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Posted

sims is SO expensive when you cost in the system requirements.

Half their stuff (intouch, discover) doesn't even work with terminal services.

I really believe that some of the restrictions that capita impose on us is detrimental to teaching and learning. If we didn't need to upgrade so many pc's all the time we could spend that money on equipment for students.

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Posted
sims is SO expensive when you cost in the system requirements.

Half their stuff (intouch, discover) doesn't even work with terminal services.

I really believe that some of the restrictions that capita impose on us is detrimental to teaching and learning. If we didn't need to upgrade so many pc's all the time we could spend that money on equipment for students.

 

I agree but we are stuck with it.

Posted

Funny enough I got asked this today, Windows Server 2003 is one release eariler by the way. Office 2003 is going soon too. Out of interest, how often you you refresh admin hardware? Do you buy licenses outright as well?

 

Half their stuff (intouch, discover) doesn't even work with terminal services.

 

I thought Discover does? Pretty sure Cambridgeshire was midway though setting up, no idea re: intouch

Posted

I thought Discover does? Pretty sure Cambridgeshire was midway though setting up, no idea re: intouch

Not according to Capita support. If you know differently then I'm listening.

 

 

Funny enough I got asked this today, Windows Server 2003 is one release eariler by the way. Office 2003 is going soon too. Out of interest, how often you you refresh admin hardware? Do you buy licenses outright as well?

 

The stupid thing is that it must be costing Capita a fortune to keep up with MS in terms of re-development as well as how much it costs schools. I'm thinking the 32 to 64bit upgrades, database upgrades, product testing on windows etc. I bet they would have saved a fortune in development if they had just written a php/python app.

Posted
Not according to Capita support. If you know differently then I'm listening.

 

 

Try KB17896 on SupportNet. Discover Hosted Technical Guide. I know a colleague is in the process of rolling out/testing Discover on our centrally hosted environment.

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Posted

Last thing I heard was Capita was working with Cambridgeshire CC to get Discover working in their hosted environment. Will try and find out how it's going.

 

You'll be suprised. Microsoft has excellent support and it's pretty straight forward moving. How many developers had to do ALOT of work because of PHP safe_mode, or moving from PHP4 to 5. Most likely more work then going from .NET 2 to .NET 4. It's also alot easier to get a Windows developer - ok maybe I should re-word that, it's a lot 'safer' getting a windows developer as Microsoft due standardised testing. So you can get a proper developer rather then a person who's spent 10 years tweaking joomla themes.

 

(Can of worms open ~runs for cover~)

Posted
To be honest, support for Windows XP (SP3) ends in April 2014 (the 8th to be precise), so I guess Capita have a point in ending their SIMS XP support a little early to ensure end users have migrated in plenty of time.
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Posted
To be honest, support for Windows XP (SP3) ends in April 2014 (the 8th to be precise), so I guess Capita have a point in ending their SIMS XP support a little early to ensure end users have migrated in plenty of time.

 

End of support =! end of useful life.

Especially with limited funding.

Posted
End of support =! end of useful life.

 

In my book, when we're talking end of security updates, it does. An un-patched Windows installation is the most risky thing to be running, even if you have bang up-to-date antivirus etc.

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Posted
I know alot of schools have been forced to upgrade to Windows 7 because that's what students are using at home, is this just a Suffolk thing? Or is admin side of things suppose to be in the darkages? IT in education is a bottomless pit, you just need to keep throwing enough money into it so it doesn't eat too much. IE have a replacement plan and stick to it and don't end up getting more equipment then you can realistically afford to support (or need). If you don't keep on top of it and you don't plan, you end up with a school full of computers that are useless.
Posted
In my book, when we're talking end of security updates, it does. An un-patched Windows installation is the most risky thing to be running, even if you have bang up-to-date antivirus etc.

 

I wouldn't mind betting that an unpatched win98 machine would be pretty resilient against modern worms and trojans designed for win7.

I digress, I'll update them to Win7. I was more thinking of office updates, server updates, SQL updates etc etc.

Posted
To be honest, support for Windows XP (SP3) ends in April 2014 (the 8th to be precise), so I guess Capita have a point in ending their SIMS XP support a little early to ensure end users have migrated in plenty of time.

 

 

Naah.. it's not Capita's place to arrogantly (there is no better word) shrink Microsoft's life-cycle, if anything they should be supporting XP until say summer 2014 to give the terminally stupid/poor a chance to sort themselves out.

 

PS: How much tax-payers money do they earn from SIMS? [Rhetorical]

Posted
We've got SIMS Discover running through terminal services (2003), just the standard install. However, according to the copy of the technical roadmap I have they're dropping support for the SIMS.net client on Server 2003 with the summer 2012 update :confused:
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Posted
However, according to the copy of the technical roadmap I have they're dropping support for the SIMS.net client on Server 2003 with the summer 2012 update :confused:

 

I checked this and it said Summer 2013 they no longer support the client on server 2003. MS extended support is summer 2015.

Posted
I've just read that Capita will end support for XP and Server 2003 in Autumn 2013. Anyone know about this. I was hoping we could eak out our system for a little longer.

Yes, the odd thing is that they say the summer 2013 release will be XP-compatible, but then they withdraw support in the autumn! The roadmap has changed a couple of times, to be fair, and the support was never going to last forever.

Posted
Wouldn't you drop citrix when you go Server 2008 R2? As I understand you'll save on (Citrix) licensing.

 

No, Citrix has a far greater feature set than 2008R2 and is supported on a wider variety of platforms. last time I looked published apps from 2008R2 were only available for XPSP3,Vist Win7. Our community (and school) also uses ipads,OSX,Android,Linux and we need to support those devices too.

We scheduled Summer 2013 to upgrade the citrix farm - more by luck than judgement in this case. I'm just getting sick of capita dictating what we can and can't do - for something that is really just a piece of administration software.

Posted

I wonder if the other reason is .NET Framework 4.5. Funnily enough the Developer Preview doesn't work on XP or Vista. Only Windows 7 or later.

 

Capita adopted .NET 4 fairly quickly, so this may be another reason for dropping XP.

Posted (edited)
I checked this and it said Summer 2013 they no longer support the client on server 2003. MS extended support is summer 2015.

 

Variation on the XP theme and equally irksome.

 

Capita adopted .NET 4 fairly quickly, so this may be another reason for dropping XP.

 

I doubt they need 4.5, that's a choice. Considering the vast amount of money we were told in some report a year or so ago (1/2 *billion* over 5 years wasn't it?) that they make in that secondary public sector role, you'd have thought they might be able to fund keeping a couple of versions working for a while i.e. legacy and latest.. there are lots and lots of examples of other software vendors, including of course Microsoft who do that.

Edited by PiqueABoo

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