RM CC3 - any good?

[Geoff]

The only thing that you've listed there that a vanilla Windows install doesn't have is printer credits.

 

Fixable on the cheap with Linux+Samba+CUPS+PyKota.

[webman]

Norphy; no, I was quoting and replying to Quackers on his RM 2.4 issues - he was complaining that if "anything went wrong i never got to fix it my self" - just put a build disk in. He seemed to imply that he'd rather have a non-CC3 network and fixing things another way. If I got the wrong end of that particular stick I apologise.

[djm968]

Getting back to the question! (I am not going to get involved in the RM war)

 

Another option could be to buy some support in sort the network out and point you in the right direction.

 

A few days consultancy and some training thrown in wouldn't cost too much….. and before anyone asks, I am not touting for business, I have enough at the moment and Nottinghamshire doesn’t really appeal to me.

[bossman]

Consultancy at what cost! £1000 per day from some one who wants to sell you something as well as his advice. three days and there is your RM CC3 server fully commisioned and ready to go, just add PCs and stir gently adding peripherals to taste fully supported with no extra costs involved you don't have to buy your PC's from them, all told for 50 PC's one RM server plus peripherals approx 25-30k all kitted out raring to go.

Or if you go down the Vanilla route, 1 server 1-2k with 2k3 R2 then time after having a consultant in three days add 3k then sorting RIS server and building MSI's deploying through various third party software or GPO and a good six weeks to set up, sorry but i know what i would rather do you can learn as you go on with the RM and maybe at a later state if you wish move away at very little cost.

[djm968]

£1000 a day! I would be in the Behamas right now if I could get away with charging that!

 

Some of us are not out to rip schools off, are completely independent and provide a valuable service for those who need it.

 

You should expect to pay no more than £500 per day for this kind of service.

[NetworkGeezer]

@Bossman

RM must charge a service element over and above license and hardware costs. They have to pay their technicians too.

[russdev]

dont think it was rm who charged £1000...

 

Russ

[djm968]

I don’t want to get into a war over daily consultancy rates, I was just pointing out other options and for some schools especially primary’s where they cannot justify £25k pa for a network manager a managed service is a reasonable compromise.

 

All of my educational clients have network managers, many have two or more technicians but they buy in support for various reasons.

[russdev]

no wasnt trying to post was aimed @NetworkGeezer sorry

 

Russ

[GrumbleDook]

There is nothing wrong with buying in support. People often confuse buying in support with having naff tech support ... and often it is quite the opposite.

 

Knowing when to buy in support is a sign of good management and it varies from school to school.

 

An example from my experience. At a previous school we had to move from a Unix based file and auth server to W2K ... no training and no real time to do it. It wasn't perfect and we still ran with the Unix box as file server which need some software updates which manglement had decided not to cough up for ... and with disasterous results during an OFSTED.

 

So they touted round for some conslutants who said they could do everything in spite of the NMs reservations ... and they couldn't ... so it was left with the NM and myself to sort out the Mac and unix side of things ...

 

The amount of time and money that was spent on it could have been spent on training and utilities to do the job in-house ... and we had the capacity to do it too. This is an important point to remember.

 

Then we have my present school ... last summer we needed to make some major changes to the network infrastructure ... change the core switch, reroute some cables ... and so we got someone in to do it.

 

This freed up time for the NM to work on a new deployment of the domain, moving from admin and curriculum to a single domain and then making changes to the way we deploy machines and software.

 

With the amount of work we have on, there have been a number of times when I know we can save time and make things more efficient by moving onto some sort of managed system; that is why we looked at LNM earlier in the year ... but it is not quite up to what we want yet. CC3 is a lot closer, but Ranger on top of a Vanilla domain seems to offer best value for money *for my school* ... but we are sticking with a vanilla system for a few reasons (including some future developments invloving rooms full of Vista machines).

 

For some schools TCO is just about the cost of the software / hardware ... for some schools it is about the time saved so staff can do other things.

