sidewinder

I'll probably go OM3 then, it's £100 more but still a big saving compared to getting it installed (and they were supplying OM2)

Thanks! Should I get OM2 or OM3? Will be running 1GB for now but more than likely 10Gb within the next few years. Does it matter for a short run? For patch panels, can I simply buy any loaded fibre patch panel? Such as this ST Loaded Fibre Patch Panels

Thanks guys I was thinking about armoured cable, seems a safer bet plus I wouldn't have to bother with conduit then. Although I seem to be struggling to find many places that supply it pre terminated. From a quick search the only one that did seemed to be OM1 Any suggestions for suppliers?

I'm looking to link our IT suite and server room with fibre, and being such a short run (about 50m) pre terminated fibre is attractive, mainly because of price. However all our current CAT5 between the 2 locations runs on the outside of a building (although most of it has a covered roof) as it is a much easier run. If I was to buy some pre-terminated fibre and follow the same run (putting it inside conduit though) would that be safe/secure/recommended? I know if fibre runs outside it needs to be protected, but if it was inside conduit screwed to the wall all the way, with very little chance of it getting wet or severed, surely the risk is minimal?

Just thought of something that didn't occur to me before. If I was to seperate the 2 4500G switches I currently have, put 1 in the server room, leave 1 in the IT suite. Trunk 4x1GB fibre between them. Then buy a decent HP 10/100 switch for the 2nd IT suite switch, and trunk a few ports between the 2. My reasoning is, we've already got 2 very decent L3 switches that are way overspecced for what they do, why not utilise one for our core? I'm not definately going to do this, it's just an idea

Mainly because of limited space and limited resources - I cant run all that on 2 servers (well, I wouldn't like to try anyway) There are compromises yes, but the CPU is shared, the memory is shared dynamically, and for the file server I will probably have a seperate RAID array as mentioned above, so I can't see it being too limiting. Shared storage would be great when we can afford it...for now this is a start, considering the state of the network I have inherited

About to order the new server soon, one question though: would the 1Gb flash cache for the P410i be a good investment at the same time as I'm going for SATA drives? @jamesfed - you mentioned you have it (or something similar) - would you recommend it?

My old school used PC's up until a few years ago - programs like Cubase did cause us problems when used by non admin accounts so it was a bit of a headache, however this was a fairly old version so it is probably a lot better now. Sibelius worked fine. They changed to Macs in 2009, and things did run a lot smoother, probably due to less restrictions when students logged onto the Macs, and partly because of newer versions of the software. There still were occasional problems though. So there is nothing wrong with using PC's for music at all. My current school currently has nothing and is going down the route of Mac minis - in this case it makes sense since there is no current hardware, and the cost of the Mini's isnt too much more than a decent PC. Oh and they want to use Logic Express...lol

sukh: 1. New forest, single domain. 2. How many Exchange servers? Just the one. We only have about 60 staff users/mailboxes 4. That is useful, thanks 5. 60 odd, so if it is a manual job it isnt too much hassle. 6. New domain with new users will be created offline, so it will just be the mailboxes which need migrating. 7. Don't think we have any. 8. Thanks, will have to pore through the settings and find everything

I'd love to do that, but we currently have a Viglen Classlink network and I've been advised that rebuilding from scratch would be a better option. Upgrade would be far easier but there are possibilities for problems with the domain in general. I would prefer to have it all clean and fresh.

Thanks Pete RTFM: That is something I have considered. We probably don't have enough money for a 3rd server (yet) however we do have a relatively 'young' server with plenty of RAM that I plan to keep partly for non essential stuff, but also for emergencies. It wouldn't be as quick, but between the remaining server and that one it should be able to handle the load for a short while.

We currently run Exchange 2003 on a .local domain with a .org email domain. We have a Classlink network which I will be getting rid of over the summer, rebuilding a Vanilla domain with 2008 R2 servers and Exchange 2010. The .local domain will be the same name though. I have some experiance with Exchange, but have never done a migration, add to that this seems to be an unusual one in that not only are we upgrading, it will be a new domain with new users etc, but the same email domain. My questions are: 1) How do I deal with incoming mail while the change is taking place? Since both servers will probably be offline for a day or so, how do I stop mail getting bounced back? 2) If I export the current mailboxes (to PST's?), then recreate users and email addresses on the new domain, will it be a fairly easy process attaching those mailboxes back to their accounts? Or will they need to manually copy mail from the .pst into their new mailbox? What about contacts? 3) Is there anything else I need to look out for?? I am reading as much as I can on both 2003 and 2010 and have got a virtual network that I will try the migration with first, but just thought some people might have some tips?

Thanks for the advice. So it's disks I really need to be thinking about. So not having dual CPU's is not really going to be such an issue, considering I'm only running 4 VMs per server?

