robknowles

Hello, I put in a InfoTrend iSCSI Storage System over the summer. I've got 8 x 750GB HDDs as RAID 6 (for double redundancy), with space for 8 more. Not too bad, it does lack Snapshots technology and doesn't feature a redundant controller (but does have 4 x gigabit network cards and redundant PSUs). Seems quite fast. I just use for user and shared documents file storage. Next year, maybe, I might get a Fibre Channel or iSCSI based SAS Storage system for a server consolidation/terminal services project I would like to do. Price wise it was about £3,900. It does now support 1TB HDD's. Rob

Hello, As a school we are actively looking at moving back to SIMS.Net from CMIS. Now one the (very few) advantages of CMIS over SIMS was ePortal, in that it allowed staff access to enter assessment data, view records and also to do attendance via a web-browser which means they can access it from home. Now I've read that SIMS do Web Parts and wondered what people think of them? I was possibly thinking because the Web Parts replicate the functions we want staff to have access we can just give them access to this and they can enter their data in and not show/install SIMS.Net Client for them. What are people's thoughts on this? The only other thought was to setup a Citrix/Ericom environment for them to access it that way from home. One thing I do want to avoid is having SIMS.Net in school and Web Parts from home - staff I think could get confused and also the training issues surrounding this. Thanks, Rob

Hello, I did the FMS Upgrade yesterday afternoon. Took about 3 hours to do but was fairly easy enough - you just need to be careful. Basically when you download 2.85 from Solus 2.91 is also downloaded and stored in a folder called FMS in the setups directory. Literally it was reconcile 2.85 and backup. Install 2.91 on the server, attach the blank fms database and create a fmsconnect.ini file. Then run a database fix file (you must contact your support people for this), dbvalid and then migrate. Once that is done, setup the user's access permissions again and then reconcile it and compare with the other reconcilation figures. The only issue I ran into was that I couldn't attach the blank database to remote (dedicated) SQL Server (and I didn't want to install FMS on the database server), so I setup a local install of SQL Server Express 2005 for the time being and then I can contact Capita at a later date to move the database across. Apart from that worked great - and I'm glad to get rid of SQL Anywhere. Rob

We are also having the same problems with Moodle (1.8) slowing down with more than a few users. However, we are running it on MS-SQL Server and I don't think that's causing the issues since other databases on that server seem fine. I've tried both using the file system for Session States and moved using the database for storing it instead - this made next to no difference. I'm running it on IIS using PHP 5.2.3. I'm going to move over the Apache to see if that makes any difference. We also use AD Authentication so I'm going to look at that possibly as well.

Hello, How is the program progressing? Wouldn't mind trying the program with the new user features you mentioned. Rob

I has to migrate Sharepoint to a different server, and like ittech said the migration procedure it far too complicated. All I did was backup the MDF/LDF for the Content Database for the site(s) and then setup a brand new site.

I had the same problem but only with converting an existing RIS Setup into WIM Format. When creating WIM Files using the normal Windows PE Capture it worked fine. Never did find a solution for this either. Rob

Hello, Does anyone know of a low profile graphics that has either 2 x VGA or 2 x DVI ports. Or failing that a low profile graphics card that fits into a x1 PCIe Slot with 1 x VGA or DVI Port - if they exist. Thanks, Rob

Hello, Out of interest where did you get the sharepoint parts from. I've been looking for some to integrate at my school. Thanks, Rob

Smartsync isn't centrally controlled, however, you can export a profile (all the settings for the sync) and then import it into each user/machine and then just modify, in my case, the UNC Path for user's my documents. You may be able to do this programmaticly via a script (AutoScript?), but I've never investigated this. The program does allow the backup to a zip file which can be set to upload to an FTP Server - so useful for the last point you made about the internet. Rob

It's not neccessarily because of the file systems, I have a MAC and external hdd and it can see NTFS File Partitions as well as FAT32 etc. I did have a problem with an old external USB HDD because the enclosure wasn't MAC compatible (i.e. the drivers) but any MAC Compatible USB HDD should work. Rob

I use a product called Smartsync (http://www.smsync.com/) to synchronise files between laptops and the user's home network folders. Allows you to allow/deny certain files (great for mp3's, avi's etc). I've set it so it synchronises at startup and logoff and also every 30 minutes during the day (each laptop is offset, so there's only 3 laptops syncing at anyone time). I have a wireless network here with about 100 staff laptops with this setup and it all seems to work great, Rob

@Mark SAN's can differ greatly on pricing, I've recently got quotes in from many companies (about 24 in total) and varied from about £3.5K to £42K. If you have about 160 users at any one time I think an iSCSI Version would suffice with SATA Disks (what i've gone for here). I went for a product called InfoTrend A16E-G2130-4, which was about £4K with 8 x 750GB SATA Disks (running as RAID 6). Granted it was only a single controller version but it seem to do the job (awaiting delivery for install during the summer holiday) and has space for an additional 8 hdds as well. Rather than a SAN Switch (which in an iSCSI case would be a normal gbits/s switch) I'm going to directly connect our two file servers (clustered) directly to the SAN Device (it has 4 gbe ports). Rob

Yes, there's 6 disks in total. 2 x 73GB (RAID1) for OS Install, 4 x 300GB (600GB usable RAID 10) for SQL Data Directory. Rob

Out of interest as anybody come across a USB VCR, if they exist? I'm just wondering as TV's aren't being purchased in the school and use of projectors is becoming more and more and the teachers are still fond on their old VHS Tapes. Being able to for them to pass around and connect to their laptops for playing on their projectors could be interested.

