Planning my retirement

[laserblazer]

I'm due to finish in August 2014. I've been nursing the system along with very little funding but they are going to have to bite the bullet and spend some money before I go. The admin server (2003) supports 12 workstations and the majority of the usage is SIMS and Office 2003. Most of the workstations are dual core HPs. The curriculum server is 8 years old running 2003 and supporting around 100 workstations. There's no wireless but that is high on the HT's wishlist. The main switches are HP but unmanaged. Most will support 1GB but the cabling won't. I've had to put in several cheap 5/8 port switches to increase capacity.

 

The classroom computers are on the curriculum server but can access SIMS via a dummy drive.

 

I want to come up with a plan to get us into the 21st century before I leave and make it nice and simple for whoever takes over from me. It will almost certainly have to be done in phases as and when funds are available.

 

My intitial thoughts are:

 

Fix the network. Something that will run at 1GB

Replace the admin server with something that will run curriculum as well but keep curriculum on the existing server for the time being. Upgrade the admin workstation OS.

Move curriculum over to the new server. Upgrade the curriculum workstation OS.

Look at wireless.

 

I've considered this order so that we can spread the cost over two years, working on the principle that the network is going to be the weak link and there's no point in replacing servers until that's sorted. It's also going to be the most expensive element.

 

The admin workstations will be upgraded to the latest version of Office but I'm not sure about the curriculum machines as we have some good text books written around 2003.

 

I'd welcome any comments on this plan.

Edited April 13, 2012 by laserblazer