DDR5

I had a brief spell at a private company a few years ago (have since moved back into schools) and they still used RDX drives and I used to lob the previous nights drives into my boot at the end of each day. I still think having offsite media is fine tbh. IT Manager was old school though. So old school that he was still running server 2021r2 and I dont think it had ever seen a Windows Update. Ever. We have NAS onsite - Altaro VM backup so can restore entire VM if needed, cloud for vital stuff and rotating offsite HDD. We also use Synology for Google Workspace stuff.

It's a farce. Forcing schools to use two systems and relying on SSM to act as the sync, where more often than not it breaks. Even when NG shows sync active, SSM service running and all services running in the software itself, we still get emails saying that sync isn't working. Then when it is there is a huge delay in getting data to sync. I am pushing hard for my schools to get rid and move to Arbor.

Hi all, we have around 20 Promethean AP6 panels, way out of warranty but mostly working well. We have one, now two, where it looks like one of the speakers has blown and seems a shame to replace the panel just for this...especially as money is tight. External speakers maybe the best choice but I was wondering if anyone knows of any Promethean repair companies out there? Thanks.

Do you know how it's setup? Is the database completely off the schools server? I heard that SIMS Connected was quote poor performance wise - almost like connecting to the database over RDP. Would be great to know a little more about it. Thanks.

Has anyone had any experience with this? If it were up to me I'd get all the schools I support to ditch SIMS and FMS but unfortunately it's not up to me. I get very jealous when I speak to other techs that have long since binned SIMS/FMS off. Anyway, I've not had any info about FMS Cloud but have been asked about it from a school that has had a sales pitch. Is it based on the same platform as SIMS Connected? I heard bad things about that too! Any info would be brill. Thanks all

From what I have read, I need to put in the controllers IP and the VLAN gateway into Unifi's 'Pre Authorization Allowances' - this, by all accounts, will allow access to the portal, and from there I should be able to authenticate and get on...will see how it goes tomorrow...

Yeah, the VLAN is working perfectly. If I disable the Unifi Portal and just connect with a password, I get online without issue with the correct IP etc. Everything works. With the Portal enabled, I can see the device in Smoothwalls DHCP with the correct IP and I can even see it connected to the AP in Unifi, I just cannot get to the portal page to verify the connection. I'm guessing that the VLAN needs to be able to communicate with the VM that hosts the Unifi software, but even with a firewall rule allowing it, I can't even ping it. However, from the VM I can ping the VLAN gateway

Managed to get hold of Apple support today. I was on holiday when they tried contacting me, but they left an email saying they've had 'developments' and said they'd explain over the phone. Weird. Anyway, nobody called back so I called them and after having to explain the issue again, they found an article from Jamf highlighting the same issue and that Jamf had heard reports of this issue from other MDM's. Article here: https://community.jamf.com/general-discussions-2/failed-to-retrieve-configuration-on-ipados-v15-8-4-48978 So it looks like Apple are indeed aware of it which is why they wanted to speak to me over the phone and not actually put it in an email. The bulk of the devices I'm having issues with are on iOS 15.8 and she did say that it seemed to be this version and some others, but she couldn't say for sure. To test, I've just been onsite and wiped an iPad that's running iOS 17 and it enrols without issue. Hoping they sort it out soon, but I'll keep chasing.

Hey all, I've eventually got around to setting up a VLAN specifically for Guest WiFi, but I'm having issues with the captive portal. If I disable the portal and just have a password for authentication, it works fine. As soon as I enable the portal, I can't get online. I cannot ping the controller and the browser won't load the portal. I've looked at firewall rules on Smoothwall and thought that by creating a rule would help, but it doesn't. I wanted to use the voucher system and it worked fine before I setup the VLAN. What am I missing? So frustrating!

The messages you're getting are different - I just get 'Failed to retrieve configuration' It's not Meraki as I also use Mosyle and get exactly the same issue with that. The iPads I have are iPads Air 2's running iOS 15.8.3 Did Apple actually say there was an issue? Knowing Apple, they've probably done this to stop customers using older equipment - it's causing me a huge headache though as, like you, I like to get them wiped ready for September :(

I'm wondering if this is related to an issue I'm having. We bought around 80 iPads years ago direct from Apple and most are still in use(!) but at the time we didn't have DEP setup, so once it was all setup I have, over time, manually enrolled them into DEP/ASM via Apple Configurator. We use Meraki for the MDM and all has been working fine. I usually erase them via Meraki ready for the new year and they take minutes to set back up. We then bought some more iPads last month, again from Apple, and I asked for them to be enrolled into the schools ASM. They said they had to re-activate our account and when I checked a few days later, they were all in ASM, and I all was good. However, I also noticed that some of the original iPads that had been either damaged or taken out of circulation were also showing in ASM as unassigned. So I guessed that whatever Apple had done had bought every device into ASM. Anyhow, the issue I now have is that if I wipe an old iPad, I can no longer get it to install the MDM config. It just says 'Failed to retrieve configuration' If I release it from ASM and try and enrol manually via Configurator, I get an error too. The only way I can now get these iPads back into Meraki, is to release from ASM, erase and enrol into Meraki without DEP. Have logged this with Apple but not getting very far. It's as if the records have somehow been screwed over.

How did you get on with this, as I'm in the same boat? I have configured it so that Google is the idP, so with SSO/SAML their Google account signs them into their 365 account using A1 licensing. I am hoping that this will give them the best of both worlds.

Just to add to this, it does seem to work well so far. The school now has Google Workspace and 365 (A1) using the same account. Is there any reason this wouldn't work with other schools in the Trust that are solely 365?

I spent a while getting my head around SSO/SAML and I think this may be a solution (for now) - it just enables the school to carry on working exactly as they are now but with the benefit of having access to 365 apps under the A1 license. Seems to work well - just need to get my head around administering 365 which is probably a good thing as I dare say I'll be using it a lot more in the near future.

Ah, thank you that now works. I was just wanting to test on a wired connection.