PotNoodleTech

ivms-4200? Thats what we have too.

If it's anything like the Activedriver which got destroyed by successive windows feature updates to the point of not working at all on any PCs - it wouldn't surprise me if activeinspire is going the same route. That being said we still have a few users with lots of activinspire docs and don't appear to have the terrible issues you are having so could it be something else other than the software?

Couple of schools in the LA next door have moved all server stuff to Synology NAS and are now taking advantage of that by using Synology Surveillance and seem to be super happy with it. I am fed up of trying to use 10+year out of date hikvision software so will go to one of those schools and have a good look I think. The licence costs would be worth it to have a smooth modern easy to use system.

As all schools are different, it's difficult to say. In general I would say that all secondary's larger than 600 pupils should have a 1 gig connection speed. Many could probably get away with a 1 gig bearer speed and a 500mb connection or the like. A long as there's the option to easily increase the speed as per the schools future needs, that works!

Surely unauthenticated connections should recive the strictest filtering, not no filtering? If the filtering etc provided by the LA I would get them to make some changes as right now if a pupil grabs a non school laptop/chromebook plugs it into an ethernet port they'll receive unfiltered access as it stands?

I stopped writing 5 year plans when the budget stopped being agreed ahead of time, and when the LA mandated financial rules included no carryover from any cost codes. Just because one moronic school somewhere built op over a million quid in carryovers we've all been tarred with he same brush. So basically forward planning as almost made impossible as you don't have any idea what the budget is gonna be in year 2/3/4/5 cant plan to save up/target for anything specific in year 2 3 or 4 5 either.

If the device physically still does the job required then I don't really see what the issue is with continuing to use it. I guess schools in England have not been forced to "make do and mend" like Welsh schools have. It's only when software updates rug is pulled does it actually become a serious issue IMHO.

So it won't comply with cybersecurity best practice/auditing?

Nothing lasts forever. That being said 5 or so years is pretty poor - most of us would expect to be able to run devices beyond year 5.

All our new PCs are now Lenovo i3 4 core 8 thread 16gb ram 512gb ssd. They are much much faster than the OptiPlex 3020 they replaced.

Aah connect 2.3 them were the days - build off a flopy disk!

Yeh was forced to upgrade my beloved 5412ZL to Aruba 6300m stacked and to be honest it wasn't really an upgrade at all. If no ones gonna force you to upgrade to something new for the sake of it I would keep what you got and maybe as others have said get an entire spare chassis with modules and get that ready on standby. There's literally zero performance improvement to all this new kit as the penny pinchers have been out in force in all these companies in the last 5 years, and reliability is slightly worse if anything.

Yes out of date here on this one - still using PXE boot to WDS/MDT server that has worked so well for so many years. Question for those using totally modern Intune / Azure etc I've heard it's a lot of work to get it all set up tested etc and quite a lot of advanced knowledge needed to get (and keep) it working - is this true?

Just wondering if anyone had used this training provider Bridgend way? computertrainingwales.co.uk

Out of interest is there any education discount on this or is it simply just buy one yearly license per technician?

Thanks all that's great!!

We're having difficulty finding some training for my technician (and further down the line for me also!) Looking for entry level servers / windows server / networking to start off with. All the physical courses I can find are real expensive since covid - sadly the school does not have much money for training. So - how are you all doing this? Back in the old days we payed £1000 and went on a physical course. Job done. Can't seem to find much for under £3000 now. Willing to look at alternatives including solid online courses now - i.e lock ourselves away for a day and just do an entire course. Suggestions welcome!! Free or not free!

To be honest my Unifi has been decommissioned now so I am out of date, but I ran the controller software on a windows VM as that then inherits the high availability of the VM infrastructure. You can get small controller keys but these are not redundant or high availability. You may be able to get more modern cloud key appliances?

If you need to install something quick without having to force yourself through endless sales drones/ discussions / paywalls license shenanigans then Unifi is your only option really. Buy controller buy Aps. install controller install APs. Done. Hopefully ,eru won't charge you if you try and get back in support as I've seen that done before "oh sorry sir your APs have been out of spec for the last 3 years were going to have to charge an extra fee to get you back in warranty".

364 days a year: For sale £425 Black Friday: For sale WAS £750 now £425 only 10 left OrDeR nOw To AvOiD t3h DiSsApOiNt

What groundbreaking work has Procullux Ventures been doing in the field of education IT in recent years? Based on the company financial filings - not much at all?

Frankly it depends on each school. You say most schools are part of HWB - every single school in Wales has access to HWB but that doesn't mean they use it on a daily basis - 50% of schools I know use their own Google/Office365 as it's MUCH more flexible and reactive to teaching and learning needs whereas HWB is extremely locked down, inflexible and very difficult to make any changes to. Most schools are likely to be using the LA active directory so will be using LA DCs and possibly LEA member servers too. Some like mine set up our own servers but are still joined to the LA active directory etc. A handful are totally separate and use separate companies for support (for example RM).

Not sure but as you only need to change them once a decade by the look of it I am not expecting to find out for another 3 years or so!

Lets face it, SLT will fall for this kind of advertising, but us IT bods are much harder to impress as the comments above show.

Yep looking for the same thing too.