localzuk

I'm afraid I don't know, as our HR dept organised it instead of IT.

Don't take it as gospel, but I think they were about £4-5 each last time we paid. Though, with all the price rises they've had lately, I wouldn't be surprised if they've gone up.

We signed up for a programme of cyber-security training with The Defence Works. So far staff have received online training for GDPR, Phishing and Password policies.

Yes, that is one of our goals. We print an extraordinary amount in our Trust at the moment. Most of it handouts that children simply stick in their books. Those handouts can be sent electronically with Classroom etc... Aye, you could. The only difference really is the increased costs due to licensing and management of the Windows devices. A fixed £19 or whatever, for the entire lifetime of a Chromebook is favourable to the management costs of Windows machines. Indeed. We have, over the last 18 months or so, rolled out Ruckus R510, R610 and R710 APs across all areas of our schools (except one of our smaller schools, which has Ubiquiti Unifi instead). We upgraded our WAN from FTTC connections with VPNs between the schools to a 1Gbit PTP connection network. So, all schools connect back to our central site at 1Gbps, and then we have 1Gbps out to the net. This wasn't done for the Chromebooks, just general needs, but it will aid our project also. This has yet to be nailed down, but my current plan is a series of twilight-ed training sessions led by a local firm that has done a lot of this for other schools.

Not so much. iPads don't have keyboards, and they cost more per unit. They're not as useful as a 2 in 1 Chromebook.

RDS CALs are an additional license under OVS-ES 100%. We have been buying them for years. Definitely not included in either the Core or Enterprise CAL packs.

Just an FYI - I nearly always find SQL licensing is cheaper done as "Server + CAL" licensing instead of socket/core based licensing. So, you'd pay for 2 server licenses and then CALs up to your FTE, and it'd cover your SQL VMs regardless of cores/sockets.

We're not looking at selling them on to the children - we're including some breakages in our projected costs, and we're going to be making all parents/guardians/children sign a contract which covers wilful destruction costs. I suspect we'll have some families refuse to sign, so we'll make them leave theirs in school. No. We're focusing on the build quality of the devices themselves. I may consider some form of "sleeve" cases for the children to carry them around in, but I was thinking this would be a nice bit for children to get their own to "personalise" them. We don't do leases here. They're a pain, from an accounting POV.

Exactly, yeah. A datacenter license covers unlimited VMs.

The 2 models I looked at are the R725T and the R721T. The prior is Intel, and has the option for a stylus and a camera in the keyboard. The latter is AMD. The latter is the one we're looking at as we don't need the camera or stylus and is is a fair amount cheaper than the Intel. It is more power hungry than the Intel, but Acer have compensated for this by putting in a bigger battery. We were loaned the demo units, not sold. We only got a demo of the Intel one, as the units are in short supply and pre-production at the moment.

I can't give exact numbers but I'll list them here, as they're all things people will consider. 1. We won't need such a big central server setup once we've moved over everyone to Google apps. Sure, we could do this anyway but it goes nicely hand in hand. Our existing central cluster cost us around £50,000 last time we replaced it. 2. We won't need to license as much Microsoft software. We likely won't continue with OVS-ES once we do this - instead buying targeted licenses for things we want instead. 3. We won't need to back as much up locally, so won't need such a large NAS or need Veeam any more (as cheaper software will suffice for what we have left onsite) 4. We won't need to support such a wide range of hardware and software. So won't need such a complex system like SCCM or the like. 5. We won't need to purchase as many iPad MDM licenses any more, as we'll be reducing the number of iPads we have, replacing them with Chromebooks 6. We won't need to purchase as many antivirus licenses as we won't have as many Windows machines 7. We won't need to have dedicated IT rooms, so we won't need to refurbish them any more 8. We won't need to have as many switches, as we won't need to have as many devices connected by wired network cards 9. We won't need to maintain extra "clusters" of computers for children to do reading and maths testing on with Renaissance Place. 10. We won't need to print as much, as work can be sent to children via their Chromebooks instead of via pieces of paper to "stick in their books" 11. We won't need to purchase headphones, as we'll expect children to provide their own, for use with their Chromebooks. Hope that helps.

Is that spec per physical host? If so, you would need 3 licenses for the first host, and 4 for the second, to cover 6 and 8 VMs each. For SQL server, this depends how you're licensing it. We use Server+CAL licenses here. However, you seem to have a lot of copies of SQL server running - what are they all for? I tend to concentrate my SQL setup - so have an SQL server or 2, with all the different instances installed, and all the systems that use it pointed at them.

