seawolf

You don't have to buy the "server" model of the Mac Mini. In fact, you don't even need a new one. I use a 2009 model Mini that I installed a 64GB SSD into, runs Mavericks fine, and serves 300+ iPads for AirPrint. Cost - less than $300 (market value). With time machine backups it's also a cinch to replace if it ever fails, which it probably won't for another 3 years or so. So, average that out to $100 a year or $200 a year if you want to buy a new base model mini and cost it out over 4 years. Either way, money saved using a Mini.

I can go you one better... Nothing like reinventing someone else's ideas, eh?

I don't understand why you don't just use a shared network drive for them to save their work. If the reason is that people keep forgetting where to save things (or being too lazy about doing it), then this is a good introduction to the real world of "follow my instructions carefully or you will receive a zero for your assignment". People that can't do that won't hang on to jobs too long, so better to learn this in the safety of a school environment where the consequences aren't so severe (a zero is better than a severed limb or being fired because of failing to listen and do as instructed). What you are wanting to do isn't a good idea anyway because the permissions on that folder would have to be set to allow all users rather than the creator/owner, etc. and I'm sure that not ALL work needs to be accessed by everyone, or is it all project-based work?

What you need to do is this: 1. Untag the port on the second switch (172.17.2.52) that you are connecting the AP to on the 172.17.2.x VLAN. Your AP needs to have a fixed IP on your switch/network VLAN. 2. Tag that same port for all of the VLANs you are using for WiFi. This will allow the DHCP server to issue IPS on the WiFi VLAN.

I suspect the Ruckus engineer was referring to band steering, which isn't really an iOS specific feature, but helps non-MIMO clients in particular, which was pretty much all tablets until recently. A lot of this about the iPad WiFi is myth or was related to the original iPad. The original iPad 1 did have a pretty low transmit power to minimise battery drain and this did cause performance to suffer. Of course, every other tablet that appeared after the iPad either fared worse in this department or had absolutely horrible battery life. It's a fact of life that compromise is required in ultra-portable devices, although those compromises are becoming smaller with every technological leap. http://www.informationweek.com/networking-comm/tablets-cause-wi-fi-stress-truth-and-fiction/d/d-id/1107279? With the later iPads though, this improved dramatically (even the iPad 2 is much better than then1), and the iPad Air is nearly as good as many laptops and better than some in the 5Ghz band. http://blogs.aerohive.com/blog/the-wireless-lan-architecture-blog-3/ipad-3-wi-fi-performance-analysis-transmit-power p.s. Edugeek, you really need to fix this new App, it's way too crash happy. Had to write this twice

mpp87 - you are really starting to sound like an employee of Pandora FMS with these posts. "Admins will ban you"? Really, for an "open source" product? Interesting. You can be sure I'm no employee of PRTG. However, happy customers do tend to be the best marketing campaign that you CAN'T buy...

Looks pretty impressive actually. The one thing that seems to possibly let it down is the lack of 10GbE. If you don't have 10GbE uplinks or plan to in the next few years to though that point is moot.

LOL. Maybe it's a bug in the Edugeek app, but I'm being taken to a thread call "Balloonist joke" when I click on that link.

Yep, it's pretty close to perfect for us too. And yes, you only pay the difference. We upgraded from 1,000 sensors to 2,500 a couple of years ago. The annual support for 2,500 sensors is around $700 I think. Not bad at all.

I really don't know why they bothered with WGM in 10.9. Let's just say that Managed Preferences no longer work "as expected" it's Russian roulette using them in 10.9. It would be best if you got rid of the .local domain for sure. It can be done. I have done a domain rename on a Windows network and it took only a week to get it all working fantastic. You just have to plan it well and then execute it to plan.

So, do you think that Microsoft's primary concern is Education? Was it the consumer-focused Windows 8 release or the even more consumer-focused Surface tablets and the per-user licensing of the Windows Store that convinced you of that? http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/d20332f1-67ef-4f67-83f0-ab9a01359c72/windows-8-app-deploymentmanagement-schooleducation-environment Sorry if I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but do you REALLY think that MS, Google, Apple or any other major IT company has the Education market as a real consideration when formulating business plans and product releases? Microsoft has traditionally had a more business focus, which translated well for education in many cases, but with the proliferation of "consumer" tech in business, MS has been trying with all it's might to win over the consumer (even considering offering Windows 8.1 for "free"). In many ways, by making OSX and iOS free as well as a load of iWork and iLife apps free for both OSX and iOS, as well as providing a VPP program (although still imperfect for sure, grrr), and creating the free iBooks Author app - Apple is trying harder in the Edu market than MS in recent years. In fact, Steve Jobs targeted the Education market even to his detriment both with Apple (early years) and with NextStep (take a look who their target market was - Universities). No, I don't think ANY of the major IT companies really care that much about us in education. We just get the scraps from the table of the business and consumer markets...

Well, I only have one if them, but it will lose the WiFi signal for an unknown reason or takes a long time to reconnect after going off the network. Dual antennas and MIMO be darned it isn't working as well with our Ruckus WiFi as the iPads. Like I said though, the Chromebooks are much worse in this regard.

Really, how many devices do you need to monitor? You aren't planning to monitor clients as well are you? As far as freebies go, you'd probably be limited to either Spiceworks or Nagios/Cacti. Spiceworks is easy, but slow and limited. Nagios/Cacti are powerful, but will take a lot of work to setup. Another option is Nagios XI, but it's not free. The PRTG license is perpetual so unless you have a lot more time than money 13.5k might still work out to be a good investment (Labour vs. Capital)

PRTG does that - http://www.paessler.com/prtg/screenshots There is a Top 10 view that shows the top tens for things like uptime, CPU, bandwidth usage, src. That allows you to quickly spot bottlenecks and problems.

