Do we really need products like RM Connect or CSE ?

[webman]

You can't just look at the figures alone - one must take account of the total cost of ownership and what value it has to the school, in terms of staffing, features and so on. We hardly spend any money with RM - we buy no hardware from them, no support contracts, or other stuff - just the CC software and appropriate licenses. This is the flexibility that we have and for us, it works great.

 

Regarding the upgrade strategy - I'm going to do a Grumbledook here and sit on the fence. RM are a business and need to make money. They can't carry on supporting older systems forever - and this is the same stance that Microsoft take with certain products (Windows). However, it would "be nice" to be able to have the option of running Windows 7 and Server 2008 with maybe CC3. If this doesn't work for you - don't go with RM. If you don't mind RM's pace of OS/application support, then it's not a problem.

[jsnetman]

Can we have a poll, managed or vanilla or maybe RM, Ranger, CSe.... and vanilla

[bossman]

@jsnetman:

 

It wouldn't achieve anything I am afraid as we are all being slowly assimilated into the guise that is cloud computing which will only be of the managed services choice then what are you all going to moan about then? Eh "which cloud computing MSU is better than another" all I can say is "grow up" and lets not bring this down to a "mines bigger and better than your's" debate. This old chestnut is I am afraid dead in the water!!!

 

Microsoft have got some real good products which can and are added to by other people who see this as a way to make things better and more reliable for use by the masses not just technical people eventually the skills now required will have been forgotten say in 20 - 30 years time as progress takes its toll. As I watch it grow and develop it reminds me of another era called the Industrial Revolution (Nearly old enough to have been there......I said nearly ) and therefore what we see now will be I feel another remarkable event in history over the next 50 years.

 

Hopefully not a return to the workhouse for some hehe!!

 

Anyway I digress, back to the matter of exercising our manhoods or womanhoods in some cases, shall we or can we stop bringing this debate up as it just wastes peoples valuable time.

[jsnetman]

Touchy subject this managed/RM network stuff is, but really i am a big fan of RM in the right place and for the right reason.

[Stuart_C]

Running a vanillia netowrk here the only thing I really feel that I lack here is the ability to package up programs without MSI files and deploy them (though I've just decided to start looking into that again).

 

I accept that there are pro's and con's to both methods. For me I'd rather not pay to do something Windows can do. I'd rather learn how to have Windows do it. I don't like the idea of having to install and manage something else on top of my network. We used to have Winsuite and I got rid of that fairly swiftly.

 

There will probably never be a "best". It's up to each of us to make a decisison what's right for both us and our organisation.........

[Roberto]

I'll bet this question has been asked before.

 

Yes it has. Can you say "flamebait". I know you didn't mean it to be that, but that's what it is.

 

My tuppence worth: No, your employer might not need it. No my employer might not need it. But some do. In some cases it's a valid choice, I reckon. Different solutions fit different situations.

 

I think if something like, say, CC4 does exactly what a school wants, they can afford it, and they want something that requires (relatively) little low level setting up and so-on then it might be a good choice. Otherwise, go elsewhere.

Edited June 10, 2010 by Roberto

[teckedd]

Running a vanillia netowrk here the only thing I really feel that I lack here is the ability to package up programs without MSI files and deploy them (though I've just decided to start looking into that again).

 

Hi Stuart,

 

I have just replied to another post about software deployment.

 

Please look at http://www.edugeek.net/forums/o-s-deployment/53494-suggestions-new-deployment-software.html

 

Hope this helps

 

Edd

Edited June 10, 2010 by teckedd

[PiqueABoo]

vanilla

 

::screams again::

::feels an infinitesimal bit better::

 

Calling anything "vanilla" is a nonsense in any kind of comparison because they are all different. From that unequivocal position it very easily follows than any assertions about relative difficulty or relative management effort are also a complete crock.

 

You all ought to know better.

 

Vanilla systems have as many problems if not more than RM systems

 

It is possible to make a DIY system with the same kind of attention to (useful) detail that is better, has far fewer problems, is as easy or easier to manage, than RM's.

 

[Offhand I can think of less than 10 posters on here who judged on cluefulness in arcane areas have almost certainly done that, the rest I'm not sure about.]

Edited June 10, 2010 by PiqueABoo

[nicholab]

Personally I think that the management over heads are the same for a running vanilla network and a managed network. I worked in a CC3 school and a lot of problems we had to wait for RM to get back to us with solutions. I find the RMMC management interface as easy to use with GPO's/AD if not easiler and I know what is going on it also can be more granular. Also the way that RM deploy server in the CC3/4 system is strange they don't have seem to split server in to domain controllers, file severs and application server all servers do a bit of everything.

[the_quick]

We have here CC3 network, and we just asked RM how much would it be to move to CC4. It wasn't cheap, as we would have to have RM engineers on site, upgrade licenses for around 300 PCs and so on. And we would like to move to Windows 7 and Windows 2008 server. As we can't afford the move to CC4 we can either stay with cc3 or go to Vanilla network.

 

Yes RM makes it easy, you can have support etc. But some thing are fiddly, very often the package builder does not work properly, and you have to create just normal MSI like you would on vanilla. Windows update are limited by RM, and they are not really quick with releasing them. As I already have licenses for Windows 7 and WIN2k8 I think I will be mowing next summer to vanilla.

We will probably ask for help from our neighbourhood school (as they run vanilla ans swear by it) and we will move.

Support contract will save us nearly 5k per year and we will save on CC3 license with any additional PC. I know that none of school network is vanilla, as every school use lots of none MS tools, scripts etc. But in my opinion you get more freedom on Vanilla. Time consuming? Maybe more but at the moment we are struggling with corrupted profile problem (as on cc3 every pupil has own profile), RM claims that this is normal.

 

So will see how it goes next year. Already I tweak few things in GPOs, strated exchange without RM help and it seems to work well - so I think I will be able to manage that, but time will tell.