CAWJames

Hoi everyone, Thanks for the comments, Cisco do seem to load with software add-ons and support! Does anyone know if the HP 5400 zl is going EOL, and should we be looking at the 5400R zl2 instead going forward, if we do go HP? Thanks James

No particular swing to HP, just we have a chassis switch at our other centre, that has done the job with the lifetime warranty, and I assumed that Cisco would come in a lot more expensive, as they always used to look good on paper until you needed to buy extra software licences to enable features that were standard on other switches(but I will probably stand corrected!). Thanks James

Morning all, We have just expanded in our building from a few rooms to the whole 29,000 sq-ft of it, and strangely enough need to upgrade the switching! After looking at the options, I am "pretty sure" I want a Procurce 5400 switch, probably the 6 slot rather the 12. Reasoning being I want 10Gbe to link edges around the building but I also want gigabit switching in the server room, so thought modular is the way to go. Or am i doing it wrong, and should be going 48 port stack with 40Gbe between and 10GBe out? Where do us educational types go to get Procurve equipment for a decent edu discount(if such a thing exists)? or other options appreciated of course? Thanks, any help appreciated? Thanks James

We use OSTicket , we upgraded from liberum, as the source hadn't been tended to in a decade or so! We find it works very well to our needs, and had AD integration, so people log in with their AD name. oh and free (well GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE anyway)

Rang them up and they did the application online for me, I got a confirmation, just waiting now for the actual details, all in all much easier to phone!!

Brilliant thanks, will ring them today

Thanks for that, any idea where you found the number? Thanks James

Hi all, According to our EES welcome letter, DreamSpark is still free for us. I am trying to go through the ordering process, but it is trying to charge me £47.98 for a years electronic software delivery. Will this become a zero charge when it processes the promo code further into the enrollment? or am i missing something? Thanks James

Aha, in answering my own thread! This Scripting Guy blog post shows the New-MsolUser cmdlet spitting out a password which can be piped to send to user! I will do some more checking, but I think my script can be expanded to autoconnect and send to the users alternative email

Thanks altecsole, that is my current thinking, bypass dirsync and go straight from SQL to o365, see my code in post #2. I am not sure if this will trigger the temporary password email though or not, or if we have to input random passwords manually. Thanks again James

I have this so far, but not sure if it will work, as its adapted from a blog based on New-ADuser Import-Module MSOnline Import-Module SQLPS Invoke-Sqlcmd -ServerInstance OurDB -Database moodle -Query ` "select FirstName, LastName, MoodleNumber, Department, otherEmail" | select @{l='Name';e={$_.firstname+" "+$_.lastname}}, @{l='UserPrincipalName';e={$_.lastname.tolower().substring(0,1)+$_.MoodleNumber+"@ourdomain}}, @{l='DisplayName';e={$_.firstname+" "+$_.lastname}}, @{l='FirstName';e={$_.firstname}}, @{l='Department';e={$_.department}}, @{l='AlternateEmailAddresses';e={$_.otherEmail}}, @{l='Surname';e={$_.lastname}} | New-MsolUser I am not sure if I need to pass anything else to the New-MsolUser command or if its all there in the array? also might need some bits to actually connect it to our tenant, but does it look like i am on the right track? Thanks James

Afternoon all, We are entering the brave new world of adding students to AD and then up into O365, so they can benefit from ProPlus etc. Our student login data is actually stored in an SQL database, that Moodle, etc get the info from. So we are planning to powershell import users from this database, adding a couple of fields together to make a unique username etc and then store them in a GPO locked down OU in our main AD. We will then use DirSync or AAD Sync to then move these users up to O365. Another powershell will then assign licences depending on a flag set in an attribute(current, alumni, withdrawn etc). These scripts will be automated to run once a [insert time period here], and will hopefully be completely hands off. So now for the quandary, these users have no passwords in AD, unless we give a specific password to the newADUser cmdlet, and therefore will be imported to AD and O365 as disabled users. Is there anyway along this process to have an automatic temporary password attached, as if you were creating a new user in O365 proper and then emailed to admin or the secondary email account of the student? Any powershell gurus out there? or anyone have a better way of doing it, maybe don't use dirsync/aad sync for this, but script straight from SQL into O365(not sure if this is even an option, but it would get the students into O365 first, and then dirsynced backwards into AD!!) I probably have asked this before, but I now have a plan and am trying to sort the password function. Thanks in advance for any help. James

All sorted now, done a good deal with @VeryPC_Colin_M over at VeryPC Nice 13.3 Flip convertible laptop with i5, 8GB of RAM and a 480GB SSD, 10 point touch etc. Yoga style hinge too! Let the desk-less work commence when it arrives of course

