ITGURU

We've got easter revision sessions going on every day, so it'll be server updates out of hours. i'm also doing a SIMS sql 2012 to 2016 migration ready for a server migration later this year. also got switches to swap out, projectors to install and a few other bits to do

I never inplace upgrade any machine. all clients and workstations are always 100% clean installs. With dc's i tend to move the FSMO and other roles (DHCP etc_ to other DCs a day before i plan to demote and install newest OS just so i know everything is replicated and working properly. However, i have 2 DHCP servers for redundancy so removing 1 dc at atime for upgrades doesnt have any impact. Only issue i find is that exchange hangs onto DC's so can take a while to realise 1 DC is offline and use the others.

I run arcserve and LTO tape backups. I've never replaced tapes...I check their health once a year and even after several years of use some tales still have 20% life remaining . never had a tape failure and have to do a student data restore at least once a week and always successful so don't know why tapes need to be replaced so often...

currently doing a cc4 migration to vanilla. going easy as pie so far. just set up some vanilla servers as additional AD servers and created windows 10 policies. gradually over the weeks reimaging clients onto windows 10. pull in all the drives policies etc. no issues so far. just had to install the rm password sync took so it can sync password changes but that's all. once all clients are on Windows 10, shares dhcp etc will all be moved over and rm DCs decommissioned.

I have a 2012 R2 server happily activating server 2012 r2, 2016 and windows 10 and office 2016. I added the 2019 key using /ipk and it said was successful. I found a few KB's online that were required which i have installed. I've set up 4 standard 2019 servers, 1 datacentre to make the 5 activations, and all the servers appear in the event log on the KMS Server but are not activating. Has anyone been able to do this yet? TIA

So this year i'm planning to do a SIMS SQL migration from 2012 to 2016. I've installed SQL 2016 onto the same server as a different named instance ready for the migration. From documentation i've read is seems fairly straight forward to do the migration and update the connect.ini files on the clients. However, we probably have about 10 different bits of software on the server which link to SIMS to extract information. Is there any easy way to ensure i change all programs which link into sims (as it will have a new instance name) or is it literally a case of changing them one by one?

We've never lost ALL services and is very rare to lose a service running in-house at all. Usually the equipment has died of age rather than issues!

I know staff at schools where their IT is centralised at one site for the trust. that site had issues which meant the school had no internet, phones, or access to network drives! talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!

I've done exchange migrations from 2000 to 2016 but never jumped that far ahead. backups are critical and do your research online. the migration from 2013 to 2016 was the easiest one I ever did. Set up the new server, changed DNS records to point to the new server, all users use the new server for access but backwards compatible access to 2013 mailboxes, then did the mailbox migration and cleaned up the old server. if memory serves me right there will also be a fore more steps if you are decommissioning exchange 2010. good Luck!

Why would it cost more to deliver a service? Still able to remotely administer and access all sites networks and all sites have remote access.

I've looked into doing a hybrid solution myself with third party SMTP filtering which then forwards to our local exchange. My understanding is that if your using Hybrid setup, you have to use Microsoft's filtering ?

I'm a pro photographer and use https://yourimage2canvas.co.uk - the 3 for 2 offer always seems to be on despite the countdown timer, it then starts again! always been 3 for 2 when i've done orders.

The ultimate question - if all these MATS are creating a single forest, what would you do if a single school was to break away from the forest? surely that makes things more complicated breaking away? Why not just keep all the sites forests separate and create trust relationships instead?

Hi I understand that the UPS is there for a graceful shutdown. However when you have remote sites that have power loss for extended times, whereby the battery backup also loses power, what's there to signal all systems to start up again once power is restored as if its a graceful shutdown it would need a physical press of a button to start the servers up again?

If you don't mind then that would be great. please PM me. 2 sites I work at have different broadband providers but both have a BT 21CN adva media converter at the sites so it's after this point it makes me wonder if there is any backup power in place at the other end of the fibre. I assumed that all leased lines would still go back to the local exchanges..

