seawolf

Parents (or teachers in the classroom) having seemingly NO CONTROL over 13 year olds and letting them play games or post on Facebook on iPads (or any device) whenever they want or purchase whatever apps they want is the real, actual problem you've pointed out. That is a social problem, not a technical problem. It has nothing to do with the iPads (or Chromebooks, or Galaxy Tabs, or MS Surface, etc.).

Seriously? If that is the main definition of success, then we should go back to the rote classroom lessons of 50 years ago and abandon everything else, pack all the computers back in the box and pull out pen and paper. Done and dusted. http://danhaesler.com/tag/grades/ http://youtu.be/zT4i3MqhJXs I know people like to have some quantitative measure to justify success, but grades aren't the best measure. Just ask the Finns.

Take a look at some of these barebones server units and load them up with the drives and CPUs that you need. I think it will be best value for money. The guys at Scorptec know their stuff and are very responsive. They can help you build a system to meet your requirements to a budget. http://www.scorptec.com.au/business/62/1019

You're in Victoria (as am I) so I'll tell you what I would do in your situation. You really don't have enough money with only 5K to do virtualisation properly. Here's why. Lets say you buy the best box you can for 5K and then you install Win SVR 2012 and migrate the three existing servers into HyperV (your most cost effective VM solution for your circumstances), and for 5k you can buy a decent server. Now, everything is running great, you're backing it all up using one of several solutions (several can be had for under $100 per host). Then your host server goes down, which could happen for any number of reasons. Now you have all three servers down, and none of your existing servers are probably capable of acting as a HyperV host (if they are correct me here). Now, you're really down and either have to wait until its fixed (could be days) or have to quickly find (buy) another server somewhere while the whole network is down in the meanwhile. I'm not going to endorse that route for obvious reasons. You can buy a decent server for 5k that could act as a HyperV host. The problem is that you really need two of them so you have redundancy and load balancing. Or, you could buy three decent new servers and forgo the VM route for around 7k - they don't need to be as highly spec'd because there are three of them. You are stating that you will have close to 200 clients on the near future, so if you go cheaper than that you'll be up the creek without a paddle I reckon. We also haven't talked about the server that will act as a backup server. Now, this could be a decently spec'd desktop PC with sufficient disk space and Gigabit NIC if you already have one or you might be able to repurpose one of the existing servers. You'll need a backup server and software no matter what solution you go (virtualised or physical). Virtualisation is not always the best solution especially in smaller environments, I think that your environment is big enough to warrant virtualisation, but you really need at least 10k to implement it successfully and safely and it sounds like the school is scrimping in its ICT spend. If you really are that cash strapped, I would contact the guys at Scorptec to see what they can build you in your budget, you'll likely get more bang for your buck than going through HP, Dell, etc. You might also look at some decent refurb or ex-demo gear (Grays online, eBay). If I were you, I would go back with a plan that covered: - Two servers big enough for HyperV hosts that can run all of your servers (overspec them by at least 30% to account for increased usage with additional clients), that means a minimum of 4-core Xeon or AMD, 16-24GB RAM, RAID5/6 storage (7200RPM) - Software licenses for the servers - HyperV backup software - Backup server and storage (might be able to repurpose existing equipment, if not budget $1,000 for this at least. I reckon you need at least $11,000. 5K isn't going to cut it unless you buy refurb or you'll end up with a subpar system that has no chance of coping with any growth or node failures. I'm here in the Southeast suburbs of Melbourne so if you have questions just let me know.

Can you guarantee that your chosen client (server) machine will never be turned off? Will it have UPS protection and be backed up regularly? What if you need to make client config changes while the iMac is in use, could you? Would you ever consider doing this in a Windows environment? If the answer is no to ANY of these questions then there is your answer.

One thing I left out of my first post is that I would also strongly recommend buying Apple Remote Desktop along with using a Mini server. ARD rocks and can be used with PC or Linux clients over VNC as well. You can do a tremendous amount with ARD including installing software, running scripts and UNIX commands and a lot more. I wish MS would give Remote Desktop even 1/10 of these features for PCs. http://youtu.be/zaptMf5I1xQ

WGM is still available for Mountain Lion (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1567) and can be used for managing 10.8 clients instead of Profile Manager. I doubt that will continue to be an option in 10.9, but Apple will probably give us some very good reasons to finally ditch WGM in 10.9. Right now, Profiles don't quite provide all of the capabilities or reliability of the old Managed Preferences, but it looks like Profiles are about to become a bit more mature and comprehensive.