You can estimate the number or sensors you'll need by calculating the number of switch ports need to be monitored, then adding three sensors for each switch for ping, CPU, and memory usage. Servers usually consume no more than 5-6, but could use up to 15 or so depending on how much you want to monitor. We have a license for 2,500. Regarding the prices, the license is perpetual so it's a one time outlay, if you want to maintain ongoing support the cost is about 30% of the initial license cost. But, maintenance isn't necessary and you can catch it up in subsequent years if you wanted.

For 500 computers and 1100 users you need a more serious piece of kit or you will have serious latency and performance issues, particularly if you are using folder redirection. The low cost option here would be a TruNAS rack or tower mount server form ixSystems with 8+ drives! either SAS or hybrid (SATA w/flash write caches). These would go for 8-12k with drives depending on specs. The next step up would be something like a low-end Nimble Storage unit. Otherwise, you could keep costs down by using DAS with a lot of SAS drives connected to an existing server.

FreeNAS is our go-to NAS solution. BYO or buy a commercially supported box from ixSystems. http://www.ixsystems.com/storage/freenas/

Just one question. Why are you using a Magic Triangle and WGM when your clients are running 10.8? Doing this is unsupported and prone to errors as managed preferences and WGM are being deprecated. Is there a specific reason why you are sticking with this method of management?

Have you tagged the VLANs that are used for the WLANs on the ports going to the APs? Also, why do you have the management VLAN handing out IP addresses? I would set the management network up as a static VLAN? Yes, you could use MAC filtering so that your DHCP server doesn't hand out IP addresses. There are ways to defeat this though, so if you want to do it really properly, you'll need to use NAP.

Try PRTG. It's runs on Windows and there is a free edition to do a test with a few devices. It's also very good and inexpensive as commercially supported network monitoring systems go.

I haven't tested it since early last year, but at that point in time there were some real problems. I still see loads of posts on forums about this very thing, so figured it hadn't gotten better. Perhaps it has, if so, I retract the comment. I wouldn't want to try cramming a square peg into a round hole by managing them with 2003 though...

Weakest in comparison to what? My iPad mini (Gen 1) and iPad Air both do better with keeping a WiFi signal than my Surface RT. And all three are much better than Chromebooks. The iPad Air in particular works very well and should as it has dual antennas and MIMO. The original iPad had weakfish WiFi, but we have around 300 iPads on our network iPad 1 to iPad Air and didn't have to double the number of APs we had. What sort of WiFi solution are you using that required that. Of course if you barely had enough APs to start with and threw a bunch of extra devices into WiFi, then that might explain it. Remember correlation does not equal causation. There are free MDM solutions that don't require buying any Apple hardware or software. If you want to use Configurator, it's free, and Server App for Apple's own MDM solution costs $20. That won't break the bank, and if it does there are far bigger concerns than whether the iPad is the best solution for you (like keeping the lights on). If you bought that Mac Mini then you could buy Printopia for another $20 and AirPrint away. If you want an even better more integrated solution and use Papercut, they have an AirPrint solution. We use Printopia Pro and wide area bonjour to publish 50 Papercut printers across 6 VLANs. (WLANs) Cost - $150. If you are buying a Bluetooth keyboard for every iPad - then you bought the wrong device. What you really wanted was a laptop. Batteries don't last the whole day? What are you doing on them, watching HD movies all day in class? The iPad has the longest battery of most tablets and longer than almost all laptops. I think you must be just jerking my chain now... Yes, the Apple ID thing can be a royal pain. So is the Microsoft ID for Windows 8/8.1 apps. None of the major vendors seem to have considered the impact on mass deployments with this. However, iOS 7.1 may change this, remains to be seen. Kids drop them, yes. They also drop Surface or Android tablets. Get a good case, such as the nearly bullet-proof Survivor. Much cheaper than paying for repairs. Yep, no reason to do anything, except the cheese has moved now. It's not 1999 anymore and I've seen school IT staff dismissed and replaced because they "couldn't" make tablets, Chromebooks, or Macs work in a school and the school wanted to use them (sometimes for VERY good reason, sometimes for less perfect reasons), and were determined to do so. I've also had several techs tell me that it's impossible to integrate Macs into a Windows domain, only to be told by their boss - "then how are these other schools doing it? Or, do you mean its impossible for YOU to do it?" Not a good way to stay in the game long term. Learn, grow, succeed.

The "1999" comment was a reference to networks that have been setup such that the only thing they really support well is Windows clients. Which was pretty much all there was in corporate use in 1999. Hardly the case now. So, more flexible infrastructure with broader support is a very good idea in 2014. Otherwise you are "locked-in" as you put it. And now this horse is well and truly flogged. Let's drop it shall we?

You can pull your head out now, OK. The iBoss was designed to work with pretty much any infrastructure. It works with Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, and has Active Directory, and Novell directory support, as well as it's own SSO system if you don't use either. Can't see how that's "made to work for Apple devices". Using your logic, Active Directory is "made for Macs" and Open Directory was "made for Windows" because Macs can authenticate with AD and PCs can authenticate with OD. We have about an even mix or PCs and Macs, and several hundred iPads and a number of Chromebooks we rolled out late last year as a pilot. Hardly Apple-specific. If you really want to know what my infrastructure looks like (your previous post), and what I use to make it all work you can find it amongst my the various posts - I don't keep it all secret squirrel like you suggest. PM me and I'd be happy to tell you as I have several others.

Chromebooks work very well if the school is already a Google Apps school. Getting printers to work is dinky and buggy though.