speckytecky Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Hi Fellow SWGfL Edugeekers, particularly those in Wiltshire. I have just seen a letter from the Wiltshire LA giving details of the planned changes to Broadband provision in the SWGfL area effective from 1st of April 2013. In a nutshell the LA won't be picking up the tab any longer and are giving the choice of where to go. We have been offered a briefing to outline the LAs suggested way forward. However, the timescale - as ever is tight! What are other Wiltshire (and presumably other SWGfL area schools where the LA is sidestepping funding this service) planning to do? In the past I did explore the options and Talk Straight seemed to offer a pretty good package.
synaesthesia Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 You've been given that much notice? Really? That's shocking if so! We were given a hell of a lot more notice in Northamptonshire/EMBC region (sorry for butting in this forum but thought it might be useful) when our LA did the same as it's a huge task to undertake with a lot of investigation required. In fact, the lead times for new installs would take you to April if you ordered now anyway in most cases! We're on talk straight and find them very good, performance and support. Not massively keen on the Fortigate kit but it does it's job. You'll need to spec for another email filtering solution - Fortigate will filter emails but only at an extremely basic level and nothing like what you'd need. (We use the Microsoft FOPE, works regardless of if you use exchange or not). 1
speckytecky Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 Thank you @synaesthesia your input is highly welcomed. We currently have SWGfL's Easymail - one of my big worries is how we migrate the messages and settings to another system - assuming we move away from SWGfL? You've been given that much notice? Really? That's shocking if so! We were given a hell of a lot more notice in Northamptonshire/EMBC region (sorry for butting in this forum but thought it might be useful) when our LA did the same as it's a huge task to undertake with a lot of investigation required. In fact, the lead times for new installs would take you to April if you ordered now anyway in most cases! We're on talk straight and find them very good, performance and support. Not massively keen on the Fortigate kit but it does it's job. You'll need to spec for another email filtering solution - Fortigate will filter emails but only at an extremely basic level and nothing like what you'd need. (We use the Microsoft FOPE, works regardless of if you use exchange or not).
synaesthesia Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 The usual standard would appear to be getting individual users to be responsible for doing that, once you've set up outlook or something to get messages to PST files. Huge job for large schools! Was easy for us as we use our own internal mail stuff. I would hope SWGfL might offer some useful input for you there; perhaps it's worth a call to them to clarify some points. Maybe they'll be able to provide physical media with an export of that data. 1
mrbios Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 @synaesthesia how much does FOPE cost? Also are you using a fortinet firewall then (seeing as you mention fortigate)? I'm in the market for firewalls at the moment and was thinking of adding spam filtering but if it's not up to the task for something like that I may take a look a fope. Also another SWGfL school jumping ship this year Albeit we already host our own exchange so luckily no worries for dealing with that horrible easymail.
GrumbleDook Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Not knowing the full story behind how things are at the LA, it is possible that changes in funding / politics / etc have meant a rapid change of how the funds are allocated to schools to pay for things like this. Although Northants did give a lot of notice about the natural end of the existing embc contract, we did have a sticky point when the Gov't changed and we had significant grant and funding cuts, meaning that schools had to pay. It is not a nice position to be in. If your LA is giving you the choice of where to look and helping you to do so then you might want to have a look at the toolkit we wrote with our schools to help make that decision (feel free to pass it on to the folks at the LA too). Schools Broadband Working Group - A Toolkit | Duston School Also feel free to give them my contact details as well if they want a chat with someone who went through the same thing they did. Personally, due to lead times mainly, I would recommend you stick with what you have for the next year at least, to allow you time to look around and plan for what you need, before going out to the market. Don't make a quick jump for something cheap only to find it doesn't work how you thought it would, it doesn't give you the same (or better) functionality and/or the connectivity is not quite what you thought it would be. 1
zag Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 We did this a few years ago when our LEA pulled out. We got our 100mbit line with BT We changed our email system over to Live@edu. It was actaully quite easy to migrate as we changed our domain name to a .co.uk at the same time and ran the emails in parrellel during the changeover We purchased a smoothwall box for the filtering and firewall. 1
synaesthesia Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Not sure on outright cost - our EES agreement covers us for it. And yes, it's Fortinet based (Fortigate 100D is the appliance). The firewall side of it is good from what we can see, reasonably easy to configure and what-not but as said the spam filtering is too basic for educational use and the web filtering isn't very modular. You can set filtering per IP or per usergroup and changes are instant, but you can't for instance have a room/OU on one filtering level and another on others (useful we found for Youtube access). 1
synaesthesia Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Personally, due to lead times mainly, I would recommend you stick with what you have for the next year at least, to allow you time to look around and plan for what you need, before going out to the market. Don't make a quick jump for something cheap only to find it doesn't work how you thought it would, it doesn't give you the same (or better) functionality and/or the connectivity is not quite what you thought it would be. Absolutely agree - although you just have to hope SWGfL don't stiff you on cost/features for that year! Would be good to get some information from them directly.
mrbios Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Not sure on outright cost - our EES agreement covers us for it. And yes, it's Fortinet based (Fortigate 100D is the appliance). The firewall side of it is good from what we can see, reasonably easy to configure and what-not but as said the spam filtering is too basic for educational use and the web filtering isn't very modular. You can set filtering per IP or per usergroup and changes are instant, but you can't for instance have a room/OU on one filtering level and another on others (useful we found for Youtube access). Is this something you had to ask to have added on to your licensing agreement or something that's generally included with EES agreements? I've no idea how i find out if we have it available
synaesthesia Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Assuming you mean MS FOPE, it was already included in ours specifically - it wasn't something we had to have added on, but did have to ask MS to activate for us. Double check with your licensing provider to confirm. We use it with Zimbra. 1
mrbios Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Assuming you mean MS FOPE, it was already included in ours specifically - it wasn't something we had to have added on, but did have to ask MS to activate for us. Double check with your licensing provider to confirm. We use it with Zimbra. Fantastic, cheers Most likely means we have it then, we've got the EES licensing with all the bells n whistles so hopefully it's included in there. Will ask our provider tomorrow.