Touch wood, I haven't heard any complaints since I upgraded the Smartboard software over easter - though it could be that they have given up moaning. I am inclined to think user error too as I could never reproduce it myself. Thanks though, I'll try swapping the pen tray if it occurs again

Luckily our MIS isn't SIMS, it runs on Filemaker which seems to be relatively lightweight. But yes, our current dl360 has 10k SAS drives so that is the one which will be running Exchange and the MIS

They have a 4 port NIC each, though 1 of those will be taken up by the Hyper-V management port. So yes, I may have to invest in another NIC for them

Just want some feedback on my plan, feel free to pick holes if there are any to pick! After perhaps going a bit overboard and looking into SANs and more servers than necessary, I have settled on the following for now (We have around 70 computers on this site, and around 200 students and 40 staff. Current servers are Viglen built, 1 running almost everything, the other running Exchange and Sophos. Total size of user shares, apps, shared area currently is about 140GB) 2x Proliant dl360's (one of which we already have) single CPU, 32GB RAM, SAS drives in current one, new one may have SATA - but about 5-600GB storage in each Both running Hyper-V. Virtualised DC on both. On server 1: VM1 - DC, DNS, DHCP VM2 - Exchange VM3 - MIS System On server 2: VM1 - DC, DNS, DHCP VM2 - File server VM3 - App server VM4 - WSUS, Sophos All VM's on local RAID5 arrays (or possibly on a ReadyNAS 2100) Will a single CPU (Xeon E5506 2.13Ghz) on both be enough? I know the RAM should be more than enough for 4 VM's. Would even a cheap SAN be overkill for this? Finally, I've never virtualised a file server before. I know the overhead should be small, but is it worth it, it seems to add a layer of complexity to a simple role? I can re-use the old servers to perform other functions I haven't covered, like backup, and they could also be used for redundancy if one of the main servers went down

I relocated to London for my current position (although am in High Wycombe till July). I suppose the risk was less for me because even if I couldnt find anywhere, its still (just about) commutable. I mentioned about wanting to relocate in my covering letter, and I think they brought it up in interview. Didn't seem to be a problem though, I would say as long as you mention you want to relocate to that area, and seem positive about it (even if you actually arnt!) it shouldn't hinder you In my case, there were jobs around my area (Reading) but I just wanted to move to London

Our setup: We currently have 2 sites connected via an EFM link, and an Inty Exoserver at each site with a VPN setup between them. I am looking to replace these, and I assume 2 smoothwall boxes (SWG-700) will easily be able to replicate this capability. But we also have a 3rd site which will soon be linked to the second site via EFM, and I would like it connected the same way. So my questions: 1) Is it possible to have a VPN between 2 sites (call them A and B) and then have a second VPN between one of the sites and a third ©? 2) If it is, would site C be able to run a Smoothwall Express box? Since there will only be 5 computers and users, it would be overkill to have another SWG-700 there. Thanks

Get an Orange San Francisco for £100 and put another ROM on it. Will be far better My girlfriend has a Wildfire and I have the above phone - the Wildfire looks and performs terribly in comparison

I was quoted less than £40 a head, the £3k does include the server licences, exchange and SCVMM. So possibly not that bad after all? I was putting it altogether because thats how I've been quoted. Also I did get a quote for enterprise desktop CAL, because it didn't look that much more expensive, but in reality we dont actually need any of those extra CAL's so there is no point really. A standard one should reduce it by a few hundred.

I want to start upgrading to W7, want to upgrade all the servers, upgrade to Exchange 2010 and we have 20 macs coming in which will need Office. It is a fair point though...we've bought Select licences before now so potentially we could just buy the extras we need for now... The main problem is the manageability of it, using OEM licences is a pain, and keeping track of CALs and Office licences is difficult too.

We have 61 FTE staff, which is probably a lot compared to the number of PC's we have. Hence why the quote is around 3k. Might have to get a schools agreement quote too then.

I've got quotes, got it agreed, but spending £3k per year when the school currently pays nothing (since licences have been bought) doesn't exactly sell my idea (the bursar agreed, but reluctantly) We've got just shy of 100 PC's, all with OEM XP (which is a nightmare to manage) and Office 2007, which was bought a couple of years ago and licences topped up since then, as well as a few servers, exhange etc and more planned. Essentially, when I add everything up and compare the cost, it would cost around £7k to do it compared with EES. But then we will have paid over that after 3 years anyway. Obviously though of course we'd have to pay that in x number of years to upgrade again. What would you do?

Doesn't have to be in London, but it seems little point contacting someone up north. The school is in Richmond. Currently don't have a cabling company we normally use, as the electrician has been doing the last few random network points, but for a fibre install I want, and for larger cabling jobs, I'd like to start using a proper outfit to do it Any suggestions?