Hi all, I am looking at getting a nice little laptop to make myself more mobile at work. I used to have a full fat Dell Latitude 15", and found it too cumbersome to lug around and it mostly stayed docked on the desk. I have been using a triple monitor 10GB RAM i5 desktop for a while now, but I obviously am tied to my desk somewhat! I am looking for a convertible, as my personal laptop used to be an X200t, and I found that really useful(my other half has since pinched that and refuses to give it up!). So I suppose that leaves me the TP Yoga or Helix, and the Helix has a shiny screen and an equally shiny price tag! TP Yoga 12 maybe? So where do us education people go to get a good deal(read super duper, "you paid how little?", ocean going, fur lined deal of a lifetime) on a Lenovo? Or perhaps do you have an alternative for me? Looking for 8GB RAM minimum, i5 is fine, 12-13.3", probably more the smaller side of that for portability, matte screen, Wacom pen. Thanks in advance James

We use it extensively for manipulation and reporting from our database, my favourite use is pulling room booking details out of the database and then auto turning them into RSS feeds for Xibo/E-Stream to fire up on the big screen, runs every hour and works extremely well!

Single Dell 2800 running FreePBX distro, Asterisk 11, 1 ISDN30 PRI card(OpenVox D115) and Gamma SIP trunks(we receive calls on the PRI and make calls on the SIP, and until we are out of contract on the PRI, this is how it will work, BT were worried when we stopped making calls!!). Phones are mostly 69XX series Cisco running in SIP mode. We run all our desk phones, here and at our 3 other centres, all over the VPN back to the single server. While this has worked great for a few years, it does mean in the unlikely event of a lights out at our main centres, the other centres lose their phones! So we are currently in the process of installing some s/h DL360 HP servers at each site to run Asterisk 13 and its own SIP trunk, and back over the VPN to other centres for internal calls.

Righty-ho that might explain it!! Still announcing a licence, then having no documentation on it anywhere, good old microsoft, every user is a beta tester

Hi all, We are looking at Skype for business as a webinar product with the release of Skype Meeting Broadcast. The blurb mentions the above mentioned licence, but I cant find any reference to it anywhere! Anyone know what it is, how we get it and if its FTE(of course!) Thanks James

Our last renewal for server was: 214−075 OVSF Win Server Standard 2 Processor Lic 1Yr AP for circa £30, and for our datacenter licenses(for unlimited VM's on our cluster hosts; 217−161 OVSF Win Server DataCenter 2 Processor Lic 1Yr AP circa £200 Hope that helps, and gives you some part numbers and price guide! Thanks James

We did this recently, and it isnt for the feint of heart!! We have 2 R710 servers in a 2 node cluster, both with dual procs and 170 odd GB. We migrated all our VM's to one node, then broke the cluster and wiped the empty node completely(the squeaky bottom step) and built it up with 2012R2 and created a one node cluster on it. We then used the built in wizards to migrate the VM's over from one cluster to another. Bought the VM's up in the new 2012R2 cluster, wiped and rebuilt the second node, and then added it to the new cluster!! To be honest the migration wizards in 2012R2 made things a lot easier. We looked at the upgrade route, rather than wipe, but we felt we would be better starting from scratch, with the only downtime being the time to move the VM's over, and as we have a SAN, this didnt take long as there was actual data to move. The only caveat I will add, is that make make sure your new hosts are patched completely before you start migrating, as a reboot or pending upgrades can cause gremlins. We found our VM's in limbo as I rebooted the new 2012 host in the middle of the migration progress, took a little manual jiggery to move things completely, but all good in the end. James

Afternoon all, All our students are listed in an SQL database that Moodle uses for login(using external authentication). Is there anyway to sync O365 or an AD domain with the users in this list? We have come up with complex SQL voodoo and scripting into a standalone DC, then DIRSync it up to O365. This seems clunky and more steps than should be needed. Anyone do anything similar to get names and numbers up to 365 with maximum automation/zero touch. I have asked this before in different ways, but not as in a direct hookup with Moodle. I know there is log into Moodle with O365 credentials plugin, any chance the other way round exists(I assume not!) Thanks James

I am really sorry, but I've been told by HR that salary is discussed on enquiry. Bev is really nice though when you get through

Link to JD and Application Form Work at CAW | CAW

Link to JD and Application Form Work at CAW | CAW

Apologies, its neither of those, I just haven't been told what the salaries are I have asked to be told so I can post them.