jamesfed

That way they can keep it in the market sector they want (i.e. low powered netbooks) and prevent it sprawling into these new array of wimpy cores servers and then go on to design a special 'server' edition for these uses without the limits but with 3x the price tag But that’s just IMO....

Slightly off your main topic but- If I read that right do you only have 4GB of RAM in your server? If so does the software package you are looking at run using SQL server and if so you may wish to look at boosting up the RAM at that point to allow for SQLs RAM hungry needs. Once you reach that point you are only a few steps away from getting a whole new server to run things off.....

Know what you mean with TMG (we use it as well!) - the thing that realy gets me is Lync server updates as they arn't even on Windows Update (they have to be downloaded and installed specialy). Subsribing to the relevent technet blogs via RSS is what I have done - its sloppy but it is nice when they post any useful hints and tips

I would pitch it against the amount of time that you would expend making a new 2003 network - you may find that if you take into account how much it would cost to setup that network compared to the cost of lics for your current network that sticking with what you have and paying for the lics would work out cheaper. I know its hard to convince people that time really is money but at least its an option.

Close Configure to order - kinda like what dell does

Yeah I would be looking to bump that up to either one 16 core (might need to go CTO on that) or a dual 8 core if running 32. For RAM assume min 2 GB (which I find Windows 7 runs fine on) but allow for expansion as best as you can - after all RAM is cheap as chips

We are running our 20 VDI seats at the moment off of one 8 core processor - clock rarely goes above 50%. The thing you have to remember is that a normal PC spends most of its time idle (well below its max) - only every now and again will it go to 100% and then again how often will all the PCs in an entire room hit 100% usage?

I know just what you mean - the PC, 24" screen, keyboard and mouse arn't going anywhere anytime soon given that they are best for content creation. However in this world where we should all be productive 24/7 thats where the tablet does come in use - in that you can spend that 45mins on the train with a lightweight portable device that is good enough to review a report, catch up on emails and check Facebook for what is new. The biggest thing I have an issue with is all of the posts on here about SMT/ect asking for tablets on the schools buget - by all means lets kit ourselves out with site wide Wi-Fi as it can be used for both buisness and non buisness work however lets not blind ourselves to the fact that a £450 tablet is more a personal device than a work device.

Our current IT Department saying kinda thingy a ma whatist (could be called a vision I guess) is- To provide agile, adaptable, remotely accessible and environmentally sustainable IT services to the staff and students of xyz School. 10 points to anyone who gets where the first bit comes from

On the domain for us - makes system management easy (after all Windows Servers were designed to be domain joined). You can always have a local admin account ready to go in the event of some kind of DC failure as well.

Cheers thats some pretty neat kit that could help us out with a project we are thinking of. Hope someone gets back to you with some VLAN info soon!

I would say the Icona W500 as well - the little AMD Fusion CPU inside it is more than a step up from any Atom processor and doesn’t have the price tag of the Intel i5s. Personally though I am waiting for the ARM Windows 8 tablets - so long as it gives me the ability to RDP onto our servers I will be happy (although RSAT would be nice to I don't think I should expecting it given Microsofts ways with ARM and business software).

Running via TS is the way our LEA hosts SIMS for us - personaly it is quite a nice option and runs smoothly (assuming other schools arn't chewing through the SQL servers!). Personaly I would rather run it over App-V if we had it hosted localy.

Not a answer to your problem however have you ever looked at XenApp/App-V - they allow applications to be streamed on demand to computers - cuts down the image size to just include Windows 7 and a small client and then the applications are pulled down onto the machines as and when needed. It makes imaging significantly faster as well.

Good point I would be looking at it that in 5 years time a reasonable number of our services would be running as some for of SaaS or IaaS (I hate this cloud term) which would therefore require less processing on our part. Either way know what you are coming from!

Ooooh yes God I am a AMD geek!

Maybe an update to the firmware on the printers? Have seen similar things in the past where some documents just won’t print certain areas – most of the time transferring that document into a PDF/another format works fine so I assume it’s an application not talking to the driver issue.

Its 2x16 cores so still 2 sockets

Personaly I am trying to stay away from SANs as much as possible - yes they offer great flexiablity in the sense you can live migrate VMs however with properly setup servers using the fail over software built into the Windows Roles (AD Replication, DNS, DFS-R, SQL server replication, Exchange replication ect) its easy enough to do away with the SANs and spend more on the servers (making sure they don't fail in the first place) and putting kit on peoples desks.

Lol why is everyone obsessing over the 32 core options – yes we plan on deploying one (maybe two) for our next VDI install but the 8 and 12 core options are much cheaper and do just as well for hosting server VMs. Either way they are great bits of kit!

Sorry I can't help you with your VLANs but how much is that HDMI over IP kit looking at costing?

Can I assume you have checked any options for a 'in the event of' box? By that I mean we have a sealed envelope in the schools safe with the admin details on - the school you are at might have something similar.

Have a look at the HP DL385s - AMD powered with more CPU cores and usaly slighter lower priced than their Intel options.

Carrier Pigeon might work better Poor guys though - after so much money was spent bailing out the banks you would have thought that a company trying to 'do the right thing' would be able to turn somewhere. (lets not go into how it was important that the banks were bailed out thats not where I am going with here!)

By UPS shutdown software are you meaning shutting down the Servers on the UPS?