robknowles

Hello, I've figured out the problem. Well, sort of. The routing is working fine, it's my VLANs that are the issue. I've put a couple of clients on the default VLAN, one with an IP Address of 192.168.0.2 (Subnet Mask of 255.255.248.0 and Gateway of 192.168.0.1) and another client on the same VLAN with 172.16.0.2 (Subnet Mask of 255.255.248.0 and Gateway of 172.16.0.1) and they can now ping connect etc fine. I then put the one client back to the other VLAN and that is when it breaks. I'm guessing it's due to how I should be tagging the VLANs against ports. As a trial I created a virtual machine on ESX 4, attached it to a new virtual switch, assigned that an NIC and then tagged the port the NIC is connected to on the switch against the VLAN ID and gave the Virtual Machine the 172.* details as above. This is now working fine. Furthurmore it's getting the correct DHCP Settings via the use of the switch's DHCP-Helper command. My new question is, and I must read up on VLANs myself, can I tag all the switch's ports to the multiple VLANs I create without causing issues and getting it to work the way I want? It's easy enough to tag all the ports that connect to the servers on the switch to the one VLAN (the server VLAN), but I have other ports that link to the other switches around the school for which data will arrive from different VLANS (i.e. a VLAN for wireless guest devices, authenticated wired devices, IP Cameras etc). Thanks, Rob

I can't ping the gateway address of the other VLAN. If I do "show ip route" on the switch, I can see a destination of 192.168.0.0, network mask of 255.255.248.0 and the gateway of DEFAULT_VLAN and type connected. I don't see any information concerning the other VLANs. I would have expected to have seen another line with destination of 172.16.0.0, Network Mask of 255.255.248.0 and Gateway SERVER_VLAN and type connected. Have I missed something somewhere? Thanks, Rob

Hello, All the devices that are on the default VLAN have the IP Address of the switch as the gateway, on the new VLAN I have a couple of client machines I'm testing which have the IP Address of the VLAN on the switch as their gateway as well. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Yes, I've configured the VLANs with an IP Address. When I telnet into the switch and use the ping functionality I can ping devices on the default VLAN fine, but when I attempt to ping devices on the other vlans it says that "Ping Failed: Network is unreachable on this VLAN". I'm just wondering whether I've missed something when setting up the VLANs. I know that the 4108GL doesn't support ACLs so I don't believe it's anything to do with this. Thanks, Rob

Hello, I'm attempting to setup routing between VLANs on our core switch, a HP ProCurve 4108GL Switch. So far I've setup some VLANs via the GUI and Named them as well as assigning them a VLAN ID. Additionally I've also enabled IP Routing on the switch as well. I was hoping it would have been as simple as that but it isn't. I've tried to create static routes via the CLI, however, it always alerts me that the switch ip can not be a router address at the same time. Upon reading this it looks like I need to point the destination address as our gateway (an ISA Server). I want to avoid this for internal routing if, for whatever reason, this server goes down. The new range is 172.16.*.* with a subnet mask of 255.255.248.0 At present our current IP system is 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.7.255, also with a subnet mask of 255.255.248.0. This is currently on the default VLAN. I'm hoping I can setup the neccessary routing so I can transfer the servers, infrastructure IPs, clients, printers etc in stages rather than all at once. Anyone able to offer any help? Thanks, Rob

If anyone is still interested please let me know, the last few will be getting disposed of shortly via another recycling firm.

Hi, As the title says really. We are looking for a Wireless Barcode Reader that our librarian can use with Eclipse.Net. Needs to work on XP and above ideally. Also if you add where you brought it from that would be great. Thanks, Rob

Hi, Yes, the F Series case pictured above are the ones. We've never had any problems that other users have reported with the power buttons, although I'm correct in assuming that RM in later batches fixed the flaw? Thanks, Rob

Hello, Very shortly I should be having 90 Desktops available to sell. I'm looking for £40-£45 per desktop although if you have many of the desktops then I should be able reduce the price (subject to OK'ing it back at School). RM PC's - F Series Case. P4 2.8GHz, 1.5GB Ram, 80GB HDD, Windows XP Professional Licence. Cases may have some slight scratches. Based on 2 main Motherboard Designs (30 x MS6787Pand 60 x D845GVSR), although some of these about 1/2 dozen have had Motherboards break and we've replaced with them with an AOpen P4i65G Motherboards. I also have some spare Facias, Keyboards and Power Supplies as well. Collection only. Thanks Rob

Hello, We are purchasing 200 laptops within the next few weeks. The budget is circa £300 per laptop with a case, with a two year warranty (RTB is fine) - I know, budget is very tight!! Needs to have minimum of a Celeron or AMD equivalent Processor, 2GB Ram, Windows 7 Home Premium, Widescreen Display (15.x"), 160GB HDD, DVD ROM/Burner Drive, Wireless N If we are able to place an order but not get them delivered until early May then we will order by the end of next week. PMB for my email address/contact details. Thanks, Rob

Hello, We too are experiencing issues with it again after having Policy Central off the network for some considerable time. I've just logged a support call with Foresnic, and have just uninstalled from all workstations - they are working fine now. Just wondering if it's anything to do with that recent IE Patch that Microsoft released outside their normal cycle? We have IE 7. Thanks, Rob

Hello, I've after quotes for a Ruckus Wireless System. I'm after a Ruckus ZoneDirector Controller and approx 30 wireless access points (7962 - Dual Band N (I presume it works with G Devices as well). Also a couple of 7762 External Access Points. Question if Wireless G Devices connect the AP, will wireless N Speeds be affected or not? PM me for details/bids if you prefer. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Anybody have any camera recommendations for use with DartFish? Ideally small and light, preferable just recording to a HDD or Memory stick, instead of Tape/DVD. I think Dartfish still requires use of Firewire connections still doesn't it? Or can we use USB? Thanks, Rob

