Nottinghamshire members - One County, One Network

[36Degrees]

Anyone out there who knows a lot about this? Or even anything definitive about this? Had the guy from the County Council here this morning to look at our current infrastructure and I have to say I'm slightly concerned.

[mavhc]

Nottinghamshire is leaving EMBC, the county council have got synetrix to run a new service, it'll be pretty much like the old one (exchange, netsweeper etc), except the council people will use it too, also we get 10/100 instead of 2/10 for primary/secondary. Starts in Sep, has to be finished for March as that's when their contract for the old system ends.

[36Degrees]

I gleaned that much this morning but it was things like:

 

• would we now have direct access to Synetrix or would we still need to call someone else first
  
• what disruption there would be during installation
  
• when would the actual installations take place (best during half term, etc. but that is the only time I can take holiday)
  
• amount of equipment required compared to what we have now
  

 

I did have a few more that have completely flown out of my head now I'm trying to mention them here!

[Pottsey]

The only thing I was told was Faster connection speeds and one aim was to have one login to access Wired, Fronter and Email. I was not aware any changes needed to be made to our networks. I thought it was all web based with one network ID to access all the different NottsCC websites.

[mavhc]

1. No info, but I'll bet on calling Edit, they'll need a job when everyone's all BSF.

3. Up to BT apparently for the actual switchover, which will be at the exchange end. They don't have dates yet anyway afaik

4. I suppose they'd upgrade the router if it's too old, possibly put in more cable/connections for the speed upgrade if you're not on fiber.

 

The one location we had fiber in (for about 6 months until we moved (I know)), needed 1U for the fiber endpoint, and 1U for the router. The single/dual SDSL/Access SDH stuff is just a couple of boxes mounted on the wall/in the bottom of the cab.

[mavhc]

They want to check what router/connection etc you have currently I think

[36Degrees]

I was told this morning that we would have new equipment installed, which will actually require a new switch cabinet, partly because the connections to the Library and Youth Centre will be merged with ours. When I asked if we would therefore get more bandwidth to accomodate 3 he didn't know.

 

As the equipment is all located in our building what happens if we need to switch the power off for work we need doing? Also if the library's / youth centre's connection dies outside of school hours then they won't even be able to reboot it.

[36Degrees]

The one location we had fiber in (for about 6 months until we moved (I know)), needed 1U for the fiber endpoint, and 1U for the router. The single/dual SDSL/Access SDH stuff is just a couple of boxes mounted on the wall/in the bottom of the cab.

 

I was told they needed at least 5U of rack space.

[Willott]

Information gleamed thus far from various EdIT sources:

 

• Connections will be moved over by the March 2011 renewal date of EMBC contract
  
• Connections may not be at upgraded speed at above date
  
• Systems will still run through Synetrix, I believe 1 datacentre will be County Hall, the other being the current one in Derby
  
• External IP addresses for external services will move across
  
• Internal IP addresses will stay the same as well
  
• Current services (filtering, email etc) will be at least maintained, if not improved in some areas
  
• First port of call for faults will remain as EdIT
  
• The majority of routers have hit or are nearing EoL so they are looking to replace (also, some won't support the increased speed natively)
  

If I remember anything else, I'll let you know.

[36Degrees]

Thanks for that - pretty much what I've heard as well.

 

The connection speed not being upgraded by the time they are moved over could be a big issue for us as we are already maxing ours out a lot of the time. Using our existing connection to also service other buildings would not therefore be a positive step!

[Willott]

As the LA have access to all traffic graphs, I would assume that they'll prioritise upgrades in the following order:

 

Organisations who are moving to sharing network connection with another who already have high usage (will be shown on cacti)

Organisations who are moving to sharing network connection with another

Organisations with high usage (but who aren't being joined with another, so could be argued that their bandwidth requirements should not increase)

Others

 

I think that some connections will be upgraded before March 2011, maybe even on move across, but it very much will depend on the speed at which connections are moved over. I would think that as combining the connection for multiple organizations like in your situation will be some significant work (routing, vlans [or physically separate router interfaces], physical network links to other organizations), they will look to also include the upgrade at this point (otherwise they'll be coming in twice for 1 places connection). It may be worth talking to the powers that be specifically about your situation and see if they have any plans in place.

 

Cheers

 

Will

[36Degrees]

It may be worth talking to the powers that be specifically about your situation and see if they have any plans in place.