The issue is, when you scale out the price of the Acer vs Dell, it works out as an extra £27,000 on top of our costs, an extra 20-25%. That's enough for us to buy an extra 100+ devices, including device licenses and custom vinyl printing lol.

A few reasons: 1. We can now afford to do so. 2. It will allow children more independence in their IT usage - less reliance on needing a suite of PCs. 3. We are doing more and more things that require IT usage - eg. GL testing, which currently takes 4 weeks to get everyone through our ICT suites. With Chromebooks, we'd be able to get it done in a week. 4. We are in 2019, where more and more things are computerised. Restricting the children to using a computer a couple of times a week helps no-one. 5. Some children have no IT at home at all, doing this will allow them to do their homework at home rather than us having to run a "homework club" 6. It will reduce our Microsoft licensing cost (as this has gone up and up) 7. Chromebooks are not iPads - I still see iPads as a primarily "content consumption" device, except for a limited number of uses. They're also more expensive than Chromebooks, which work as a laptop and a tablet. 8. It will reduce our onsite server costs, as we will move more stuff to the cloud. Overall, once we've rolled it out everywhere, it should reduce our ongoing IT costs by around 25%. iPads suffer with the lack of a keyboard, unless you want to buy a bluetooth case etc... Makes them impractical for use with children in a classroom IMO.

I've now had demo units of the HP x360 11, Acer Flip 511 and Dell 5190 2 in 1. Just waiting on a demo unit from Asus also. So far: HP - wouldn't touch. Such poor construction quality. The kid's'd rip them apart in no time Acer - very good build quality. Well thought out, with rubberised edges on the lower half of the machine, with a slightly smaller lid so any drops will only hit the lower rubberised parts. Pricing is impressive too. Dell - excellent build quality. *Slightly* edges out Acer in quality (down to the screen edge also being rubberised). But, the price so far is significantly higher, a full £60+ per unit more than Acer. That extra works out almost enough to do an entire extra school year of the Acer's.

This server is now offline, being replaced by: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/edugeek-minecraft/206360-edugeek-minecraft-server-sky-factory-4-a.html#post1763845

Announcing the next EduGeek Minecraft server - Sky Factory 4! Server address: mc.edugeek.net Sky Factory 4 can be downloaded via the Twitch app We are using version 4.0.5 We are running "Chunk Norris" worldgen type, with prestige turned off. When you spawn in, press the button and enjoy. Have fun! As always, to be whitelisted on the server, please visit your Profile on the site and add you Minecraft username to the field there. The server updates the whitelist every 6 hours. It can also be updated manually if you PM me and I'm around to do it.

As always, the big question when choosing screens I've found is - do you intend to use any of the existing interactive board software like SMART Notebook? There may be licensing implications. We install SMART 65" screens as standard now. Pricing is pretty good really these days.

If you have your MIS hosted my a third party, you should really be asking where it is hosted when you sign up. In fact, the majority of such companies now simply include it in their privacy notice. Makes it easier for compiling your in your data audit documentation. If they host on third party equipment, they will need to show this.

That is brave, changing filtering during this time!

Why have HPE, Dell and Cisco all started (well, I say started, they started ages ago, but have increased the number of devices with them as time has gone on) to use C15/C16 connectors on their network switches? As far as I knew, C15/C16 was designed for high temperature environments - eg. lighting bars in theatres, devices that get hot etc... Why put them on a device that uses 750W or less?

Its a shame they went all or nothing with it. I can't use it because of that sadly. 6 year old children simple aren't capable of remembering longer more difficult passwords. We've tried.

It applies to the whole domain, so you can't run it on a subset of users. That's where it doesn't discriminate - but to do so, you need the right licenses to cover every user. Makes it almost useless for us though sadly, because you try getting a 6 year old to remember a non-word based password.

I would suggest you'll struggle to find anything to cover that now - its a very old wall box - I'd guess its even made of bakelite. I'd say your best bet would be to carefully remove the back and get a normal modern 1 gang backbox and blanking plate to put over it.

Another PSF user here. To be blunt - I dislike it. It is buggy, it is badly written, it is overly complex and hugely overpriced. We also use PS People. And between the 2, we have someone have to connect in to our servers at least once a week to fix things. Our favourite bug at the moment, in the MyPortal part of PSF, is where a user can save a draft requisition (as enforced budgets are enabled they can't submit it fully if their budget is "spent"), they then give the draft ID to finance, who open it, only to find that the data that should be there has changed. So a req for, say, a VESA screen mount from Amazon has suddenly changed into a mini bus booking...