Jump to content
EduGeek EdSec 2026 is Go! 27th Oct in Derby! Join us for a day of EdTech security focused talks, networking, and an evening social ×

MK-2

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3,282

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by MK-2

  1. MK-2

    RM and CC4 (yet again)

    By MK-2,

    I just thought I'd give people a little update two weeks in.
    Any faith or confidence I had in RM prior to our install has totally gone. They have take a lot of money and now any issues I am raising am being told that as it wasn't part of our scope of work, technically they cannot help.
    Our ISA server issue, OK maybe a one off that they missed it in the survey, but they also missed our library server.
    They installed some filtering software on our cache box, the engineer had no idea what it was or how to use it, he logged a support call for me, and the response i got was (in nicer words) RTFM.
    it wasn't that i didn't know how to do certain things, it was the fact i had no idea where it was initially installed, how i login to it, what it is capable of. the manual (which i read) details none of this, just how to filter certain things.
    i've also logged a call about using MST files for smartboard software. I'm told in CC3 it was possible, but in CC4 its changed. The support team can only point me to tech articles relating to CC3 which tell me to go to places that dont exist and edit files that aren't there.
    Machines have ground to a halt on occasion, or sit there trying to load the CC4 splash login screen but not showing any login box until you reboot. When you do login it sits for 5 mins applying settings.
    I have (in two weeks) got half our machines on the new network. Others crash half way through building for no reason, and when you try to build again, it wont read from the CD or gives another error.
    I haven't even managed to successfully build ONE package yet, so machines have the internet, and MS Office, that's it.
    Other RM features such as easylink were left in an unusable state. We can reach the easylink page externally but get a certificate error, even if we accept that you have to manually install a certificate, and even then it wont show the page correctly. so not only doesn't it work, i've been given no guidance on how to do anything with it.
    we have paid for support, yet all i ever seem to get is directed towards certain tech articles, none of which ever seem to relate to CC4, only CC3.
     
    The only way i can relate to this is that it feels like you're on your very first driving lesson, never seen a car before, and the instructor says "right, here's the keys, drive me to scotland". no guidance, you're just expected to know everything and he will just sit there while you make mistakes continually and cause disruption. because thats what this is. two weeks with a maximum of half the machines in the school online, no other software installed, no proper guidance.
     
    I know CC4 has its champions who will sing its praises, but then so do political parties, and i for one am on the opposition!
  2. MK-2

    My RM CC4 experience

    By MK-2,

    I'm not going to finish off the RM install blog, as to be honest, it is a waste.
    I have worked the weekend and the past three days to try to get even the most basic of tasks done and am hitting brick walls everywhere.
     
    There are still some jobs left over from the install that need doing by RM, and I'm waiting for them to do it, but I am finding the software so restrictive.
    I understand some people may say it helps you do a lot more, can cut down on time taken doing tasks etc, but right now, I cannot even find how to give staff access to change screen resolution, and RMs answer was for me to log in as admin and change it, that will then stay changed.
    That's not what I want, I want staff to be able to do it not involve me in it.
    There are loads of little problems, and loads of things that I just do not like.
     
    Admittedly this is the first week, so there are going to be teething problems. I do not want to slate CC4 or RM as a whole, but from my experiences over the past two weeks, I cannot recommend it.
     
    Our client machines are now taking about 3 or 4 minutes of 'applying settings' per user. I cannot narrow down our student list into groups as the only filter I can use is year of entry, which doesn't really help as that isn't filled in in our MIS as we are a private school, so don't have kids from yr7 to 11, they can join even for a few months. So I'm left with a list of ALL students at once. I have tried to edit all at once to set printer credits and after waiting tenm mins for the dialog box to pop up, I made the changes, clicked apply, then waited 2 hours before evnetually forcing the program closed as it was doing nothing.
    Even admin stuff is weird. I set myself as system admin access, yet still had no rights to edit policies, as i wasnt a member of the 'policy management' group. so just to do a system admin job, you need to be a member of various groups rather than just domain admins.
     
    Sorry for the rant. These are just my views, I cannot speak for the school, or anybody else who has used/using CC4.
  3. MK-2

    CC4 install - Day 5

    By MK-2,

    The best day yet........
     
    The engineer arrived and said still no word from RM, but he had finished all the other work he could do until he got a call from them.
    Still nothing I could do at all, so we both spent the day doing absolutely nothing.
    I could tell the engineer was frustrated as he could have been working on the servers all the time.
     
    Got a call about 3pm saying they had juggled people about and an ISA engineer would be to us Thurs so he could begin work on the other servers in the meantime. Kickout is usually 4pm so the last hour was spent moving the servers about so we could switch them off and remove cabling tomorrow easily.
    The engineer also said RM have said he may have to work some late nights, and possibly Saturday to get it finished (I'm already working sat-sun myself).
     
    From what I understand, RM are still arguing about whose fault it was that this was overlooked. Not passing the buck, but I don't think any blame lies with us. RM came in to survey the school and didn't include a firewall/ISA box in the survey. They sent quotes for RM ISP but I was never told of this.
    If we do end up being charged extra for this, I can see a bit of a battle as I honestly don't feel we are at fault here.
     
