localzuk

We buy basic Vestel screens here, and everyone links their laptop up and duplicates/extends their screens. We don't use any specific touchscreen software that comes with them.

I can't envision what you're saying sorry. My understanding of MS Bookings is you set up a service with timed slots available to book. So, we'd have to set up 16 services for this?

There's no way to limit seats per workshop with a form, so that won't be good enough for this sadly. Already suggested it and was overruled.

I have been asked to find a tool to help us manage our Trust-wide INSET/Conference that happens once a year. The day has all our staff from all schools on one site, and they have a fairly simple schedule through the day. Start of day talking - all in attendance Workshop 1 Workshop 2 Lunch Workshop 3 Workshop 4 End of day talking - all in attendance The workshops are made up of 4 options that each attendee has to choose from. So, we need a simple tool that can organise this with minimal admin overhead. Any recommendations?

This is something schools and Trusts are going to need to grapple with - hybrid working is useful these days. I regularly work from home now, when I need to sit and concentrate on some detailed tasks - policies, designing a system etc... The interruptions being in the office on site are too often to focus I find.

Ah, looks like its particular about clock speed rather than having a later generation CPU. 2.6Ghz being the minimum vs your existing 2.1Ghz?

The E5-2680 v4 is a Xeon processor? I can't find anything on the Ruckus site saying that it needs something newer than that though. There's a bunch of document recommending the E5-2XXX series chips.

My first question would be - do you need the latest and greatest CPUs? We bought 3x refurbished Dell R630 servers, with dual E5-2680 v4 CPUs with 28 cores each, 192GB RAM in each. We then have 4x 10Gb SFP+ ports, and 2x 1GbE ports. Finally, we put 4x 4TB Micron enterprise SSDs in each, and then built it all out as Windows HCI. Cost us less than £10k and runs our entire Trust's VMs. So, I would thoroughly recommend looking at a refurbished option, and looking at HCI instead of a traditional SAN setup - you can get far better performance for less cost.

Server updated to 1.20 Trails & Tails.

Having been working in school IT for 17 years now, it has dawned on me how much it has changed. Not from a technical standpoint, but from a regulatory one. Today, we have to deal with: KCSIE, and the linked filtering and monitoring guidance Cyber Security training and guidance from the DfE, EFA and NCSC (eg. we have to train staff and other things to get cyber security cover under the EFA insurance) The KCSIE guidance now advises schools to follow the DfE's various IT standards, so I'm guessing at some point this may change to being required for some aspects as well There's apparently some new guidance on anti-fraud as well which seems to include IT from what I've been told UK GDPR & PECR Then the usual policies Acceptable Use Online Safety CCTV Data Retention And then on top, disaster recovery planning and procedures. Add in the need to maintain a risk register as well. Its getting to the point that there's almost enough to do from a regulatory standpoint that it is a full time job. Its rather a lot!

We're having a bunch of new CAT6A points put in across our Trust for the wifi this summer, as part of Connect the Classroom. The company doing it is charging about £134 per point. So, £17k for 20 points is preposterously overpriced. The only time I've seen such over the top pricing was with BSF/PFI schools tied into contracts with their building owners, who add in service charges over their useful life etc...

Tried watching Citadel, and 5 episodes in find it a bit ridiculous. The acting is pretty poor. The CGI is hilariously bad. Its like they tried to copy the stylings of older Bond, but removed everything that was charming about it. Moved on to Silo. Loving it. It is clearly "this isn't Fallout, honest", but it works well. Also watching Foundation. Got 1 more episode to watch. A great show. The emperors are a little on the nose with their all powerful shtick. Jared Harris doesn't half get around sci-fi these days!

Whilst it doesn't come into effect until Sept, as 6 weeks of that time is summer holiday, it actually only leaves us 6 weeks to adapt policies, procedures and get training sorted. Not really a lot of time at all!

With DSLs needing to have working knowledge of the filtering and monitoring stuff, it has raised the question here - if we start sending them the notifications of monitoring hits, how do we then handle the need for those DSLs to go and look at some of the sites that get flagged? Some of the sites and searches are easy to figure out, but others? They just get a URL and no context (other than a general category) from Smoothwall, for example.

I'm not sure how a school could run esports stuff legally? Taking the earlier mentioned Fifa, if they want the online stuff you have to have an EA account. And EA accounts are for individuals, and must be over 13 to sign up. Games are licensed to those individuals. The terms also specify that the games are only licensed for personal, limited licenses - not commercial etc... That said, realistically, the technical side may be problematic from a filtering/routing POV. Games use their own networking engines etc, so may not play nice with enterprise class firewalls. If you need port forwards, then you may have issues with running more than 1 copy at a time.

When you say decent spec - what spec are you giving the 2 RD Session hosts? Cores/RAM? Also, what storage is running behind it?

Server updated to 1.2.1.

The difference in price between 8GB RAM in a laptop and 16GB is minimal - push comes to shove, buying the RAM module yourself costs about £15 for an extra 8GB, so about £500 for a full class set of devices.

We use Classroom Cloud. Works well, and the pricing is good.

Education volume licenses include "upgrade" licenses. Home edition is an eligible OS to upgrade from. Also, in general, you aren't installing pro editions, you're installing the Education Edition.

Big problem I have with the 4060 is that it is barely better than the 3060 was. At the moment, it seems like it'd be a waste of money. LTT did a video on it yesterday saying it was now a good price, but there are basically better options.

Smoothwall has Azure AD based auth I believe. As does Sophos XG.

I would suggest that this is also something that needs looking at too - old software, that isn't being supported any more, should be withdrawn from a security risk POV, as well as a data protection risk POV. I know budgets don't necessarily fit, but they didn't here either, and we've managed to eliminate it all over the last 5 or so years. Several attacks on schools have been through outdated software according to the DfE technology standards.

My comments are based more on the fact that your school used its existing kit for 10 years. So, is this new kit likely to be expected to last that long? If so, going for those few extra items on the spec ensures a bit more longevity. And yes, if you're on a slower connection in a rural area, you're likely to see some investment from Connect the Classroom at some point, both in terms of wifi, and potentially internet connection speed.

Have you looked at MS's support topologies page? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/connect/plan-connect-topologies Are your different forests able to be accessed from that single AD Connect server?