tmcd35

AFAIK, best practice would be - make sure DC2 has a copy of the Global Catalogue and migrate all FSMO roles to it. decommission DC1 safely using DCPromo Install new server from scratch with a fresh IP and new name. Do not re-use the existing name and IP for a new DC as it may cause problems with AD.

Hi, We have a couple of dozen CCTV cameras currently wired via coax individually to 2 PVR boxes. The system is at least 8 years old and quiet frankly the cameras are not in the best positions and images are poor quality. So, talk as started to replace this with a new CCTV system with more cameras covering more areas... As part of this someone said the dreaded words - IPTV. Now, I'd admit this is a field I'm entirely ignorant of but my first thought is of 30 live feed hi res cameras bringing my network to its knees. Currently we have a single flat network, mostly 10/100 edge switches connected back via 1Gbps links to an ancient (ProCurve 4008gl) core switch. We are looking at possibly some new switching gear as part of a new managed WiFi install during the next summer break, and with that the possibility of introducing VLANs. The question I have is - what, from a network stand point, do I need to consider if we go down the IP camera route? VLANs? QoS? Bandwidth management/throttling? 10Gbps? New switching? Any advice would be warmly received. Thanks.

I don't know about Lync, never looked into it, but the cost of using SQL standard for SCCM is included free of charge with the SCCM Management Licences. If you have the Core CAL suite licensed under EES then you have all the licenses you require to install SCCM and use it for client devices, you only need to purchase additional ML's if you want to manage your servers with SCCM.

SQL Server 2014 Licensing - SQL Server with Mr. Denny I'm pretty sure it's 2x 2 core packs, min of 4 cores. There is also the choice between licencing based on on assigned VM cores or based on total cores available to the host (in a VM environment). This then impacts on whether or not a machine can be live migrated to another host depending on which of the two methods you use and whether or not all hosts are licensed. If you choose host based instead of VM based you could easily corner yourself into a position where all SQL servers can only be run on one particular host... As always with MS licencing - it's a mine field.

Mmm, I'd be interested in what exactly people are getting quotes on as there a several options to SQL Sever. Are these 2012 or 2014 quotes? Per User/Device or Per Core? £75 sounds like per User/Device and would need CALs to go with it. £200 is about the ball park I was quoted (actually £230 for 2014 std) for Per Core. Remember - per core is sold in units of 2 cores, and a minimum of 4 cores total (max 16 for standard - for 2014 edition) must be purchased. So the minimum total cost for the per core standard version will be in the ball park of £400 (2x£200, 2x2 Core packs). It's also worth noting under EES that is a per year charge. I was quoted £450 for 2014 Std Core on a perpetual licence. Or £900 total for that server install. Turns out £900 now is cheaper than £400 per year since I don't plan on migrating that database until at least SQL 2019...

Current outlook for Norfolk (so London likely to be the same, just a tad warmer): Average temperature for the next two weeks: bloody cold Chances of rain at temperatures that will cause brain freeze: pretty high, especially mid week. Chances of snow for the next two weeks: meh! Chances of snow settling in the next two weeks: nope. Chances of freak snow storm ruining half term plans: 100%

Rather than block any access to the C: drive, a better approach is to hide the C: drive and disable any routes to finding it. This can all be done through GPOs (sorry not looking through the GPO at the moment). But basically disabling things like Start Menu->Run, CTRL+R, Command Prompt, etc and hiding the C: drive so it doesn't appear as a selectable drive in My Computer. This way all programs can see and access the C: drive as normal with out any interference from UAC, etc.

According to the help on the server in front of me, unless it is disabled through group policy, it should just work with those settings.

What version of RDP are you using? On the PC in front of me there is a 'More' box in the 'Local Resources' tab which lets you tick the drive letters you want to map across.

Oh god, I can spend hours here! Got a passion for retro gaming. Looking at the old Binatone and Ingersol Pong systems in '78 and then the arrival of the Atari 2600 in Summer '79 and the Intellivision in '82...

Will All-in-One PC's work? Stone and VeryPC do a really cool range the kids and teachers here love them!

For that number of clients, especially with video, I'd look towards dual hex-core Xeons or Opterons with 48Gb Ram per server as a minimum. With any desktop virtualisation you typically want to spec close to standalone (1 core, 2Gb Ram min) specs for each station then had some overhead for the host OS. 8-cores and 32Gb for 20 machines? Okay for light work but a bit meager if you ask me.

God, to be 30 again, seems like only yesterday... (actually 2783 yesterdays - but whose counting?) Congrats, enjoy your day.

