'Next Generation Securus'

[Edu-IT]

considering my problem we have spent 3 months looking into not having a clue why it was happening, worked out the problem... securus. we rang them and they knew it was a problem but didn't fancy telling us, so therefore is now currently off, i don't think we will be upgrading soon!!

Why what was happening?

 

To be fair, I wouldn't use Securus for web filtering anyway. It's good at what it does in terms of getting screen grabs but I don't think they're in the market for proper web filtering. I'd stick to using it just for screenshots.

[glennda]

Why what was happening?

 

To be fair, I wouldn't use Securus for web filtering anyway. It's good at what it does in terms of getting screen grabs but I don't think they're in the market for proper web filtering. I'd stick to using it just for screenshots.

 

 

Some users could not even open my computer or my docs etc, so couldn't save open anything everytime you tried it crashed explorer. we tried everything, it wasnt specific to a file server as we tried four, plus a linux samba share, we tried updating servers plus uninstalling macaffe we spent 3 months on and off thinking we had fixed. it wasnt just happening in one block so not a switching problem (or if it was, it was the main core switch, which we master reset to check). it was even happening when you tried to open the my docs while copied to the C:\ drive!!

 

Plus we didn't use it for web filtering, thats done at LEA level we used it for just violation reporting of dodgy things

[Edu-IT]

Please find attached revised pricing.

Securus Next Generation Order Form 0210.pdf

[billjenkins]

Sounds interesting, but i wonder it it'll run on any old box i can find rather than their £800 pc.

Yes. You can run the ISO on any computer with a minimum spec of Intel Atom, 2Gb RAM and suggested 320Gb HDD.

[Willott]

Bill,

 

Now that the pricing for the hardware version has been reduced, could you let us know whether the VM version is to be reduced in cost, and if not, why not?

 

Regards

 

Will

[billjenkins]

Bill,

 

Now that the pricing for the hardware version has been reduced, could you let us know whether the VM version is to be reduced in cost, and if not, why not?

 

Regards

 

Will

 

Hi Will,

 

Thanks for asking. The short answer is no. The VM version is a new release and was originally destined only for LA's where there are large requirements. At BETT many of you asked if we would release a VM version for schools and after consideration we decided that it would be a good idea to do so but only after we'd made everyone aware of the risks. Our concern is surrounding the issue of what happens if Securus picks up an ILLEGAL activity? With our current offering, the police will call and take the Securus server away. Our Service Level Agreement caters for a replacement. But what about VM? This hasn't been tested and we're anxious not to expose our clients to extra risk until we know all the answers which is why we're telling everyone before we agree to supplying.

 

As to the cost? We do have to put work into creating the VM ISO and after discussions with a couple of you it was deemed to be a fair price. I don't actually know what price you're referring to but am assuming you are talking about £495 for a Secondary School ISO? We did reduce the price of the Next Generation server after a fair argument from a forum member but this isn't a reason to do the same for the ISO. We do need to make money to pay for all our development and support work, vulgar as this may sound!

 

Hope this helps.

 

Bill

[Willott]

We do need to make money to pay for all our development and support work, vulgar as this may sound!

 

Hi Bill,

 

Thanks for the reply... I find this part of your comment the most interesting... I thought that the Annual Support and Maintenance covered the support work, and surely any money from people purchasing Securus after you stopped developing the previous version (which I assume you must have done, considering we haven't seen any developments since we purchased in October, and the most recent V6 is from June 2009 according to your customer site) must go towards the development costs of NG.

 

I'm also a little concerned by the tone of the comment, but I'll let that pass this morning.

 

Regards

 

Will

[glennda]

Thanks for asking. The short answer is no. The VM version is a new release and was originally destined only for LA's where there are large requirements. At BETT many of you asked if we would release a VM version for schools and after consideration we decided that it would be a good idea to do so but only after we'd made everyone aware of the risks. Our concern is surrounding the issue of what happens if Securus picks up an ILLEGAL activity? With our current offering, the police will call and take the Securus server away. Our Service Level Agreement caters for a replacement. But what about VM? This hasn't been tested and we're anxious not to expose our clients to extra risk until we know all the answers which is why we're telling everyone before we agree to supplying.

 

 

Could you not just give the police a copy of the VM files and they could boot it up in VMware player or something like that? therefore the client wouldn't need to get a new server installed/re-setup. Plus the police will have there copy for them to check through and investigate if criminal activity has happened

[billjenkins]

Hi Bill,

 

Thanks for the reply... I find this part of your comment the most interesting... I thought that the Annual Support and Maintenance covered the support work, and surely any money from people purchasing Securus after you stopped developing the previous version (which I assume you must have done, considering we haven't seen any developments since we purchased in October, and the most recent V6 is from June 2009 according to your customer site) must go towards the development costs of NG.

 

I'm also a little concerned by the tone of the comment, but I'll let that pass this morning.

 

Regards

 

Will

Hi Will,

 

Firstly, let me address the last part of your email. I would never wish to offend, and the comment was made in recognition of the fact that you all have to get a gallon into a pint pot. This is always a problem with written communications, the tone that can be heard on phone call is not there and can sometimes be misunderstood. I will try to be more careful in my responses, thank you for pointing this out.