Implementing Macs without using Managed Preferences or Configuration Profiles is like having PCs with out GPOs to configure policies. I would suggest you buy a Mac Mini (used or new) and run Server.app on it. Don't try setting it up on me of the client Macs. And either do a training course on Mac server, buy a book on it, or hire someone to help. If you don't do it right you will suffer. Just as you would if you didn't know how to setup an AD server and GPOs to configure your PCs.

SMB2 has several advantages over AFP, but unless Apple is able to implement spotlight metadata in the protocol (which I have heard no mention of in any technical articles) then I will continue to use AFP for a while longer in favour of SMB2. Losing spotlight searching of network shares isn't something I'm looking forward to. Hopefully Apple will find some way to keep all of that spotlight goodness with SMB in the future, perhaps using a Win SVR service or plugin.

I could pick both Windows and Mac apart in their weaknesses if I wanted too (and without even touching the steam coming off of Win 8), but what does that do for anyone? Most of the people on this thread are just dogging Macs irrationally and with little knowledge. PCs and Macs both have their place, but only to those without a closed mind. Off to other threads that are more edifying...

If you haven't run into some of NTFS' inherent flaws you haven't been using it long enough. Forced to choose between NTFS and HFS+ - I'll take the latter any day. And yes, there are much better file systems than both.

I haven't tried coLinux, but AFP protocol isn't available for W2K8 R2. This used to be possible to do on SVR 2003, but MS stopped developing it. In any case, ExtremeZ-IP doesn't just provide AFP file services, it also supports DFS, spotlight searching on the Windows server, and also provides Windows print services that just work. It also has the Zidget (widget), which makes it much more user friendly in a school or BYOD environment. I tried all of the free or inexpensive solutions at the time before purchasing ExtremeZ-IP, but none of them held a candle to it in ease of use, features, and performance (for IT and the end-user). The other solutions might be adequate in some instances or if you have a cash-starved IT budget.

As long as it's done with a PC right? Sorry, I disagree. You can't teach a student how to build an iOS app with a PC and a Nexus 7, you do it with a Mac and iOS (and vice versa). You don't teach a student to play the drums by teaching them how to read music and giving them piano lessons. This idea that we only have to teach generic, one-size fits all skills philosophy is a crock in the actual real world we live in. Teaching real skills and not just concepts is what students crave and need. Teaching them "concepts" is what makes too many students disinterested, unfulfilled, aimless and without ambition for learning. Real learning motivates students for further learning, teaching concepts is dull and boring.

A couple of things that seem to be forgotten with this whole anti-Mac thread going here is that a great many graphics departments and companies in the "real" world will be using Macs and there actually is such a thing as Mac-specific graphics software, plugins, and workflow customisations. That is, software that is only available for the mac or workflows that have only been created with Macs and Mac software in mind. Forget this "there is a PC equivalent for everything Mac" business because you would shoot down anyone saying that there was a Mac equivalent for everything PC - because there isn't. If you think Photoshop or CS Suite is the whole of the design software universe - you're mistaken. While it might not be the reason the Departments want the Macs, there is actually a good reason to use them in graphics, design, and art classes in preference to PCs - because if the students continue in a career in those fields there is a high probability they will end up using Macs (which they may have never used before). It is a good thing for them to be exposed to them now, don't you think. Alternatively, in IT courses I would be trying to expose students to a variety of platforms - including UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android - because they may end up having to support or develop for any mix of them. So let's stop the hating and start the thinking...this doesn't have to be an either/or thing.

I think there is a 90% chance something's borked with your backup then. Hopefully not, but the consistency of the error is not looking positive. Good luck with it, hopefully Veeam support can help.

BTW - I use a 2K8R2 server for Veeam and a FreeNAS server for the repository. It works brilliantly and with FreeNAS you can replicate everything to another FreeNAS server (offsite) for no extra cost (licenses).

