karldonteljames

I've had a few responses, thank you to those who have completed the very long form, but had very little response from primary schools, if you could forward or share the form with other schools, that would be really helpful. Hope you all had a restful (as much as it can be) christmas.

I agree with this. There is the ANME group, but i still find it easier seeing the information in an email rather than a forum.

Seriously, Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to do this. I know that you're all busy. If you could share the survey with as many other schools/trusts as you could, that would be amazing. Thank you. I still have zero responses from primaries.

I originally designed it on a per school basis, but i guess if you and your team support multiple schools, the MAT wide would make sense. This would be seperated by the number of primary / seconday schools in your trust, I will probably work on an average.

Lol. I miss the old EIS/KPSN email list!

Thanks, I should have put an option for both, really. We made the decision that even with TPM, a pin should still be required, as the TPM only protects the data if the drive is removed. If the laptop is stolen and the laptop boots up, the TPM unlocks the disk automatically. - At least that was my understanding of it.

Fair comment. Option added. Thanks

Thank you to those of you who have taken part so far. There have been a handful so, but i noticed there was an issue in the branching so some questions on AI and lessons learned may have been missed. I'm sorry if this was you. Thank you again. If you wouldn't mind sharing this with as many schools and leaders as possible, I would be so grateful.

Hi everyone, I’m Karl Woods, the Network Manager at Kings Hill School in Kent. I’ve been in education IT for almost 20 years, and over the last few years we’ve all seen huge changes in how schools manage their technology. I’m currently conducting a personal research project to understand how schools are using their IT infrastructure, both on-prem and in the cloud, and how this affects teaching, learning, support, and leadership. Although this is personal, it will help me make recommendations to SLT about the direction we go for our school I’ve put together a detailed survey that takes about 15–20 minutes to complete (there are around 103 questions ranging from concent to take part in the survey, AI, backup, VM's, and comments on experiance.). The survey gathers anonymised school-level technical data to benchmark practices, identify challenges, and help inform better ICT planning. Personal details are optional and only used if you want the results shared with you. If you’re responsible for IT in your school, I would be incredibly grateful if you could take part. I’d also really appreciate it if you could share this survey with other schools in your area; the more responses I get, the more useful the insights will be for everyone. At the end, you can request a copy of the final report to see how your school compares. Here’s the link to the survey: School ICT Infrastructure Research – Fill in form Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and taking the time to take part; your experience and knowledge are invaluable! Karl Woods

Hello there! I work in a primary school and we currently have a number of server 2012's (4), what I would like to achieve is total failover with the utilisation of a SAN. I've been looking into HP P2000 SAN and think it looks great. I want to be able to setup two of the servers as DC's (as they are at the moment) but have all files and services shared between them. I would like to add virtual servers to them eventually and be able to use server aware updating. Initial storage will be comprised of 600gb 10k SFF SAS drives giving me a total of 4tb storage. (I have no idea how to divide this up as of yet) We have HP DL380's as the servers, each with 4 NIC's in the rear. (all configured as one NIC on each server, and trunked on the switches) We have HP Procurve layer 2 switches which are fully Gb, with two vlans (main school network and separate guest WIFI VLAN) I believe the simplest way is with an expansion card in each server and then using DAS to connect to the SAN, (two mini SAS cables on each server for redundancy) I also believe that this has the fastest throughput, however I am trying to think long term, and if I use iSCSI I understand I can then add new servers to the cluster, and take the old ones offline once all of the roles have been transferred? can anyone offer any advice on this please? We currently have: SERVER 1: AD DNS DHCP FILE SERVER (DFS, DFSR) SERVER 2: AD FILE SERVER (DFS, DFSR) SERVER 3: PRINT SERVER WDS\SCCM EPO WSUS SERVER 4: DAS STORAGE SPACE for local server backups. I would like to be able to provide all of my staff with DIRECTACCESS too at the end of the project. our school is a large primary school serving approximately 100 members of staff, 480 pupils, and approximately 150 PC's/LAPTOPS with the possibility of adding in more mobile devices this year (about 30 more) we have a ruckus managed wireless network so network throughput isn't a massive issue at all, I just need help with the backend. Thanks!!! Karl p.s. Please forgive the poor grammar and spelling!

Just spoken to my supplier at IDNS at they are telling me they have stock, lets hope they still have some left at the begining of next month.

In my opinion the cost isnt really an issue, based around the £850 mark, (£350 for average projector) thats a saving of just over £1000 per projector over an 18 year life span. (if anyone can see a problem with my calculations please let me know) 6 hours a day 5 days a week = 30 hours a week 30 hours a week, 37 weeks of the year = 1110 hours a year Based in that you should be able to get about 18 years use. 5 bulbs @ 150 per bulb = 750 3 Projectors @ 375 each = 1125 Total cost of owner ship over a 15 year period bassed on 1 projector ever 5 years and a new bulb every two: £1875 Thats just the way i work it out, i will certainly be looking at replacing at least one this year, if not more, although the initial outlay is higher, the long term benfits far outweigh the cost, however you will need some forward thing financial people on your side, because until you've replaced all of them your going to have to continue to replace bulbs as they blow.

Saw these at Bett, great information given to me by my supplier IDN, if you need more information contact me, or give Adam Cummins a call at IDN

I have to disagree with some people on here we have 32 i-desks, and they have been here for 5 years now. We have had a few where the heatsink holder broke and they were replaced under warranty. After 3 years we didnt extend our warranty and kept some of budget back for repairs, all we had to replace in year 4 was two fans costing approx £6 each. Our account manager is brilliant and is always there for us. I stared here two years ago, and had never seen i-deks before, at first i was joubious at the amount of space needed to work on the machines, and yes, sometimes the cable trays can be "tight" but there is ample room in the desks. This year we replaced 9 machines internal components, and ALL of the monitors and arms, the arms and components were ordered from idesk, who i must say were very competitive, i gave three companies the spec that i-desk gave us, and they struggled to match the prices. The monitors were all orderd from misco, as we insisted on 19" HardGlass and no one seamed to be able to get them anymore. Originally i beleive the suite cost us 40k for all the installation of network points (4 of) and electric sockets, which is a high amount of initial investment. Hoever this year we reaplaced 9 cassette components and it cost us approx £250 per unit, which IMHO is a bargain, same quality, same suite, better machines. I-desks can make the cassettes and bring them to you and install them for you too if you want them but we needed to save money. I do not come from an educational background i'm purly technical/management, i have lots of profered suppliers and they are also impressed with our suite. Yes the initial layout is high, BUT if you are planning appropriatly then it is worth it. After 4 years the original HG monitors were begining to fail and we could have just replaced 5 but as we higher the suite out we wanted to make an impression. I am perfectly happy for someone to come and look a tour suite if you are not convinced. alternativly i can send over some pictures on request. I would also be happy to meet people at the 2010 bett show i will be about on the wednesday and thursday, if you want to arrange a time to meet me at the idesk stand i'm sure british-wave and i can sort something out. We had a new Headteacher here this year and she beleives that suite is an assett to the school, and as the network manager here i am very proud of the suite that i took over, and have now made my own. Karl Dontel James Woods Kings Hill School