 

You're largely right. The existing ASM costs are for continued support and updates to the existing version which will cease to be supported on 31st January 2013. There are fixes being published for V6 in the next month with a new client as well. These are currently in test. We also send out patches which don't necessarily go on general release when specific issues are raised and hold them back for a general release. We have just appointed a Customer Services Manager who is taking responsibility for communication with our clients, an area that has needed addressing for some time and which needed much improvement so I hope you will see some changes very quickly.

 

Are you aware of our support site - Securus Support Centre | Login and do you have a login? If not please email [email protected] and this will give you access to all the latest news and views.

 

We continue to support, bug fix and update V6 in parallel with our work on NG.

 

Bill

[tom_newton]

Bill - I can see where you are coming from. We know it takes a lot of time and money to redevelop a piece of software. Indeed we are starting some releases shortly (auth component in March) which are ground-up rewrites for the modern filter and it is awful to have to scale back dev on existing components, and to wait... and wait... until finally the new stuff is done, then all the testing.. and all this time you don't see a penny - yes, I can see why when "new securus" contains no (virtually no?) code from "old securus" you might want to charge an upgrade. We're doing our modernisation one room at a time... whereas you guys simply moved house I guess there's pros and cons to both methods. We can keep costs lower (and not charge an upgrade fee) but it takes longer.

 

As for legal eagles swooping in and taking your securus away - is it possible to write the database to DVD etc. nightly? That would seem a decent fix.

 

Tom

[glennda]

As for legal eagles swooping in and taking your securus away - is it possible to write the database to DVD etc. nightly? That would seem a decent fix.

 

Tom

 

The Databases are rather large (well ours is, might just be we have rather naughty kids!)

[billjenkins]

Bill - I can see where you are coming from. We know it takes a lot of time and money to redevelop a piece of software. Indeed we are starting some releases shortly (auth component in March) which are ground-up rewrites for the modern filter and it is awful to have to scale back dev on existing components, and to wait... and wait... until finally the new stuff is done, then all the testing.. and all this time you don't see a penny - yes, I can see why when "new securus" contains no (virtually no?) code from "old securus" you might want to charge an upgrade. We're doing our modernisation one room at a time... whereas you guys simply moved house I guess there's pros and cons to both methods. We can keep costs lower (and not charge an upgrade fee) but it takes longer.

 

As for legal eagles swooping in and taking your securus away - is it possible to write the database to DVD etc. nightly? That would seem a decent fix.

 

Tom

Hi Tom,

 

Yes that's totally possible. Indeed we recommend that backups are taken regularly and the way in which this is done is entirely at the discretion of the user. The 'Webmin' interface caters for this functionality.

Thanks for your kind welcome to the forum Tom. Much appreciated. Bill

[billjenkins]

The Databases are rather large (well ours is, might just be we have rather naughty kids!)

You're right. The database can be up to within 90% of the physical hard disk size so a DVD would be pushing it (unless there's some brand new technology out there?) Perhaps an example of typical file sizes would be useful as a very broad outline. Typically, in a Secondary school with about 1000 users, an 80Gb Hard Disk will retain about five to six months of data. Securus NG has a minimum spec of 320Gb so on that basis you'd be looking at between 20-24 months of storage. BUT (and it's a really big BUT) you can configure the software to attach to additional devices (NAS etc.) so you could potentially keep the data forever! Thank you, Bill

[mjs_mjs]

You're right. The database can be up to within 90% of the physical hard disk size so a DVD would be pushing it (unless there's some brand new technology out there?) Perhaps an example of typical file sizes would be useful as a very broad outline. Typically, in a Secondary school with about 1000 users, an 80Gb Hard Disk will retain about five to six months of data. Securus NG has a minimum spec of 320Gb so on that basis you'd be looking at between 20-24 months of storage. BUT (and it's a really big BUT) you can configure the software to attach to additional devices (NAS etc.) so you could potentially keep the data forever! Thank you, Bill

 

tape/portable hard drive then if you want to move it about or multiple blu ray disks for worm.

[billjenkins]

Could you not just give the police a copy of the VM files and they could boot it up in VMware player or something like that? therefore the client wouldn't need to get a new server installed/re-setup. Plus the police will have there copy for them to check through and investigate if criminal activity has happened

Hi,

 

It's a good idea and certainly workable so thanks for your suggestions. In reality I think we're all going to have to educate the police about VM and cloud computing as and when (hopefully never ) the need arises. We do work closely with a number of police forces who use Securus to monitor prosecuted sex offenders and it's their high tech crimes units who are responsible for seizing hardware. This is an ongoing concern and like many things, no-one is sure of the outcome until the first event occurs! Thanks, Bill

[billjenkins]

tape/portable hard drive then if you want to move it about or multiple blu ray disks for worm.

