Michael

Every registrar Front Run domains, as well as everyone else in the business. This isn't a unique practice to GoDaddy. There are people outside of the registrar providers who make a living from buying, selling and even leasing domain names to whoever wants them. It's very lucrative but very risky also. I don't consider this a problem, however security obviously is an important issue.

I've never had to call their support to be fair, but it's definitely noted.

Another angle to look at it is if you're a MAT. If you've got a handful of schools using different MIS systems or Assessment systems etc... then something's got to give. It makes no financial sense as you have separate contracts/agreements and it makes no operational sense in terms of the trust supporting schools.

But that's not to say it's impossible, as schools are planning and changing as we speak!

Exactly - I very much doubt any of us are using Office 2003. Many MIS systems in use are older than 10 years old. I don't think changing MIS is any more massive than changing other integral systems. You're right it's all about training and support, but also the needs of schools (more crucially) have changed or are changing. I just find the mindset fascinating, as a large percentage of schools quite happily have changed e-mail systems across the years, be it from LA hosted systems or other, to the likes of GAFE or O365. E-mail is extremely important to how any school functions. I think it's one of those things whereby it sounds daunting, but then the advantages are immediately apparent and make everyone more productive. Gone are the days of the MIS system being office only, as now they're used school wide, yet in a lot of cases we're still using that same legacy model, be it on a larger scale. Another angle to look at is how many add-ons are schools purchasing to work alongside the MIS (tapping into its database)? A solution that natively includes all or more functionality is advantageous for all, in terms of costs and training. It really is a no brainer. If you added up all these costs, it wouldn't surprise me if it doubles the cost of the original MIS!

But the question is, if a high percentage of schools are using legacy SIMS, they will need to change at some point. Be it a requirements change, or a directive of a MAT. Will SIMS Online look identical to legacy SIMS? I doubt it, simply because the interface will be designed to operate on touch screens. I suspect it'll look totally different.

I agree, but schools moving to SIMS now wouldn't necessarily be a good move. Will Capita still support legacy SIMS in 10 years? Most unlikely, so schools will be forced to change at some point and it's important to think ahead as migration costs are not cheap.

Well it's just a different model, but I agree, it's not financially sustainable the larger you become. The Unifi model is however.

I suspect the likelihood is that said schools are not yet part of a MAT. Try running SIMS over a WAN connection and you'll see there's a problem. In Capita's defence, it was never designed to be used this way, hence why they also are developing a web version of SIMS/FMS. Factor in that it will probably be a staged rollout and like anything new, it will have its issues. There are already other web based MIS's on the market that have been around for years, so I certainly wouldn't judge a book by its cover!

Thank you all for your responses, it's much appreciated. I think my other reason/justification is the simplification of it all. Instead of getting different hardware from different vendors, and then getting a paid or open source management solution cobbled up together; you're always going to have some issues. The management tools (considering they're free) is a great incentive, but more crucially I'm not penalised for becoming too big an organisation as the costs are manageable proportionality.

Macs don't support PXE boot which is your first issue!

There are already similar discussions such as here to answer that question

The specs look good here, however it only supports PC and Mac; not iPads for example. This is the same problem with all Safeguarding solutions.

I did look at this, but it's limited to 20-25 APs. It's good for small sites

If you look at the Tech specs, it scales really well and doesn't require that many resources. I should clarify it does everything - switches, APs and phones and can support literally thousands of devices.

Hi all, Just wanted an opinion really - when looking at Ubiquiti Kit & Management, it's comparatively cheap, the management tools/controller are extremely good (and free), so the question is, why shouldn't I go for it? Looking in the context of MATs with schools joining together, it seems a no brainer. The only real disadvantage are that switches come with a 2 year warranty, compared to lifetime warranties, but given that they're cheap this wouldn't be an issue. Thoughts please!

Either optical or USB flash boot into WinPE environment, then deploy fat images. On average 20GB-30GB in size.

Microsoft seriously need to introduce Tenancy > Tenancy migrations. Exporting everyone's Mailbox is just ridiculous!

Just to clarify, if I go to MS direct and use Godaddy as my domain registrar, this works absolutely fine. I didn't realise you could go direct to Godaddy, but now I do.

That's not what I was after, but close! - - - Updated - - - Correct! Cisco do a 1Gb DAC, but I can't find a HP one; although as I say HP do a 10Gb DAC.

I didn't think they were, I thought they varied in size ever so slightly but I might be wrong on these. I also thought they used different protocols, hence no direct compatibility.

Hi all, Is there such thing as an HP DAC (Direct Attach Cable) for SFP (1Gb), not SFP+ (10Gb) which I'm already aware of! If yes, what's the product number? Many thanks!

I also found this, but not sure if it's any good?

I believe it's HP NNMI - Network Node Manager I. Something I'm looking into and there's a Community edition that supports 25 devices (not just switches). No clues how much the full fat version is however!

Wouldn't you still need to transfer IPs over, which in effect is some down time. I mean from your lease to your DSL line?