They should be paying me commission for this - twice in one morning, but I really can't fault Go4Schools.

It's based on Microsoft Sharepoint, which like most MS enterprise products is a bit overly complicated and a beast to tame. We had SLG for 2-3 years but never really used it to any level. It looked OK for what it did, which is a basic web based read only front end to SIMS, but I always found Sharepoint got in the way. We moved over to Go4Schools which has had a very successful whole school role out. Web based, integrates with SIMS, easy to use, parent access. Seems to be the best fit for us.

The beauty of VM's, you are not limited in the number of servers you can have (accepting appropriate licencing, ram and cpu capacity). I subscribe to the one server one role notion, thus we have about 30 VMs in total here. Even KMS has been spun off to its own server. Also, especially with WDS, if you need to restart the server for any reason you'll be taking down a DC with it.

As a PS4 owner - I want to buy a Wii-U when the time is right. Mario Kart 8, Zelda 2015, Lego City Undercover, Windwaker HD, Nintendo have done a good job since the last E3 at making their console relevant again. £180 vs £350? I'd save a couple of quid. (Actually I wouldn't, I'd buy the PS4 with The Last of Us and buy the Wii-U later - but that's probably not the right advise in this instance).

Personally I'd forget WSUS, WDS and MDT and have a separate server for SCCM to do these tasks. Failing that I'd put WSUS on its own server and WDS and MDT on another server. I'd also question why separate out the file services? Why not one file server with separate shares for each group?

PS4 Slim is an interesting concept given the current size of the PS4. It's about the same size as the PS3 Slim. Sure the PS3 Super Slim is smaller, but that has a top load BluRay driver, yuck!

I think the best way forward is to work with the Business Manager and develop a rolling program for IT replacements. Get as flat as possible annual budget for total IT spend and present that to the head. They'll likely find that much easier to plan against and budget for than a sudden request for 10 new servers every 5 or so years. We budget £2500 per year for server replacements. As other have said look at buying 1 or 2 servers now and then see how you can repurpose your existing kit to tide you over till next year. Can you use the ram/cpu/hdd from one server to boost another?

750 pupil 11-16 secondary. Each teacher gets their own laptop which is also assigned to a room and must remain in that room during the school day to ease cover and itinerant teachers. I have suggested a move to fixed desktop PC's but SLT believe if they expect staff to do some lesson planing at home then they can't expect them to use personal equipment so we are sticking with laptops for the forseeable future. I'm currently looking in to Win8.1 tablet hybrids for PE staff as part of the next refresh. Part time staff get 5-year old hand me downs from full time staff. Every classroom has a projector and all but about 4 have interactive whiteboards. All but 3 IWBs are Smart boards, the other three are Promethean. I'm currently researching a development plan to switch to Clevertouch LCDs over the next 7-8 years.

I've been a VM customer for well over a decade and honestly the only real problem with Broadband I've ever had with them is their peek time throttling policy. I find it slightly annoying that Youtune and iPlayer sometimes still buffers on a 60mbps connection, grrr. I started out paying Demon Internet £10 and then what ever the per minute call rate was to the nearest Point of Presence. I'm sure that cost my parents a pretty penny on their phone bills at the time. That said, I was never on the Internet for long, mostly went on BBS's. Even then both were light on content. An hour or so a week was enough. We did pay Plus.net something like £15 a month for a local rate number we connected to through ISDN for a while. Usually used a single line at 64kbps so we didn't tie up the other line being used for the phone. Got 128kpbs out of both lines. That cost something like £75 per month for the ISDN line rental. Plus.net and local call rates were on top of that! When I first got broadband in 2001/2, it was a BT engineer install jobbie and cost something like £30 for 512kbps. I now pay about £26 for 60mbps. I think they are going to double my speed (again) to 120mbps sometime this year. I may drop back down to 60mbps which will be their lowest package and save money. I could get 152mbps now, but I really can't see the need for it.

Set up a WSUS server?

I'm assuming you're using quality SATA drives like WD Reds? That being the case I don't think the cost difference between 1Tb and 2Tb is that great. You might be better served with 4x2Tb in RAID-10, it should be a little faster, than 4x1Tb in RAID-5 + hot spare. Also 4Tb vs 3Tb total capacity.

At home - day 1. At work - when's Windows 7 EoL? For me Windows 7 is the new XP... Could be Windows 11 or 12 before we make the next jump. (That said Win 8.1 tablets are starting to creep in...)