OllieC

Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy to move forward and get some second hand gear in - going to rewire them all, absolute spaghetti at the moment. Strikes me as a fun half term job (along with everything else piling up!)

Hi folks, Currently got two entrance doors with paxton compact readers on. I'd like to upgrade these and three sets of internal doors to Net2. I'm confident I can get the net2 gear cheaply enough second hand on ebay, and think I'm up to speed with wiring and installation, but I'm worried about fobs. To work with compact, we're using the packs of fobs with the shadowcards https://www.paxton-access.com/products/proximity-10-keyfob-pack-green/ Are these fobs going to be compatible with a net2 system? It says "Use with Compact and Switch2 systems" - I thought all paxton fobs were 125khz, is this comment just a common sense one as you wouldn't need shadow cards with the net2 system and vice versa with the net2 fobs, not much use for a compact/switch2 system as no shadow cards? Hoping I'm talking some sense, don't want to spend the couple of hundred on the kit to find we need to buy all new fobs! Cheers

Hi everyone, Looking at investing in some infrastructure next year. We currently only have the hosted firewall on IPS's (RM) end. I'd like to introduce our own appliance to supplement this and provide an additional element of security/control internally. The Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro caught my eye as I'm putting in all Unifi APs and would also be able to manage these without needing to faff around with cloud management, but I've read comments here suggesting that it's not really capable of carrying itself in larger networks - or is this only in the context of using it as a network core? Maybe it's easier to list what we *don't* need an appliance to do: - Network Core - Filtering - VPN Anyone got any recommendations? This is very much new territory to me, never played with UTM/firewall appliances before. As I browse around options I'm finding licensing and cloud managed rabbit holes and it's a bit difficult to actually work out what I should be looking for. I'm thinking of throwing in an LTE backup connection, probably limiting this to keeping critical services alive (cloud MIS/365-email/onedrive) in case of an outage. Be interested if anyone's got any experience to this effect? I'm thinking £15/20 a month on a data plan is going to be less hassle than FTTC/adsl connection. Something that can handle the failover connection is a must. Cheers, Ollie

Thinking life would be easier if we just lock down off domain - nothing to expire, nothing to go wrong (e.g. change password but device tunnel not connecting leading to issues logging on etc etc).... Not sure how to effectively achieve filtering with split tunnelling either as split tunnelling only sends traffic for that network over the VPN, requests outside of the network, e.g. internet wouldn't go through the VPN tunnel. I'm looking at Netsupport DNA (already users in school) remote gateway and potentially the parental filters built in to W10. Think I've found a way to get InTune rocking as well.... things always seem a bit clearer when you're not receiving an endless stream of password reset requests!

Hi everyone, Sorry if I'm asking the obvious but I'm feeling absolutely overwhelmed at the moment, the new email noise is bringing me out in a cold sweat, so just need to mull over what others are having success with. We've got a stack of DfE laptops - they're not DfE managed unfortunately, when it came to ordering, I could either go for those naff geobooks or the semi-decent HP ones unmanaged, so went unmanaged. I *could* just build them, have them on force tunnelled VPN and have done with it, but I don't like the idea of the strain that will put on the VPN/connection as well as giving these laptops unnecessary access in to school systems when all they need is a web filter. Thinking I'll just do a quick win 10 image with office/teams installed and a .\localuser account like the DfE setup. My issue comes in with management and filtering... We're RM customers with hosted safetynet, I'm waiting for my account manager at RM to get back to me with regards to cloud filtering - is there any suggested way of doing this if they can't do it? E.g. a local filter that can be installed or a recommended route for cloud filtering that isn't going to cost an entire budget. Management... I can just set windows update settings and leave it at that, BUT I've read that SCCM now includes InTune for devices that are SCCM managed - how on earth does one go about using this? I can find no route in to being able to take advantage of this. Any input is greatly appreciated before I find a hole to jump in to.

Mind sharing what that looks like on your agreement? Struggling to find a way currently

Sorry to bump an old thread but I'm struggling with intune licensing; How does the SCCM benefit work? I can find no way to ues it - also I'm repeatedly being told there's no way to do it based on FTE for the full licenses from our Microsoft supplier? Cheers

Goes without saying this is just me starting the process - to put anyone's mind at rest, of course I'm investigating and sourcing multiple solutions and pricing options before even allocating this to a budget!

Unifi sounds perfect! Just frustrating I've got to wait for next year's budget now.

Thanks guys, really appreciate the input - will start getting prices on Unify kit. Any recommendations for specific models? I've got a handful of high density use areas (laptop trolleys, halls, sixth form, etc.) Also - re controller; there's talk of hosting ourselves on a VM or buying a "unifi key" - what's the pricing model for this? Is there a yearly cost, per AP, etc? Thanks

Ubiquity seems to be the way to go by the sounds of it; one for next year's budget I imagine.

Hi folks, Currently got a fairly antique Trapeze (Juniper) MX-200R controller with 66x WLA322-WW and 26x MP-422B APs. The WLA322-WW APs aren't *that* old; they do N/G... Do I look at getting a new controller and replacing the older APs or go down the route of complete replacement? I'm not really clued up on what the best options are for managed wireless these days - any recommendations if you wouldn't go down the upgrade route? Cheers

It's a definite possibility! The more commercial end of these displays aren't ridiculously expensive and look the job. My only concerns is how easily broken they'd be. I agree about interactivity being largely a gimmick, the 30 replacement SMART Boards are basically meeting the whole school's demand for interactivity. I'd even go as far to provide an alternative like a wacom tablet on request where people want some kind of pen input to the board. (Had to keep promethean or smart in areas that were heavily invested because of teachers with decades of stuff in activinspire format... can turn that in to smart notebook and provide basically the same functionality without needing to fork out for licenses).

£1bn with an overall £9.6bn estimated repair and renewal cost over the UK, we might get enough for a pot of polyfilla if we're lucky! Best I'm hoping for (and actively trying) is to leverage savings on capital expenditure if we *ever* see a successful CIF bid.

Yeah there's just no money to go towards a project of this cost any time soon, especially when projectors can be made to work at a third of the cost per room; I work with the estates management as well and every spare penny is going towards keeping the buildings standing. I can live with the plywood mountings as I check and confirm that they're appropriately secured, my biggest bugbear at the moment is the cabling.