smarties11

Thanks Marshall_IT. What would the benefit be in upgrading to OM3, if we could utilise our existing OM1/OM2 fibre? Anything I should be aware of?

Yeah, it is an odd one. The two companies I've had on site so far have said we'll need OM3. Neither of them mentioned the LRM SFP+'s as an option. I've still got two companies to come on site and quote, so I'll ask the question. I assume there must be some way to test the existing fibre and identify with accuracy whether it will be suitable for 10gb over LRM transceivers?? Rather than taking a punt? Clearly no supplier is going to take that punt if they then have to subsidise the cost of replacement transceivers - it's just easier for them to recommend OM3 from the outset.

Thanks Michael. This is a quote from the HP technical specifications of their X132 10G SFP+ LC LRM Transceiver (J9152A) I've googled LRM SFP+, and it seems the LRM standard was ratified later than SR & LR. But I've not had any experience with them and was wondering if others had? Our distances certainly fit within the limits, but as there is no text on the two blue fibres, and the text on the thick green one doesn't tell me anything useful, I don't know what I'm dealing with on those.

Hi All, Following on from one of my previous threads, we are looking to upgrade our backbone to 10gb, with 1gb to desktops. This will include a new core switch and distribution/edge switches, along with new network cabinets (existing ones too shallow) and 10GBe network cards for our VMware hosts. I'm planning to do this as a phased approach - this year tackling the core switch, server links and the two network cabinets that feed our IT and Media suites. Our fibre was installed, I would estimate, in the late 90s - so I would assume it is OM1? We have one fibre link installed more recently than this - this appears to be OM2. I'd been working on the basis that we'd need to replace this with OM4. HOWEVER. I've been looking at the 5406zl as a core switch as suggested by many here, and see that HP do an X132 10G SFP+ LRM transceiver which is described as "up to 200m on legacy multimode fibre". This is where my knowledge is a bit thin. I've googled around "legacy multimode fibre" and it appears to cover OM1 and OM2. I've looked at the fibres coming to our core - pic below... The thin brown one is the most recently installed, it is labelled "ETK OPTICAL CABLE 8X1 50/125 LSZH" (so this is OM2) The thick green one is labelled "INTEX LOOSE TUBE 8 X 62.5/125" (so this is OM1) The thin green one is labelled "FIBRE OPTIC CABLE AASL6204A" (no idea what this is - googling it returns nothing) The two thick blue ones have no writing on at all that I can see. The HP spec sheet for the LRM transceiver says we are good for 220m on 62.5um fibre and 100m on 50um fibre. So the top two should be OK. Anyone with experience of fibre cabling any ideas what the two thick blue ones could be and the thin green one?! Our longest fibre run is approx. 90m. Also, anyone have experience on using LRM transceivers on the older spec fibres?

@clockend25 - interesting. I assume that Impero doesn't meet your needs then as an eSafety/Safeguarding product? They pitch themselves as a competitor to Securus.....so do you just use Impero for Classroom Management?

Thanks guys - interesting tip there with the discount. Can anyone recommend a good supplier? We are in Lincolnshire. We'd be looking for the equipment to be specified, supplied and installed - along with the routing of new 10gb compliant fibre and cabinet swap-outs (existing too shallow).

Hi All, We're looking at purchasing Classroom Management and eSafety/Safeguarding software. I'm looking for comments please - experiences good and bad, range of facilities etc - with regard to the following combinations of software... Impero only, as a one stop solution NetSupport School + Policy Central NetSupport School + Securus We're a selective school so the level of general behaviour is good. If you run any of the combos above I'd love to hear your views! Thanks!

WOW! Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to reply. There's a lot of useful information there that I will digest over the next few days.

Hi, I'm currently looking into replacing some or all of our network infrastructure. All of our current kit is 3Com, of varying degrees of age - oldest 10 years, newest 4-5 years. We're a school of approx. 470 clients, 690 pupils on roll. We currently have 1 core switch - a 3Com 5500G-EI. It feeds our VMHosts (4 x 1GB to each host), and is also loaded with 1Gb fibre modules on the back which feed our 8 remote cabinets. The remote cabinets have 1 top-of-rack switch with the incoming 1gb fibre, and depending on the cab size may then have 1 or 2 additional switches connected on the 1gb uplinks. So we're running 1gb backbone with 100mb to the desktops. I'd like to increase the backbone to 10gb and 1gb to desktops on the cabinets that feed our IT and Media suites. The remaining cabinets will remain as they are for now. I plan to put dual-port 10gbe adapters in the VMHosts and then have 2 x 10gb copper to the core switch. We'll also be replacing fibres as they are old and don't support 10gb. It's been a while since I've looked at or bought any switchgear. I'm thinking HP but will consider anything with a lifetime warranty. Any model suggestions for a new core switch, top of rack distribution switches and edge switches? Thanks!

Ignore this. Just had a another look at it and realised that for some reason the permissions on the share were different in DFS management to the actual shared folder on the server. I've given everyone full control over the share in both places and now it works as it should.