 

I suppose it depends on your drive or focus in the school. If you are expected just to make sure those pretty lights work in the network cabs then freeing up more time may not be as important ... but freeing up technical staff to work with and support departments (usually to help them become *more* independant of the tech support team) is crucial to me. Anything that allows for this is a good thing IMHO ... as a former member of the "RM is the second source of all evil" team I have had a change of heart ... and whilst not exactly as evangelical about these things as some may be about Macs or OSS I do believe that if it works for a particular school and they have spent time to ensure it is the right decision don't start having a go and say they are wasting money.

 

Respect their decision and respect their professionalism.

 

I think I'll leave this thread now ... I don't think I have anything else to add that I haven't already said ... but I am glad noone mentioned CSE. Now *there* is a waste of money!!!

[wesleyw]

Shock horror I'm actually going to praise RM! Not for CC3 which TBH is actually very good if you can afford it and get direct support not have to go through the LEA first, not because the LEA is a problem but they have enough without having to send off all of our issues to RM! I want to praise them for their ISP connection which I know is off topic but damn its been brilliant and very reliable!

 

Okay back on topic Katem from an unbias view point you have several different options available to you which all will work but have dependancies rooted in cost, time and easy of use. If you want something quick and easy to setup which works reliably then CC3 will be fine sadly at a cost some schools find prohibitive. Ranger again you'll need to setup a few things vanilla system then install ranger on top so time money but a reliable system none the less. LNM (Learning Network Manager) Which isn't difficult to install but many of the functions of CC3 it just doesn't have!

A basic vanilla setup with a few third party products doesn't cost comparatively much but takes time to setup if you plan it right you can get away with a fast installation but I took about 6 months to plan and test and implement which is sadly a little excessive but I wanted to have a "bullet-proof" system I could be happy with (It worked lol)

 

Many of the guys and gals here can help you with pretty much anything you could imagine, Geoff seems to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Linux and Open Source for a start and a very good knowledge of Windows systems too! (He's a real ale drinker like me so I'm bias ) Grumbledook and Webman, Russdev, ChrisH, NetworkGeezer, Bossman, Norphy, Plexer (sorry to everyone I've missed but damn there's lots of you!) there's so many of these guys that make using Edugeek such a great resource if they can't help you it's an exception to the norm! IF there isn't a way to do something some of them will even have scripts and exe's they've written to get round the limitations so whichever direction you decide to go they'll be someone to help you through most of it! Nottinghamshire not far from me so if you really have difficulty I think my school will let me come and give you a hand if you really need it.

 

CC3 or CSE or Viglen Class for a very easy installation and a nice management console to sort out problems

 

Vanilla for a very customiseable system

 

Ranger for tight security

 

LNM to help the installation of a Vanilla system.

 

 

Wes

[Quackers]

Shock horror I'm actually going to praise RM! Not for CC3 which TBH is actually very good if you can afford it and get direct support not have to go through the LEA first, not because the LEA is a problem but they have enough without having to send off all of our issues to RM! I want to praise them for their ISP connection which I know is off topic but damn its been brilliant and very reliable!

 

How much do you get charged? RM Provide our broadband via the LEA and we get charged stupid fee's. In september, i want the www A record of our domain changing to a different IP. There is no web based control for this like you get with say 123reg. Instead we get charged £50. £50!!! to change an A record entry. I then wanted a new A record, moodle.ourdomain.lea.sch.uk. Yet another £50 charge. Apparently this is the agreement. Personally i think the charges are discusting, but i'm not sure if is the LEA's or RM's fault. If they can have a webcontrol for the filter lists per site, why not provide one for domain name control.

[wesleyw]

Actually I'll have to look but our LEA charges us directly, as for A Record Entry ours hasn't cost anything we just put in a change of control form detailing what we want and the LEA just sort it out! I have to admit our support is usually very quick to get anything requested done! I've recently had two changes to our A Level records and there could be a possible third or fourth soon.

 

 

Wes

[moosa1991Ant]

Hello does anyone know were to get this from is their a download at all/

[Edu-IT]

This topic is 11 years old, what is it that you want?

[sparkeh]

A download for CC3?

No.

 

Ahh CC3... memories [emoji3]