spare money = ???

[gibbo_ap]

just been told there maybe some cash spare (£10-£15), what can we spend it on?

 

air con in server room (we have ac but its very in adequate now)

out of warranty stations

 

other than that im stumped??? (monday morning duhhhh)

[SteveT]

Errrr..... the only aircon you'll get for £15 is something like ...... 19 x white lady hand fans in Organza GiftBag wedding @ on eBay (end time 04-Aug-10 14:01:12 BST)

 

These do seem to need to be rebooted about once every 2 seconds!!!

[localzuk]

Do you mean £10k-£15k?

[gibbo_ap]

yeah sorry

[localzuk]

How about moving your file storage to a SAN, to make a start on moving to a virtualised server infrastructure if you haven't already?

 

Other than that, how about an army of these guys to roam the halls ?http://www.clickshop.com/product/2930/wowwee-rovio/rovio/

[rad]

replacement pc's spare monitors, portable HDD, usb drive etc.oh and a new tool kit

[tom_newton]

Money spent on server-room AC is rarely money wasted - and its not the sort of thing that often gets much love (as it appears to be doing its job).

 

Also, if you spend enough, you may be able to keep an emergency beer cold in the server room. Another "must have" for those days when the s--t hits the fan

[gibbo_ap]

How about moving your file storage to a SAN, to make a start on moving to a virtualised server infrastructure if you haven't already?

 

Other than that, how about an army of these guys to roam the halls ?WowWee Rovio - Tech Toys - Clickshop.Com - Gifts & Gadgets, Memory Cards

 

i would love to go SAN but we have all fairly new servers so the head would not go for this.

 

i would love a managed wireless system but the wireless in the school isnt used enough to warrant this

[localzuk]

i would love to go SAN but we have all fairly new servers so the head would not go for this.

 

i would love a managed wireless system but the wireless in the school isnt used enough to warrant this

 

Is the wireless situation a 'chicken or the egg' situation though? We had very low use of the wireless hotspots we had around the school but now that we have a managed solution, it gets a good amount of use, as it means teachers don't need to find somewhere that wireless is stable, or somewhere without wireless but with a socket.

[p858snake]

do the wireless, that way you can encourage its use without worrying about it later. or possibly the aircon.

[Arcath]

Other than that, how about an army of these guys to roam the halls ?WowWee Rovio - Tech Toys - Clickshop.Com - Gifts & Gadgets, Memory Cards

 

with some AI controlling them, with face recognition and tazers

[Soulfish]

How on earth do you have £10-£15k spare? It looks like we're going to get nothing this year.

 

Last year I got told to spend £60k in a week at the end of the budget year. This year we "only" got £15k

[gibbo_ap]

well the head here says right i have X amout to spend, what do we need??? we NEED better air con in the server room, its way too hot in there.

[Rydra]

Your "last minute spend" is more than I have to spend on my entire budget for the year

[john]

Wish we just found 10K lying around! We have to plan hard to afford anything, fine I'm in box city at present but thats due to a DCSF grant that had to be spent by end of August or the DFE will claw it back so its getting spent on as much as we can, but its ring-fenced for Creative and Media so its not just buy that as its gritty etc its all got to be justified and benefit those areas.

[Iain.Faulkner]

We'd been told there was no money for anything major this year....then last friday we got an email saying we want one of the Tech rooms turning into an IT Suite and we want it doing over the summer, please can you cost up...gave them costs of £17k and they didn't bat an eyelid!! Where do they just find this money from!

[torledo]

Last year I got told to spend £60k in a week at the end of the budget year. This year we "only" got £15k

 

what did you spend the 60k on ?

[Soulfish]

what did you spend the 60k on ?

 

We ended up getting some badly needed replacement PCs (replacing some very shoddy self-built PCs) and moving all servers to a virtualised environment including a SAN. Worked out quite well really since I was given the money about a month after I started so was essentially able to start from scratch!

 

It was the habbit of the old bursar to horde cash until the end of the year and then decide what to spend things on.

[jamesfed]

My list (not that it would be possible to get all of this) would be-

SAN (Drobo box maybe?)

'Green IT Solutions' (help save even more money for the furture to spend it!) - so Virtulised Setup (maybe upgrade the servers you have)

If the above then consider VDI + Thin Clients and replace your older PCs (more green IT)

Air Con!