    So a whole day wasted (putting as at nearly two days wasted due to power cuts and one day wasted due to RM not having an answer to this)
  4. MK-2

    CC4 install - Day 4

    By MK-2,

    So first day of half term.
    The engineer hadn't had a call from RM HQ yet and said that once he had finished off the RM box, he couldn't do anything as once we started on our servers there was no going back, and if RM couldn't get an engineer out to do the ISA box it would mean having two broken networks.
    Definitely a fair point, he wanted to wait for HQ orders before doing anything.
     
    So the day was spent loading BackupExec onto the RM diskbox, doing backups of our existing servers one last time, and just basically doing little things.
     
    The engineer got a call at lunch and said they are all still in a meeting trying to work out what to do, but will call when they have resolved it.
    The rest of the day was spent with us doing little bits, and the engineer calling RM a few times to check progress.
  5. MK-2

    CC4 install - Day 3

    By MK-2,

    OK, first full day of power being back on, and as we were already behind schedule we left all servers connected as the engineer carried on setting up our new RM DC.
    As he was configuring things like DNS/DHCP I mentioned our exchange box, which has all SMTP and OWA stuff forwarded to it via our isa box. he looked on his list and said that RM had no record of having to do work on an isa box.
    This would mean he moves our exchange box over, then it either sits directly on the internet or it stays internal and we have no external email.
    this was about 11am.
    So he called RM HQ and said they are all arguing now as to whose fault it is.
    One is blaming the survey team who initially came here to evaluate what work needed doing before the quote (done long before i started).
    Another was blaming the custom install team who failed to put it on the quote or scope of work. Then we were also blamed for not accepting the RM broadband quote that was sent to us which would have meant the RM supplied Cisco box would have done it.
    The RM ISP part was again sent before I started so I had no record of this.
     
    Personally, if a survey team comes out to sit at your servers ALL day and fail to see that exchange is forwarding to an ISA box, and also fail to see that we have a library server that stores the library catalog (luckily i'm getting rid of that, otherwise there would be problems there too) then the survey team are at fault.
     
    So friday was spent with the engineer finishing off the RM box, and waiting to hear back from RM HQ as to what the plan is. He said they have the following options:
    -We take RM ISP (i declined as we have no guarantee it will be done this week)
    -We have an RM engineer do what needs to be done to RM'ify the ISA box, which would mean them juggling engineers about to get one to us
    -We reschedule the install
     
    I talked to the head who said reschedule is not happening, and we tell RM to sort it this week and we work out who is at fault and pays later.
     
    I left friday with no idea if we would be able to continue the install, but said i wanted to take the RM'ify the ISA box option
  6. MK-2

    CC4 install - Day 2

    By MK-2,

    where to start, where to start!!
     
    got in at 7:30 to find the whole school apart from my office had power. found out im on the same circuit as the physics lab which had blown and couldnt be switched back on.
    a sparky was called but before he arrived, the power in the whole school went out again.
    that came back up, and the sparky arrived, moved my circuit onto another to get me online, but said he'd come back at 3 to put my office on its own circuit.
    rm engineer arrived 2mins after power had been restored (i'd sent him a text saying arrive late, we still have power issues).
    he got about installing, but said that rm HQ were throwing a fit because we have an exchange server that routes via an isa server, and he said he wasn't told the isa server had to be moved over (despite rm doing a 4 hour survey of our school before i started).
     
    Got to about 11:30 and he said that he needed a build server that streams the bulid to our other servers to make them cc4. he said as cc4 is having so many updates and revisions, not all build servers are up to date, and the one he used before hadn't been shipped from the last client.
    so the only thing he could do was to travel down to rm hq in abingdon and get a new up to date build server.
    oxford is 2 hours from us, so 12:00 til 14:00 to get there, another however long to get the server built, then 2 hours back, so he said no use coming back, ill get the server and see you tomorrow.
    He left at 12:30 with the new CC4 server having done some setups, but also having had a few issues too.
     
    He still doesn't know how we are going to get our exchange and isa working on the new network and we are now pretty much two days behind schedule.
  7. MK-2

    CC4 install - Day 1

    By MK-2,

    Ok well I got in this morning to find our tapestor had stopped working, the backup had failed last night and now backup exec wasn't recognising that there was even a device connected.
    Spent two hours messing about with it before the RM kit was delivered.
    Engineer turned up at about 10, went through a basic 'whats happening' and got cracking.
     
    With me trying to sort our backups, I had to keep rebooting the server with backup exec on, which meant e-mails kept going up and down (exchange is on there too).
     
    Now if there are any script writers for the IT crowd reading, sod off, this day was mine, I get to use it!!!
    About 1pm, the new CC4 server is chugging away running all its scripts after the engineer had set up DNS/DHCP on it etc..
    The lights in our office started flickering, so I went next door to check if they were doing the same in the IT suite. Just as I got back in the office, power went down.
     
    Old servers went straight off (the two connected to UPS lasted long enough for me to press the power button on them!). The RM server died instantly and the engineer said hopefully it hadn't got to the commisioning phase or it could be trouble if it was interrupted like that!
     
    So from about half 1 til I left at 4:30 we had no lights, no power, no phones, no heating, no bloody nothing.
    So we're now at least a day behind an already tight schedule, with possibly a buggered new server and no backup device for the old network.
     
    So yeah, all in all day 1 went superbly, roll on day 2

×
×
  • Create New...