Thanks, Phil.