Lee_K_81

*as an aside, much of what was set up here before I started isn't best practice and in some cases not even fit for purpose (non-raided storage server with no backups i'm looking at you) and I'm trying to fix things as I go, without trying to make things cost too much or cause extensive down time while things are brought up to scratch.

Here's the full story to help give an idea of where we're at and why. TS01 - originally set up before I started as App Server, connection broker, Session host and gateway. App server, connection broker and gateway aren't used and people remotely connect using rdp. Company wants to have redundancy on the server so wants a second server put in and load balanced. During testing we've been able to get 2 servers load balanced with connection broker. rdp'ing internally to ts-farm (ip address of both servers have dns a records for ts-farm) works fine. Externally, our router only re-directs to 1 ip address (ts01) which is fine if the user has an existing session on ts01 or would be assigned to ts01 based on load. The problem occurs when they should be re-directed to ts02. In the "use ip address for reconnection" only an internal ip address can be used. This is then passed back to the external client, who can't connect to the server on it's internal address. To get around this a gateway needs to be used. The gateway can be set up on one of the existing server (ts01 for example) however we're then in the issue that in the event of TS01 going down, as it holds the gateway service, any other connections would be rejected (remember router can only forward connections to one ip address. To ensure this doesn't happen I've separated the gateway from the session hosts. As all this server is doing is hosting the gateway service and acting as rd connection broker, I figured I would make it a session host running in re-direction mode. No extra features, but no real disadvantages to it. That explains the setup I hope. Unfortunately the company aren't willing to spend too much cash generally, and don't really want to go shelling out on extra licenses for software, so asked if it was possible for users to have a preferred server. All my research and responses here indicate it isn't so the option would be remote apps from server ts01 to server ts02 or they shell out for extra licensing on the software that is causing the issue. Unless anyone has any other ideas?

Yep. Only my farm is 2 machines rather than 20.

Depending on budget there's a piece of software called datastor EPS (Source-Based Deduplication Backup Software) that is really good. Pricey though. Quantum (tape drive/backup device specialists) do an OEM implementation on their NDX-8D server (NDX-8 Series NAS Storage). Software does agentless client side de-duplication reducing network bandwidth, backups of full system, files, exchange, sql, etc. Pretty good software. Misco sell the quantum implementation with basic license, host server and 10 windows client (xp, 7 etc.) version for around £3k ex.vat (Quantum NDX-8d NAS Data Protection Storage System- Tower- DATASTOR Shield Deduplication Software - 8TB (raw)- (DNADS-CSTQ-008A) - www.misco.co.uk i'm sure you can add additional licensing. Quantum also offer an unlimited license version - industry pricing is around £5.5k-6k ex.vat but they may offer edu pricing. Big selling point to SLT that their entire laptop can be backed up weekly and full restoration in a couple of hours in event of hard drive failure etc. * i don't work for either datastor, quantum or any reseller, just evaluating the software myself and thought it may interest.

The ts-gateway is actually handling all incoming connections at present. Our router directs external access on port 3389 to x.x.x.8 which is my ts-gateway. The remote computer name in the RDP settings is set as ts-farm. The ip address of ts-farm is the same as ts-gateway (x.x.x.8 - other hosts are not given same IP address). The documentation on dedicated redirection is here: About Dedicated Farm Redirection and Virtual Machine Redirection although it doesn't specifically state to remove any round robin entries for the other servers on the farm name I don't see what the point of dedicated redirection would be if it would only get the connection 1/3 times. It would be a nice feature to have a "home" or preferred server for particular groups, or the ability to have a connection broker tied to a particular RDP connection defined in RD session host config. I'm beginning to think that option 3 is the only way. Certain programs such as NitroPDF are able to be installed on a terminal server, but limited to a number of users. I've not asked them whether our TS license allows us to install on multiple servers though. There are a couple of other smaller programs too. Maybe an easier task is to look at the licensing on those servers and ensure that they have any extra licenses to cover multiple servers.

Hi everyone, Although I've now left education, I still think edugeek is the best support forum going, so here's a puzzler for you: 3 Server 2008 r2 servers. ts-gateway - gateway service, session host (redirection mode), connection broker ts01 - session host joined to connection broker farm ts02 - session host joined to connection broker farm users connect to ts-gateway and are redirected to an appropriate server based on the number of active sessions, or reconnected to an existing session. This works fine. ts01 contains some apps that we don't have licenses for to be able to install on ts02. Ideas: 1: What we would like to do is when members of g_managers (who need app on ts01) connect to the gateway, they are automatically directed to ts01. In event of TS01 failure they would be directed to TS02. From what I can find it is impossible to set a preferred server in the gateway or connection broker services. 2: My next idea was to perhaps on ts01 have 2 network adapters, join nic1 to the cluster and leave nic2 separate. Have a different external address for managers to connect to, and then in the event of a server failure they would need to manually go to the connection broker farm. However, although I can create a separate RDP listener on the additional NIC the connection broker settings are not connection specific but correspond to the whole system. 3: Have all users connect to the ts_gateway and be redirected to whatever server is next, and then have a remote app on their redirected desktop to the specific program. The only concern with this is that in theory a user could then have sessions on each individual server. Does anybody have any ideas on how to get options 1 or 2 working? I'm at a stage that I think option 3 is the only real option. Thanks, Lee