Does anyone know to what extent, beyond a schools site, that there is battery backup in place at exchanges/4g masks etc. In the event of a town power failure, would a BT leased line still be accessible via phone exchange battery backup? When the Advant fibre interfaces are installed they are installed with UPS so they remain online, but just wondered how much internally is any use on an UPS even if its not accessible remotely in the event of a power outage. i know they are there to cover short blips or short power cuts, but if a remote sites local area had a power outage if id still be able to gain short access in, Alternatively, i am wondering if i had a 4g router installed in the server room that if there was a power outage, 4G networks would still be available? What are people;s thoughts or understanding in terms of battery backup of Internet services?

That's what I said to them - the smaller solutions are not suitable for our rooms but they're interested to know costs!

Although we have a rack with the core switches etc in, our main servers are all Towers so needs to be a room solution rather than a rackmount,.

I've been asked to look into Fire Suppression for our server rooms. I've tried reaching out to companies but either don't respond to emails or get back to me. Has anyone had any systems fitted and can provide me with contact details for anyone? Thanks in advance.

SIMS report generation is also depended on your SIMS server and configuration. when we joined a trust I was told our SIMS server was faster at generating reports and wanted to know why. we run SIMS on dedicated hardware whereas they were running on virtual from SAN. if we do a edit academic year it can stall our SIMS for a few minutes but at the other school it can take up to half hour. normal reports are also quicker on physical.

The only drivers requiring PAID support are the BIOS upgrades now I believe. Whenever I've needed to download drivers or HDD Firmware, these have all been publicly available.

I have 2 local gateways for a cloud based filter solution which don't have built in load balancing (currently) Therefore, I have a PAC file hosted on a server which in GPO the clients point to so if one gateway down, clients will use the other. I've built up a new server - changed the server address pointing to the new server in GPO and in the IIS logs clients are connecting to it. However, on the older server iis logs, some clients are still using the old server. I made the change over 24 hours ago so just wondering how to force all clients to use the new location? How do i stop the caching or how long should iit take for client to all go to the new server? Thanks.

Not sure where you are based but have you tried the LEA/Area Broadband? We've been with emPSN/KCOM since the beginning and our 100 mb symmetrical line doesnt cost the school directly, it is funded by the council.. However, another school in our trust are on a 200mb symmetrical connection with another provider and pay £9.5K a year for it. I will be bringing them back to emPSN as they were before, and a 200mb line with them, is only approx £1500 per year as they need more than the 100mb as the top slice is paid for which reduces the cost. Once this have been done we will be able to interconnect sites over the emPSN network without needing VPN access.

I'm currently in similar situation replacing servers. I have a 50/50 split of HP ML350 Gen 5 and Gen6 servers. The first of the 2 oldest Gen 5's have failed in the last 6 months. Looking back these were purchased 2007/2008 so 11/12 years old :-) No warning of failure, literally when the server died,a RED Led health light on the front and wouldnt boot again. Capacitors on the Motherboard had bulged and appears to be known online with the Gen 5. The last servers I bought were in 2006 with their 3 year warranty. Have never extended beyond this, had the odd HDD failure but thats it, nothing else has failed. The Gen 6's are still overspec'd for what we need and will run to their death. I budget evey year £5k for a replacement server, but obviously depends on spec and Ram. However it is good to shop around. I contacted HP and although i knew there was no trade in value for the GEn 5 or 6's with HP, they said if we didn't need the latest and greatest they could spec me up with a Gen 8 or GEn 9. When they did, it actually would have cost me more than getting a shiny new Gen 10! As they say if it aint broke, why fix it :-)

I got the email for both schools managed to sign into the new site no problem and invite myself to get am email so all.working fine here. I believe that to use the VLSC site your account has to be on 365 as changed tenancy a while ago and got locked out and MS had to 're add me so if you login to VLSC I'd have thought you have a work 365 account.