RM CC4 Anywhere or Vanilla (Windows Only) Network

[bossman]

@Michael:

 

I have been at our school for the past 10 years and in this time have been involved with all aspects of its design and implementation from the very start.

 

I designed the total infrastructure and the network which sits on top of it from scratch.

 

Having been Microsoft trained to MCSE 2003 level in 2006 I could have gone down the Vanilla route and could still go down this route if I so required but have not found it necessary.

 

In our 10 years of operation we have had endured to date just 4 hours of downtime and of this 3 hours was actually the Sims server RAID config which only stopped the staff from using the Sims.

 

We migrated to a Windows 7 platform just last February in 9 days which included virtualisation of most servers and rebuild of all clients and a move to RMCC4 servers. We know that some other users on this forum are taking up all of their schools 6 weeks holidays to do this on a Vanilla system and whilst this is taking place the network is unusable.

 

I'm not saying that there is one system which is better than any other just putting into words what we have achieved over the past 10 years.

 

I have to re-iterate when I say its not what system you are using but what is the end result for your end users that counts.

 

Technical staff can be retrained again and again to run the systems which fulfils the criteria which the school requires.

 

You would probably benefit from training up on RMCC4 it might add another string to your bow and also some Capita skills might not go amiss.

 

I feel your very happy with Microsoft software as am I its just that I like to do other things with my time instead of constantly creating scripts and batch files for deploying applications and files (not that I condemn it) I have enough to do besides with Sims, FMS, Parental access, remote desktops, VLE etc etc.

 

I wish you well with all your Vanilla networks and I do mean that sincerely.

 

P.S. I know you get stuck sometimes, have read your post on KMS server and client deployment problems.

 

Took me just over an hour to build KMS server and the Office Pro Plus 2010 client app, deploy and test successfully all on a RMCC4 network not bad eh!

[Michael]

In our 10 years of operation we have had endured to date just 4 hours of downtime and of this 3 hours was actually the Sims server RAID config which only stopped the staff from using the Sims.

 

Well I have to congratulate you as that's an excellent uptime. It's really difficult for me to do a direct comparative as I work at many sites and like you I manage everything on site from A to Z. Most downtime ends up being a hardware related issue rather than a configuration related issue.

 

You would probably benefit from training up on RMCC4 it might add another string to your bow and also some Capita skills might not go amiss.

 

Maybe but it certainly isn't on my agenda right now and I don't have any RMCC4 schools. From the top of my head, I cannot think of any in the immediate area that I have come across. I really don't know (compared to CC3) what the number of schools are who use CC4.

 

I feel your very happy with Microsoft software as am I its just that I like to do other things with my time instead of constantly creating scripts and batch files for deploying applications and files (not that I condemn it) I have enough to do besides with Sims, FMS, Parental access, remote desktops, VLE etc etc.

 

I don't actually write that many scripts anymore and like RM, you can use the real WinInstall and create MSIs for a vanilla network. It's generally less of an issue these days. Especially now with 2008 R2, I deploy network drives via GPO so there's no logon script at all. I've deployed printers via GPO since 2003 R2 for years now.

 

There clearly is a market out there for the likes of RM, Ranger and WinSuite however all three are considerably more expensive than a vanilla system. In a time of financial squeeze, there just isn't the cash available. It would be interesting to do a poll and see what the ratio of RM, Ranger, WinSuite, vanilla systems (and others).