 

I spoke directly with Pete Hepworth at ICT Services on the 18th. He telephoned me after I sent him an email outlining some of my concerns so he is aware - in fact it was Pete who told me that we are hammering our connection.

 

Mike

[mavhc]

I realised a bit ago that although we can't snmp monitor the routers, we can monitor the port on the switch that the router connects to, cue nice graphs.

[Willott]

You can do that... or you could request access from EdIT to Cacti

[36Degrees]

You can do that... or you could request access from EdIT to Cacti

 

That's what I did. It's proved quite useful so far.

[mavhc]

So apparently the 5U is due to: 1U rack mounted router, 1U for a switch to split multiple connections, 1 port for each internal site (eg school and council, or 2 schools), 2.5U for the fiber tray, and round up

[Willott]

Apologies for resurrecting old thread, but it's the same thing...

 

What have people's experiences been with the install/upgrade of their router. Middle of December we had an engineer appear (unexpectedly) with our new router (BT had fortunately already been and sorted the circuit - scheduled work which dates had been discussed with me), confirgured it, plugged it into the new circuit and got nothing back from the other end. He then went off to a couple of other schools, came back later that day and tried again - but apparently there was a lot of configuration that still needed doing for us further back upstream...

 

Slightly disappointed by that, but recevied a phone call the start of the next week to book an engineer in to complete the work. On the day of the work, emailed all staff to inform them that there would be a short network outage at some point during the day as we were moved across. About 10 mins after sending the email, got a call to say engineer not coming...

 

And that's it. No further contact, no further engineer visits, still on old circuit and old router with new router in rack, powered on, connected to new circuit and, I assume, ready to go with a couple of changeover bits.

 

Anyone else had issues like this? Anyone know who I could contact to find out what on earth is going on with the installation (tried the OCON team, and they've forwarded query to someone, but had no response)?

 

Cheers

 

Will

[36Degrees]

Short answer - total farce!

 

1. Electrical contractor said we would need a new cabinet and therefore we'd have to empty the existing one, with all our servers in, to move it over and accomodate theirs. Told them politely that there was no chance.
    
   
2. Then told they could mount a small cabinet on the wall instead but I still expressed reservations.
    
   
3. Told would need more power sockets but I pointed out there were 2 unused at ceiling level. Informed LEA about all of above.
    
   
4. BT turn up unannounced and ask for access to server room. Allow it and told by them that router can be wall mounted where our old, unused BT NTE was still mounted and actually show me a diagram. Informed LEA about various people turning up unannounced was not acceptable.
    
   
5. BT engineers then come and install two new fibre tails.
    
   
6. Electrical contractors turn up unannounced at 4pm to install power sockets. He says he will install them in the trunking, which would require that to be disconnected therefore switching off power to all of server room. Told him no and that there are already 2 sockets at ceiling level. He then mentions small cabinet on wall and during discussion claims that BT don't know what they are talking about as it router can't be mounted on wall. Informed LEA.
    
   
7. Phone call from electrical contractors saying they have an order for a small, wall mounted cabinet so want to arrange coming in and fitting it. Told them it wasn't necessary. Informed LEA.
    
   
8. Sub-contractor on behalf of Synetrix arrives unannounced to fit mounting board in server room. Told him he can't but would allow him to see where it would need to be fitted. Fetched Site Manager to ask what would be required from paperwork who told them that as we are a CLASP building an asbestos survey would be required prior to any work commencing. Subby will supposedly inform Synetrix who will inform LEA.
   

[Pottsey]

So far so good but not looking forward to the next bit. They are insisting we need a new larger cabinet, fair enough as it is packed; only I cannot see how a larger one can fit. 3 people have come in and looked with photos taken. When they rang up to confirm the date for the install I asked them to double check the photos and all is ok according to them. There is no space under or above the cab not even half a CM and the wall cannot take much more weight. I am really not looking forward to that install.

 

I think we had one unannounced visit. On the whole everyone rang in first and been pretty good.

Edited February 2, 2011 by Pottsey

[Hawkeyez]

Just had our router changed over. As we had space in the cab for the new router, it was installed along side the existing system. It was then just a case of swapping the cable over.

As things stand, its working. Speedtest giving us 45MB download and 25MB upload.

 

Gary

[mavhc]

Apparently they want to keep both connections and both routers running until everything works on the new system, so you can easily switch back to embc if there's a problem.

 

BT guy came today to survey for fiber install at one location, already been to 1 other. Not heard anything about the other 2, we're last as usual