[sims] Solus 2 to Solus 3 Upgrade

[vikpaw]

@vikpaw:

 

I too, like you had a perfect Solus 2 setup that just worked, having worked with Solus 3 now as I have stated its not 100% but that I feel is the nature of the beast and we have to move on to pasture's new.

 

I do think Capita in their defence created this monster from the needs and requirements bourne from BSF which then fell by the wayside.

 

Things can only get better as that song goes hehe!

@bossman, i was actually referring to the photo of "BEFORE SOLUS 3 Bossman"

[bossman]

@bossman, i was actually referring to the photo of "BEFORE SOLUS 3 Bossman"

 

Yes I know and that was a rhetorical reply by me

[synaesthesia]

******* *** **** ****** **** *** solus 3!

 

What a ****pile!

 

How unnecessarily complicated do Capita have to make *everything they do* even for their own staff?

 

Sometimes you need to step back, look at what you've done and think it over for a minute. Think it over from someone else's point of view. Think "Would they think I'm an imbecile for doing that? Is it too complicated? Does it need to be this complicated?"

 

If unable to do so, ask someone else.

Edited November 28, 2012 by synaesthesia

[vikpaw]

Are you having a Dilbert moment?

[synaesthesia]

Yes. Sitting here, watching solus3 up another update. I'm having a lot of fun. Edited November 28, 2012 by vikpaw
language

[vikpaw]

*cough* language *cough*

[synaesthesia]

sorry thought that was quite tame compared to what I originally typed!

 

Wonder what language is appropriate for when the solus 3 server can't find the solus 3 server agent, on the server.

 

* wonders why the service was stopped *

Edited November 28, 2012 by synaesthesia

[mavhc]

Yer, if only, and if only Microsoft had created a way to distribute updates and restrict updates for paying customers... and give reports for the support team (la) to confirm the status of the install. And tell me the spec of my machines etc - without buying an extra license (SCCM), and all this without forcing a small primary to buy a Windows Server license...

 

Oh if only... (waits for the cloud MIS folks to appear)

 

PS: Please don't talk about ClickOnce, I may start twitching...

 

Only paying customers can download the updates anyway. If you really cared about that you'd use activation. Windows has event forwarding to gather status events. Spec of machines is a simple WMI query, you can filter to only install on machines which match said query, or script to report back. And educational server licences are cheaper than desktop licences.

 

All those issues are minor compared to the overall task which Microsoft spent years refining.

[matt40k]

You seem to be getting caught up in details rather then looking at the larger picture. Let me put it another way. I'm smart, your smart, you work with the detail, I've done that for 4 years, I've done the higher level stuff for another 4 years so I'm not as up on the detail as I once was, but I do know enough and I know about the larger picture, so when someone says, all machines need say, OpenOffice, I know at a computer level, it's a piece of cake, at school level it's still fairly easy, at an LA level, that much more complex. Now Capita are smarter then me, I can give them a run for their money from time to time, and I did and I know others are carrying on doing so, so trust us, this is the best solution possible. It might not be the perfect solution for an individual, but last time I checked, we're not all one big school, it's the best solution possible. They've even got advice from Microsoft, direct (I believe they're a Microsoft Gold partner) so are you (and others) still going to argue??

 

If you still don't believe me, let me put it one final way. At the end of year, you have money left over, you get a new pc, if you need a new pc, you get a new pc. In business, well let me put it this way, I had to write a 2 page document to get a Windows 7 Pro license that had to be approved by manager then by his boss - this was even after the big techy manager guy (forget this proper title) asked why I was still on XP, so this is the cut down, direct route!! Now Capita comes from local government background and it's a business, so trying to get them to spend money is well, (insert tight jokes here) put it this way, I think if you put together a business case saying getting you a new pc will guarantee them money, you might just get it, maybe... if your lucky... and it has enough figures in the profit amount. So you do honestly think Capita, who have bundled the SOLUS cost into SIMS, who if they did remove it, won't reduce any of the prices, would honestly spend money on something they didn't need? Hell no, it'll gone and Phil would be have a martin in his hand before the SOLUS team have been told they're being reassigned!!!

[minimoo]

Solus3 has actually improved a good deal [bugfixes] at least since it was introduced. We migrated fairly early on [ In fact, It was around September/October 2011], and the first couple of updates were a nightmare - albeit out sims setup is more complicated then some other schools I believe.

 

For example, last Friday between 3pm-5pm we updated FMS+SIMS to the autumn release - our internal support system where staff report issues with pc's picked up 3-4 issues from staff regarding sims not updating. That's now down to manageable levels -> with our tweaks around solus2, I'd ultimately end up having to fix a similar number of pc's.

 

To give you an example of 'our sims setup is more complicated'. We have 3 FMS databases, 5 FMS workstations, push sims out to ~100 laptops and ~3-400 workstations that may be used by staff.

 

Capita do still have some areas where improvement can be made, and some flaw's in the process - however, it I've got to the point where i'm fairly confident that a solus3 upgrade will run smoothly.

 

a) As it was said in an earlier post - if you run WSUS [windows updates service], or can push out dotnet 4 by some method - get that onto the any laptops/server first. (We are lucky that we have windows 7 across site, and the deployment process automatically runs wsus, pulling down all updates including dotnet4.)

b) If you rebuild pc's a lot, make sure you think about keeping the solus 3 database up to date

c) Set up the service to auto download updates to end devices but NOT install them - you can get the updates downloaded to the workstations ready for when you 'upgrade' i.e. once capita do a new release allow time for the solus 3 agents to get the setup files locally ready for the install

d) Staff tend to miss the notification about solus3 asking them to close sims - so pick a time when they are not in. If you do do a sims update when people are around, they'll miss the update window, go to move screen in sims - which will crash as the DLL's version do not much. Trying to go back into sims will similarly error - rebooting the pc allows the pending file operations to complete.

 

Paul