 

Hi,

 

Great idea that will cover off the issue entirely (assuming all the data is on the one hard disk)

Appreciate the feeback, Bill

[Willott]

Hi Bill,

 

It's good to know that you've appointed a Customer Service manager, communication is an area where I have found Securus to be lacking, be it a response to a support email where I had stated I had looked in the manual that told me to look in the manual and then call if it wasn't clear (I had asked for an example of management groups with regards to staff and student users), or the communication 1 month before release of NG that there was a new version of Securus to be released (only a couple of months after purchasing Securus in the first place). As Securus was a "to be bought this financial year" project, we could have held off til February to purchase if we'd known about the new version - looking through your site (including the customer support section) I can't see any news item regarding the new version.

 

I do fully understand where you're coming from about needing some income to fund the development, and understand that it would always be a major development as the move from proprietary OS with propriertary hardware to more mainstream OS and hardware was made, I just hope that now this has occured future development will lean more towards Smoothwall's progression.

 

I hope that you can also understand it's very difficult to have a situation where you would like to have the best solution, and where you do have it for a couple of months, then find out that to have the best solution it's going to cost you another few hundred quid to upgrade after paying out a significant sum to get what was the best solution a couple of months ago (apologies for the cyclical nature of the sentence).

 

Thanks for your replies, and also for your work on Securus, it is a brilliant tool, and we find it very useful here.

 

Regards

 

Will

[Edu-IT]

I know me and you have had a chat already about this Will. As with anything as soon as you take it away, it becomes old, and there is something new in the pipeline. That's just the way with technology. If your current Securus setup is doing what you want it to do then chances are for the time being you do not need this upgrade and can continue to get some ROI so to speak from Securus LCD2. The main focus of Securus NG seems to be reporting and more granular control over policies. While this is a great addition, I wouldn't kick yourself over your purchase. It still is a great product and does what it's meant to do. Keep it for a bit then when you are next in a position to upgrade, go for it. The core monitoring is still the same it seems.

[Chunky]

I saw this at BETT too - looks fantastic - all I need to do now is persuade the powers that be that we need to invest in it. For what it costs, it's a cracking solution. (looks luch more functional than when I saw it a few years ago)

 

Chunks

[billjenkins]

Will,

 

Please call me on my mobile 07881 980661

 

Thanks,

 

Bill

[tom_newton]

Hmmm. There must be a solution out there for large scale write-only... maybe some sort of tape... Bill - if I see one, you will be first to know

[Willott]

Worm on HDD is apparently a possibility - not sure how well that works or how it works - KOM Networks - Fixed Content Hard Disk Archiving (e-WORM) and http://intelligent-enterprise.informationweek.com/info_centers/storage/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=QQHMEGTPSDOJTQE1GHRSKH4ATMY32JVN?articleID=18200855 are two bits on it.

 

Edit: Just found another possibility for Linux based systems - there's also windows and mac toolkits on same site - http://www.softarch.com/EN/SDK/SDKLinuxAppliWorm.html

 

Thanks for your number Bill, I'll give you a bell later today if that's OK, bit busy here at present (and my tech's out for the next couple of hours).

 

Cheers

 

Will

Edited February 9, 2010 by Willott

[BrotherSidious]

Regarding a VM Version. We have several virtual machines and we use Veeam to snaphot them to a trio of seperate servers which between then have 12Tb of storage. If we had a 350Gb Virtual Securus we could snapshot that to a 1Tb drive on one of these servers and if there was an incident then that 1Tb drive could be handed to the police. Our current system would remian intact and uninterrupted and the police would have the raw data on the physical 1Tb Drive. Granted they will need a virtual envoronment and a copy of Veeam to recover it to but as some of the naughty people out there are using virtual machines in an attempt to hide what they are doing I feel certain that somehwere in the country the police will have access to this technology.

 

With pressure on my department to reduce electricity bills a virtual solution fits in with our current strategy whereas purchasing a new server (we are currently not with Securus but considering our options) goes completely against this approach.

 

I know securus will provide an evaluation physical box so I would like to ask if you will be offering a VM based evaluation option as when our current solution comes up for renewal (Nov this year) I would have liked the opportunity to have evaluated other solutions to ensure we are getting "best value for money".

Edited June 23, 2010 by BrotherSidious

[Edu-IT]

Regarding a VM Version. We have several virtual machines and we use Veeam to snaphot them to a trio of seperate servers which between then have 12Tb of storage. If we had a 350Gb Virtual Securus we could snapshot that to a 1Tb drive on one of these servers and if there was an incident then that 1Tb drive could be handed to the police. Our current system would remian intact and uninterrupted and the police would have the raw data on the physical 1Tb Drive. Granted they will need a virtual envoronment and a copy of Veeam to recover it to but as some of the naughty people out there are using virtual machines in an attempt to hide what they are doing I feel certain that somehwere in the country the police will have access to this technology.

 

With pressure on my department to reduce electricity bills a virtual solution fits in with our current strategy whereas purchasing a new server (we are currently not with Securus but considering our options) goes completely against this approach.

 

I know securus will provide an evaluation physical box so I would like to ask if you will be offering a VM based evaluation option as when our current solution comes up for renewal (Nov this year) I would have liked the opportunity to have evaluated other solutions to ensure we are getting "best value for money".

Might be better to pose your question directly to Securus either by email or on the phone in case Bill isn't checking this thread now.

 

Just installed Securus NG here and it's pretty sweet!