Hello, On our database server we run RAID 10, so we can get the performance advantages of RAID 0 (data split across multiple drives) but with RAID 1 protection as well (redundantly mirrored). RAID 5 isn't too bad, but with the cost of the server (Dell PowerEdge 2900) getting an extra disk wasn't going to add much more to the price. Also just to add a bit more performance we have 2 HDDs on RAID 1 Drives with the OS and SQL Installed, and the data files on the RAID 10 array and also used 15K RPM HDDs. Get plenty of RAM as well (we have 16GB with more for more), 1GB is far too little, but you need the full version of SQL Server to take advantage (IIRC 2005 Express only uses 1GB). Also just for a little more performance set the NTFS File Block Size as high as possible on the SQL Data Partition, as your database will be many MB's setting it higher will equal less reads and faster access. I personnelly would buy a server from RM, you can get a far better specced server for a lower price and Dell Support I have found is excellent. Rob

Rather than buying SQL Server and then the CALs for all computers, you may find it more cost effective to purchase SQL Server on a per processor licence like I have at £250ish per year and will cover an unlimited amount of devices connecting to your SQL Server. Even better is that Microsoft licence per physical processor not per core, so I only needed one licence for my Quad Core Xeon. Rob

Have you got Certificate Authority Services on there as well?

Hello, That would be quite a decent spec server, though I would go with 15K RPM HDDs if possible in a RAID 10 Configuration for the VM Images and couple of seperate RAID 1 HDDs for Windows and the Virtual server to be installed to. I've never touched Virtual Server to be honest, but run VMWare ESX Server (which I think is better as that doesn't run on top of an existing operating system that MS Virtual Server does). As a comparison I run ESX on a 2 x Quad Core 2.33Ghz with 8GB Ram (soon going to 24gb ram!) and that runs about 12 virtual machines fine, including our old SIMS Install (sadly we are with CMIS at the moment but that's another story). SQL is quite taxing on resources but if you just running 1 VM then fine but to be honest you could probably put a few other VM on there as still have some spare capacity. That said my personal preference would be to have SQL Server on it's own dedicated server (like I have here) and run all the databases you have off that. But with all that said yes that specification would be more than sufficient (you will need Windows 2003 Enterprise to take advantage of that ram, and go for the 64bit edition as well if Virtual Server supports it. Thanks, Rob

Hello, The Head and Assistant Head in charge in Assessment are keen in introducing an electronic system for managing the parents evening bookings to get rid of the old fashioned paper-based system. I thought maybe we could one better and have a web-based solution that will allow parents to make bookings with the student's teachers all online and therefore avoid the issues that usually arise with double-bookings/students forgetting (or deliberately in some cases) not booking appointments. I've had a look already on the site and can't see any relevant and just wondering what programs/solutions other schools used. Thanks in advance, Rob

In the end I went with a couple of eSATA Enclosures - Sonnet D500P with 5 x 500GB HDD in each. All connected to the Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P. Performance is quite decent (only used as the disk part of our disk to disk to tape backup strategy with Backup Exec) even on Windows Software RAID 5. Each unit was about £600 for about 2.5TB Storage (before RAID).

If I were you, as I've done at my school, I would disable (via group policy) the ability for students to see the Security Tabs on the files/folders properties screen. I don't see any reason why they need it.

Hello, The built in Software Deployment is ok, but lacks any reporting features (i.e, to see failed packages), lacks the ability to finely control packages (i.e allocated a package to certain workstations - unless you create specific GPO's but you will end up with loads), and also installs software when the workstation starts up (unless you allocated software per user), which can mean a workstation is out of action until it's completed - so on our 100 or so staff wireless laptops would have been a nightmare. What we have is something called SMS 2003 Server from Microsoft for software deployment - quite useful with reporting, fine control of package allocation, scheduling packages and also for it to download the package locally before installing (great for wireless laptops etc). Microsoft have just released System Centre Essentials which supports upto 500 workstations for software deployment and looks quite good. The upgrade to SMS 2003, named System Centre Configuration Manager is released within the next few months. There's others - SpecOp's Deploy, Altris I think do something, as do Ondemand software (WinInstall). Rob

Hello, Our reprographics department brought an Oki 9600DN a couple of years back and has been great. It cost some what (£2,500) with the consumables @ £550 a rainbow pack, however, it's fast and relative cheap to run (since the toners do some considerable pages). I know Oki have released the 8000 series printers, which are A3 Colour around the £1,200 mark. I don't know what they are like but could be interesting. Rob

Hello, We have the same problem here, awaiting a fix at the moment. I think this appeared in the last build of ePortal. Rob