Achandler

02 still isn't working everywhere this morning and hasn't been since Friday no matter what they claim.

Although I definitely agree that going independent is better and probably the right option. I wouldn't recommend getting everything from one place over getting them separately, they are both as much hassle as the other in my opinion. Both have pros and both have cons. All in one place, means you have 1 bill, and probably only one company you need to deal with (although you made need to contact different departments which means multiple phone calls), there may be restrictions with the variety of services offered to, such as only 1 type of filtering solution. It might be easier to get it through your finance department though. Separate providers might mean more initial leg work, but may well be cheaper and you can pick and choose all your options. I totally agree with the comment about 3 year contracts though, you don't want to be tied down for to long and the pricing differences tends to be peanuts.

Surely the licensing issue would depend entirely on how the user is connecting? If I were going to offer BYOD i think i would be tempted to actually really offer RDS Session based, which would make the licensing less complicated. If the BYOD are connecting fully, they the CALs are different again. If the BYOD are using VDI pools then you need different licensing again, but this is a strangely grey area again and you will probably get different answers from different specialists.

It will work, users will just get the standard do you trust this site message.

Yes that would probably be the best place, you can either set it all up on one server, including the installed apps or your server that runs the apps could be separate (probably not worth it in your case). If you are going full desktop, make sure you setup a gateway as well, to make SSL connections. If you are just going for Web Access then you should of course get an SSL cert for it, there are loads of step by step guides available. It should be something you can do by yourself. You also need to check you are licensed for people to remote in. RDS licenses are really cheap on agreement (£3-4), and pretty cheap outright I believe.

They both work as on RD Web Access, you will run into problems though when people try to view reports/ documents that try to open Word or Excel for example. Namely SIMS or FMS crashes, best way is through a full desktop in that respect.

I haven't done this yet, but I am going to look at it. I looked at something called thinkiosk (its free) that replaces the explorer shell and launches an RDP session, well launches anything you want to be honest. It seemed good to me.

Depends if you are buying them outright or through a yearly agreement to be honest.

The idea of encryption means you can't do that. If it is encrypted with truecrpyt or bitlocker though, there was be an unlock code. Bitclocker can be stored in AD and truecrypt creates a recover file i think (it does for laptops which is where I use it).

All the posts I have read regarding NComputing L300s are either older, or they mention people testing them and then no real result. Is anyone actually using L300s? If so on what scale? and what type of performance are you getting out of them? NComputing mention they have schools using upwards of 400 of them but I haven't been given any details to contact these schools, I have asked and was told they would get back to me. I don't want to purchase 40 of these units without any reference site or feedback from the real world. Any input is most welcome.

The biggest issue with web based forms is anyone could be filling it in, i.e the pupil. The paper based ones, yes I accept they can be fraudulently completed by a pupil but the evidence of that is more real then an email. Just a word of warning. If a filled in web form is backed up by maybe an email to all parents who have agreed (through the contact email address in your MIS) then you probably have covered yourself more or less. Just a thought.

You could also make it so that only certain users (from AD) that are logging in from certain laptops (again in AD) can actually login through Remote Access on an RDS server. This was our initial setup.

When I said more details, I was going to go on and suggest using a ts gateway. He might have been intent on a full VPN so I didn't expand further.

Use RD gateway, then it all goes over 443 as well which means you defo won't need more ports opening up.

We use a GPO to wipe the public desktop folder, thought there is relatively little inside ours as we wipe it before we create the image we deploy.

Resellers are almost always cheaper then Apple direct.

Why don't you just have them remote into your Remote Desktop Server directly? I encourage this as it is easiest for our staff to understand. Edit: I will give more details if this is something you want to try.

No problem, in my test installation I had an issue with the broker failing to install because of the accounts the services were running under made them not start. These errors show in the event viewer though.

I read somewhere, that you can't install it on a DC, not just that it "wasn't recommended". I was reading about other issues installing the connection broker (as mine wouldn't work) and others complaining of exactly the same problem you have (though on technet). Maybe this post will help, it has some people with your issue (or similar) on it and a change they make to make it work. Install Remote Desktop Services Failed on Windows 2012 Server

I don't know if its a bug but for some reason when you ahve the "desktop" background you need to click on the pen you want from the small toolbar to make it write. Even then it creates a white background, like a giant and rather ugly post-it note.

Your issue with regards to the registration process can be easily fixed. Secondly it depends on the head of the school, if they support using openoffice then keep using it, staff will adapt over time. If the Head wants change then accept that change is inevitable, cost up upgrading the licenses versus schools agreements etc and make the best choice.

Reflection stores the serial number and settings within the c:\Users\%USERNAME% etc which means if doesn't store it unless you use roaming profiles, in which case it would store the room name as well... We have 5 licenses for it, but this problem is a real pain. I created a script that copies the settings over when the reflection is run to combat this issue. The good news is they are meant to be creating a version of reflection where this isn't a problem, according to the support person anyway.

Having spoken tot he current member of staff recently, I believe he has been there for a good number of years.

Which of the hosts is controlling Cluster Disk 1 at the moment? I assume it will be VRT03. Ok, so it would appear both servers are loosing a connection, hence all the VMs are starting again. Since you can't any evidence of a server reboot (because other logs don't show it). Have you looked at any logs on the switch they go through to see if that rebooted overnight? Also what type of storage are you connecting to, and how are you connecting?

Did the servers reboot? Other event logs will show that. It appears that your issue is to do with the networking? dropped packets maybe. Then what appears to happen is communication is lost (for the unknown reason), so the cluster service fails, and if vrt02 fails first even by seconds the VMs on it move tot he other node.. Then the virtual machines are either all being loaded onto 1 node because that stays active (seems unlikely though) or once communication is restored the VMs just start on the node they were last on. Is there any events at about 1am on the servers that give any more information on them, maybe network errors?