Hello, The 2950's, which I believe were 2U have been replaced by the Dell R700 Servers. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Last year I upgraded from vSphere Standard to vSphere Advanced. What they do is to pro-rota your current support subscription to "upgrade it" to the new product version you've purchased, as the more expensive products have an more expensive maintenance cost assosciated with them. For example we have vSphere Standard orginally to the 30th October 2010. When I brought vSphere Advanced this was pro-rotated to 8th June (I think) and then I brought an additional 2 month pack to increase this accordingly. If you log on to vmware.com there is a section under accounts where you can calculate this value. Additionally, you can contact them to get this sorted. Your vCentre subscription would remain unaffected. Thanks, Rob

Hello, I have 2 x PowerEdge 2800 Servers that are for sale. Each are out of warranty now though, and contain 2 x Single Core Xeon 2.8GHz Processors (64 Bit Capable), 7GB Ram, HDD Caddies to support 4 x SCSI Hot Swap Drives (sorry, will be sold with no drives!). They support ESX 3.5 fine (not sure about 4 though). Looking at £225 each. Also can bundle in a Qlogic iSCSI HBA for each that I have for another £150 or so for each. Thanks, Rob

Hello, I have 2 of these to sell - not required now since upgrading two of our old servers and they are PCI-X Based They are Dual Port QLogic iSCSI HBA (Hardware Based - Dual Port Gbit) I brought them back in Feb 2008 (so about 18 months old). They retail for about £650 exc VAT for each. Willing to sell for £250 each. See http://www.qlogic.com/Products/SAN_products_iSCSI_QLA4052C.aspx Thanks, Rob

@scottyses - PM sent - still interested!

Hello, We've got about 40 Netbooks (to begin with, but can see this ramping up quickly). However, what I've done is that they run just windows with only the VMware View Client, so once started they login to a Virtual Desktop running on our server cluster/cloud. This seems to work well - very quick logging in as well. We use to have a couple of trolleys of traditional laptops but they were too slow - not neccessarily the processors, but the fact that they had to be turned on, wait for them to connect the wireless and then students logging on, and then the reverse at the end of the lesson - all very slow. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Is it new? If so you need to setup an option in your DHCP Server (option 43 and put in a code - the hexadecimal - says 1APC in the end), then reboot the network card and then it will put up an IP Address from DHCP. Rob

Hello, I'm after a 2nd hand HP ProCurve Switch GL 20 PortModule Switch (J4908A), from a HP ProCurve 4108GL. If anyone has one unneeded and are willing to sell please get back to me. Thanks, Rob

Hello, We have an EqualLogic PS4000XV here - very nice, but might be too expensive if you are on tight budget. This is iSCSI Based and connected to 3 hosts. Otherwise, have a look at the Dell MD3000i - we have one connected to 4 Dell Servers for our VMware View 3 install and that works fine. Again this is iSCSI Based. Definitely get a dedicated GBits/s Switch - two if you can afford it for redundancy, with each one connected to a gbits/s port on each server. Rob

Hello, The problems we had were.. CMIS Admin (the full client) 1) Report System. Whilst quite powerful, didn't allow us to do what we wanted to do that was in SIMS Assessment Manager already. 2) Data Migration. Some of the data that was migrated wasn't correct/missing. 3) Security Permissions Management. Unlike SIMS/Active Directory where you can put them in multiple groups and at logon it adds all the permissions together to give to the user, CMIS at logon prompted the user to select which group they wanted to use for permissions. This basically meant I had to edit permissions for most admin staff so it was customised for them (rather than assigning to groups and getting them to swap every 5 minutes) - unlike SIMS where I just create groups with granular permissions and then add the users into those groups 4) Bug fixing. For almost a full term we were unable to use our OMR to enter attendance data and this had to be input manually by hand. 5) Rather than a straight SQL Connection and connect.ini file like SIMS has, CMIS Admin uses a combination of the SQL Database, Files on the server and files stored locally to save user preferences - very annoying to fix if something got corrupted. ePortal: From a user perspective it wasn't too bad. However, 1) It didn't offer customisation (i.e in CMIS Admin we could add extra fields but in ePortal they wouldn't appear). 2) Assessment data entering was a bit hit and miss - enter data and it told you it saved although it didn't 3) Kept breaking. Many restarts were needed to keep that running! I can't fault the support we had from our LA. This issues were down to the way it was programmed and how it was designed. That said each school is different so you may find that some aspects work better for you. We've been back with SIMS for almost two years now, so I haven't touched CMIS for a long time so a lot of the issues/annoyances I've forgot. If you've got any other questions please ask. As a note - have you looked at the SIMS Learning Gateway? This is a very nice web-based system that allows staff, parents and teachers to view data from a central, secure location. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Yes, just prior to myself starting at this school, the school had made a decision to move to CMIS. After 2 disasterous years we decided to move back to SIMS and have never looked back! With SIMS I can see at a glance the roadmap for when features are being put in etc. With CMIS in the two years I saw very little feature development - mainly bug fixing (and introductions). Cost wise it was expensive - more in terms of staff costs for their time, rather than licensing fees (IIRC there was very little difference between CMIS and SIMS). Thanks, Rob

Hello, @fiza; I shutdown down the host and then booted from the VMware Convertor CD (version 3 when I used it, but it's now on Version 4 - which I haven't tried) for a 'cold' migration. Doing the migration this way ensured that the database and everything was fine, which it was. Thanks, Rob