Hi, I'm migrating our data at present onto new fileservers. Our redirected desktop and start menu folders were originally stored on a Win2K3 server, in a share. I've re-created this share, and folder permissions identically on a new Win2K8 R2 server, and then published this as a DFS path to ease future migrations. I've updated our GPOs to point the redirected start menu and desktop policy locations to the new DFS path, and added the new DFS path as a trusted zone in the IE GPO's. It all works as it should, except that on our clients (Win7 SP1), the position of desktop icons is no longer saved! We use roaming profiles. I've reset a test user profile (in case there is still some reference to the old path in it somewhere) and tested with a brand new profile and exactly the same behaviour. Has anyone come across this before, or have any ideas for me to check? Thanks!

Hi, I'm still really desperate for this if anyone can help. If you have a site licence for Adobe CS4 Web Premium, then I'd really appreciate it if you could run off an ISO of the Mac installer DVDs for me to download, or copy the DVDs and put them in the post. We have a site licence for this, and I'm happy to provide proof of that. If anyone can help me I'll donate £5 to a charity of your choice! :-D Have contacted Adobe and they can only provide media kits for CS6, or sell me the latest version! Thanks :-D

Thanks - will give them a ring!

Thanks Ryan - I will give them a call!

Hi All, We are looking at offering a tablet leasing scheme to our sixth form students. Ideally, we don't want to standardise or 'force' a particular product on our students, although I understand that many schools do this with Apple as the exclusivity gives them better discounts. We'd like to offer students the choice of an Android, iOS or Windows 8 tablet - I was wondering if any other schools are doing something similar, and whether they can recommend any leasing companies for me to approach? We have guest Wi-Fi in place and students are already bringing in their own devices - we're just looking to bridge the gap, and allow students and parents to purchase/lease tablets which are fully warranted and insured for accidental damage etc. Thanks!

Done

Hi All, We have a site licence for Adobe CS4 Web Premium, which covers both PC and Mac. I put it in a safe place as we didn't have any Macs at the time and now can't find it. Doh! I don't suppose that anyone with an official original media kit could ISO it for me to download? Can provide proof of licence. Thanks!

Thanks, figured that would be the case. Will try it later. Yes, we need to move on from Ghost really but it will be fine for now!

Hi All, I'm just putting the finishing touches to our Windows 7 image. Once it's sysprepped, I plan to take an image using Ghost. It just occurred to me that Windows 7 has the System Reserved partition. Am I correct in thinking I will need to take ghost images of both partitions, and restore both partitions when I am pushing images out? I'm almost ready for this stage but thought I'd see if anyone had any advice based on their experiences before I suck-it-and-see! Thanks!

Yes, just like the ability to see it quickly, at a glance. I've looked at desktop info though that FN-GM recommended and it will do just that, and more besides. Thanks!

Thanks - just looking and you can't change the permissions either, not without taking ownership anyhow. Think I'll leave it as it is. Thanks for the pointer with desktop info - will give that a try!

Hi All, Just doing the final tweaks to our Windows 7 deployment. In XP, by adding a new registry entry you could get the NETBIOS name of the computer to appear at the end of 'My Computer'. This was useful from a support point of view as it was easy for the user to tell you the name of the PC without having to crawl around looking for labels. The same registry key doesn't work in Windows 7. Does anyone know if it is possible to do this in Windows 7? This was the code for XP [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}] "LocalizedString"=hex(2):4d,00,79,00,20,00,43,00,6f,00,6d,00,70,00,75,00,74,00,\ 65,00,72,00,20,00,28,00,25,00,43,00,6f,00,6d,00,70,00,75,00,74,00,65,00,72,\ 00,4e,00,61,00,6d,00,65,00,25,00,29,00,00,00 It's not like it's a major issue but just makes things nice and easy! Thanks!

Got this fixed. Spoke to a guy at Mouchel and it appears that their cluster of proxy servers aren't all configured identically. He's given me the direct IP of one of the proxies in the cluster that doesn't request authentication and that works fine - he's looking into it now his end. Very helpful guy and great service! Hope this helps someone that ends up in the same boat.

These have now gone. Thanks for all the interest!

Hi All, We're rolling out Guest Wi-Fi / BYOD to our 6th form in September. I've set up a squid box, running as a transparent proxy. I've configured it to connect to our upstream proxy. The upstream proxy is a Netsweeper proxy on the Lincolnshire Schools Network, which I believe is also based on squid. This has been working fine for a few days. We need an intermediate proxy as the clients are running in a separate VLAN and subnet - and I need some logging ability so we can monitor usage etc. This morning, when connecting via a client I am being asked for authentication details. I can see in the Squid logs that it is the upstream proxy asking for these. It seems odd that this is happening all of a sudden. If I change the IP address of our proxy server, everything works as normal again. This leads me to believe that the upstream proxy has 'detected' our transparent squid proxy, and blocked it - either automatically or maybe with some manual intervention. I have e-mailed the LEA to see if I can get an explanation - however, in the meantime - I was wondering if anyone else in Lincolnshire has had similar issues when running a transparent proxy with LSN's Netsweeper proxy as an upstream? This is how I have configured the upstream in squid.conf cache_peer schoolproxy.lsn.lincs.sch.uk parent 80 7 no-query no-digest default Thanks!