Steve21 Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Where did you see this? Never seen any SWGFL letters Steve
speckytecky Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 It's dated the 31st of Jan -addressed to Headteachers. I will see if it's available electronically and send it on to you. BTW thanks for the .bat file. Much appreciated. Where did you see this? Never seen any SWGFL letters Steve
Steve21 Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 It's dated the 31st of Jan -addressed to Headteachers. I will see if it's available electronically and send it on to you. BTW thanks for the .bat file. Much appreciated. Mmm can't see anything online about it, unless I'm being blind! Eight schools all on SWGFL Internet will be fun if this happens.... Steve
speckytecky Posted February 5, 2013 Author Posted February 5, 2013 Ah - just realised, the letter i have is from Wiltshire LA your LA is probably continuing funding your contract - for now? Mmm can't see anything online about it, unless I'm being blind! Eight schools all on SWGFL Internet will be fun if this happens.... Steve
Gardinho Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 Schools in Gloucestershire are considering their options. We held a meeting where 40 schools attended, as well as 1 prospective ISP and SWGFL. SWGFL sent 4 people to deliver a presentation. Following this, prices have tumbled and SWGFL are now even offering 12 month deals. The competition amongst the providers has been a good thing, as far as schools are concerned. We still won't be staying with them though! We're going to EXA Networks as of April. If anyone would like more information, feel free to PM me.
SchoolsBroadband Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 Hi Fellow SWGfL Edugeekers, particularly those in Wiltshire. I have just seen a letter from the Wiltshire LA giving details of the planned changes to Broadband provision in the SWGfL area effective from 1st of April 2013. In a nutshell the LA won't be picking up the tab any longer and are giving the choice of where to go. We have been offered a briefing to outline the LAs suggested way forward. However, the timescale - as ever is tight! What are other Wiltshire (and presumably other SWGfL area schools where the LA is sidestepping funding this service) planning to do? In the past I did explore the options and Talk Straight seemed to offer a pretty good package. Hi Speckytecky, FYI Schools Broadband is a trading name of Talk Straight. We've been in touch with a few schools in Wiltshire already. If you'd like us to pop in to say hello do let us know Thanks Dave 1
SchoolsBroadband Posted February 7, 2013 Posted February 7, 2013 Not sure on outright cost - our EES agreement covers us for it. And yes, it's Fortinet based (Fortigate 100D is the appliance). The firewall side of it is good from what we can see, reasonably easy to configure and what-not but as said the spam filtering is too basic for educational use and the web filtering isn't very modular. You can set filtering per IP or per usergroup and changes are instant, but you can't for instance have a room/OU on one filtering level and another on others (useful we found for Youtube access). Hi @synaesthesia, we've something new coming along in the next couple of months that will allow you to do room / ou and in real time as well as MDM and content filtering on ipads / android devices. If you any of you came to BETT you'll have seen what we had to offer. Watch this space Dave
synaesthesia Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Oooh, exciting Unfortunately didn't make it to BETT - travel arrangements, trying to get anything back from the school etc would have proved too difficult so had to sit it out yet another year. Have you any information on that on the internet? And is it something that will come as an upgrade or an optional extra? If anyone wants an appraisal of SchoolsBroadband/Talk Straight either publicly or privately feel free to drop me a line. We're very happy with them.
Tsonga Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 We did this a few years ago when our LEA pulled out. We got our 100mbit line with BT We changed our email system over to Live@edu. It was actaully quite easy to migrate as we changed our domain name to a .co.uk at the same time and ran the emails in parrellel during the changeover We purchased a smoothwall box for the filtering and firewall. We did this, but we already had an onsite exchange server. We actually clustered 2 smoothie boxes and purchased the firewall and filtering as well as the email filter. The change was incredible, never looking back.
zag Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Yeh I couldn't imagine relying on an LEA for our internet again. Having to ask someone to change a firewall port was ridiculous It also saved us a fair bit of money. Buying in bulk is not cheaper when it comes to LEA's lol.
Tsonga Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Yeh I couldn't imagine relying on an LEA for our internet again. Having to ask someone to change a firewall port was ridiculous It also saved us a fair bit of money. Buying in bulk is not cheaper when it comes to LEA's lol. Never again having to ring Abingdon to speak to RM, never again going through loops with the change request team! I'm willing to pay BT on the merit of never having to go through that again! How many IPs did you get from BT?
zag Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Never again having to ring Abingdon to speak to RM, never again going through loops with the change request team! I'm willing to pay BT on the merit of never having to go through that again! How many IPs did you get from BT? They offered us 6 but I asked for 12 and they just gave it to us free of charge.
GrumbleDook Posted February 8, 2013 Posted February 8, 2013 Yeh I couldn't imagine relying on an LEA for our internet again. Having to ask someone to change a firewall port was ridiculous It also saved us a fair bit of money. Buying in bulk is not cheaper when it comes to LEA's lol. Strangely enough, I feel the same way about having schools contact me about Change Requests ... no more having to explain how stupid it is to do certain things, no more poor documentation, no more having to correct errors on the paperwork and no more having to explain to an incoming NM about the changes a previous one did and didn't tell anyone. Bliss I tell you, bliss! 4
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