Right there is most likely your problem. There have been many issues reported with Veeam and Server 2012, I would suggest you try moving your backup repository to another server (2K8R2 maybe or a NAS). The problems seem to be with 2012 and SMB/CIFS.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "...building our image for the summer on Veeam." since Veeam is for backups. But, this error message smells of a corrupt backup to me. It could possibly also be a problem with the backup repository or the configuration of the backup infrastructure in Veeam. Have you checked the config or tried moving the backup files to another repository (another server or NAS)?

What kind of a school are you at that you'd need something like that?

How did it go?

Yep, I knew there was a reason I disliked netbooks...

If this only happens with the netbooks on your network, then the problem is probably the netbooks themselves (hardware or network driver issues) or an incompatibility with your WiFi system and the wireless chips in the netbooks. Of course, I never did like the netbooks in an enterprise, managed environment so maybe I'm just being shortsighted about the cause...

http://www.grouplogic.com/enterprise-file-sharing/mac-windows-file-sharing/ No, it's not free, but the license is perpetual and for concurrent clients (not per seat). The price may scare away some, and for the 3 and 10 client license versions I think it is too expensive - unless the 3 or 10 clients you needed to support were the heads of the organisation - but the cost for 25 or more are very reasonable if you make use of allow the features including the ExtremeZ-IP Zidget (fantastic for BYOM - "Bring Your Own Mac"). Schools do get a discount off the retail pricing. It's not half off, but it is cheaper. http://www.grouplogic.com/store/index.cfm?cfid=34671218&cftoken=af5fb6375afcb6ec-0B2D3FC3-A94A-BB66-E99FF356EB6FA199&fa=pricing

Nope, GADS doesn't handle nested groups in my experience either. Kind of a pain, but you just have to deal with and move on. Doing a simulated sync is definitely recommended before doing the real thing. If we hadn't done that, we would have deleted half of our users in GApps with our first sync attempt (had a few sync rules out of whack).

I would be inclined to go for the HP 5400 zl modular unit for the core switch or an 8200zl model If you could afford it. Far more flexibility for future upgrades or reconfiguration. We're going to upgrade to an 8206zl at the end of this year for the core for that reason. Otherwise, I agree with the choices, the ProCurve switches are probably the best for the money and are widely supported. HP support has been good as well. We had a couple of 2520s that developed a PoE issue and they replaced them very quickly no fuss. Sounds reasonable though you might want to consider a service agreement that includes PABX and handsets. This usually works out cheaper, the provider is responsible for repairs and upgrades, and gives you more flexibility to upgrade in 4-5 years time (technology does progress in Telephony too). We bought our current PABX four years ago, but I wouldn't do it again I don't think. I would think long and hard about installing IWBs and projectors. My experience has been that the IWBs are mostly a gimmick that made some vendors a lot of money and tricked a lot of educators into thinking they were going to revolutionise teaching and learning. The reality is that they are expensive, the software is often buggy, they need regular recalibration, the interactive features are unused or underused and they mostly become a very expensive screen. Then there are the projectors. Let me count the ways I hate thee...constant cleaning of filters, globe replacement, failure to remember settings after power outages, too dim to use with any ambient light, teachers losing remotes, or switching source and thinking its not working, or putting them on blank screen rather than turning them off and burning them up at 1/10th expected lifespan (oh yeah had a teacher do that - "you mean I shouldn't just leave it on all of the time"). Projectors are a constant thorn in the side in a school environment. No, I would recommend buying some 65-70" LED TVs with RS232 connections and at least 2 x HDMI and 1 x VGA with a Joey wall controller (or similar) with on/off buttons, volume controls, and buttons to switch between VGA and HDMI. We use wall mount Mac Minis running either Windows 7 or Mac OS connected to ours and with AirServer running on them to allow AirPlay for screen sharing of iPads or Macs and a spare HDMI and VGA wall plug to connect a laptop or Chromebook (or whatever else they want - DVD payer, etc,). If you go with interactive gear you'd best budget for lots of training and make regular IWB training mandatory for all teachers or you will be wasting the money.