Alt key works off a USB keyboard. No strange combinations with FN as far as we can tell Not a special keyboard, just the one inbuilt laptop one. Shows up as normal in device manager.

We've got a laptop here (Win 7 Pro) where the ALT key isnt working in normal boot. It works in bios and even safe mode but not normal boot. We've done a full re-install of OS to check and same issue. Any ideas?

3 down on right must be another matrix one. Matrix revolution maybe?

Horses for courses. One school's usage isnt indicative of what schools everywhere are doing. I'm not discounting cloud computing, or even open source alternatives, i'm saying that MS office isn't going anywhere yet.

Erm, this thread is 17 months old. If you continue to read you will see somebody mentions google gears allowing the software to run offline. I agree an internet connection is a must have but internet connection downtime is still more likely than a power cut. No power = no PCs and in all likelyhood means the school closes as it would not be safe for pupils to be onsite when there are no alarms, poor lighting, no heating, no telephony (possibly). No internet means no internet, pupils can still work with offline apps / document storage. Despite the thread being so old, I think my point is still valid. While the cloud is the future it does not yet rival MS, although I think their new EES licensing model highlights their own fears about their rivals.

We've done quite a few now, usually get a sports or swedish massage while i'm at it. Congrats on the pregnancy. Ours is due Wednesday so i'm on tenderhooks at the moment waiting for the phone to ring!

How about a spa weekend? Nice bit of pampering, meal, hotel room..... There goes any macho image I may have had.......

Yes, splash message in box. I've discussed previously that our AUP says moderate personal use is allowed, but who defines moderate?

I've been asked to monitor the internet connection of an individual member of staff. Discretely. No accusation of dodgy sites, just non-work related for a specific amount of time. Any (free + quick) software out there that will just sit in the background and do this for me, prefereably MSI deployable. Proxy is council run so reading proxy logs are out of the question. Failing that i'm stuck with taking copies of Internet History .dat files.

Seriously? I regularly charge my personal mobile at work, but then again I also charge my work mobile at home, I also have a laptop which i use at home - I sometimes even plug it in. Maybe I should bill the school for my electricity and internet.

Shadow copies are a god send. Quick recovery when a pupil "accidently" deletes their work. Single Instance Storage is also amazing. Especially when staff decide to send the same joke email to all staff or upload the same documents / images to 3 different locations in the same server. Step one - switch it off and on again Step two - uninstall and reinstall Step three - google. I believe this next one is someones sig: Never argue with idiots, they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience. SLT dont like the words "no", "it's impossible" or "it can't be done", but some can be put off with "it will cost £x,000 to be able to do it" or "how about this way instead" Keep you line manager on-side and put the effort into forming a good working relationship (needs both parties efforts though). They will then back you up and become someone you can let-off steam too about a problem before re-phrasing it and raising further up the chain.

Does anyone know how (if) you can set a value to a CMIS timetable event so that it isnt counted as a contact period. Basically I've done our timetable and putting meetings in, when I look at the teacher summary as to how many lessons they're teaching I dont want non-contact periods, such as meetings, union periods, etc. to be counted. Thanks. Lee

Anybody from (UK) schools who have Managed IT services or have opted out of a managed service care to answer a few questions? Doing some work with an academy that is being built and managed IT services is on the next agenda. Looking for both positive and negative for both sides. Thanks, Lee

I'm making no assumptions or insinuations, just an observation. If he isn't a student asking for help, approaching a local university who has lots of students about to take final year projects on, could be a solution.

If i remember correctly this is about the same time that 2nd year Computer Science Students pick their final year project............

Ok, now i'm jealous!

NP, unfortunately the second shot campaign is the only one MS are allowing MCPs to participate in I think. Seems a little bit pointless as, as you pointed out, people can get the second shot voucher anyway. Maybe further campaigns will be added in future.

Shhhh don't tell everyone that Ray, I don't get the credit from the Microsoft Learning Rewards for the global ones.

If anybody is sitting any MS exams in the near future and would like a second shot voucher (free retake if you fail) just PM me for vouchers. Lee