CyberNerd

BIND is better documented for the sort of thing you will need: https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_BIND_as_backend_for_Samba_AD

Our are exactly the same on our school wifi - kind of by happy accident because we didn't want personal accounts in school. In our case it is because the SSL inspection certificate is not automatically installed on personal accounts, but is on school ones.

Not according to Capita. They told me at BETT it's just SIMS running over a VPN over RDP. Perhaps their idea of auditing is "yes someone access something at this time" we don't know what they accessed or who accessed it. Anyway, they managed to self-certify their cloud services this way so presumably stand alone SIMS meets the same requirements.

Interestingly; Capita claim that their hosted service does allow auditing: Q 6.4 – Are audit trails in place enabling users to monitor who is accessing their data? YES Audit trails are available to administrators. http://campaigns.capita-sims.co.uk/sites/campaigns.capita-sims.co.uk/files/cloud_services_and_the_data_protection_act.pdf How is the hosted service different in this respect ?

Google Calendar Resources meets your cirteria, minus the SIMS integration. The api is available and if somebody else hasn't done it they will soon. https://support.google.com/a/answer/60766?hl=en

Quick, license and sell a plugin! Everybody else does as it's the only way to get SIMS to do what you need.

That's ridiculous. I can track every change, view or edit in any document back 180 days, mail even further and I can see every website visited by 1800 students back 3 weeks. This is searching through *multiple terrabytes* of info and I can get an answer back pretty quickly. Don't be all "it's too difficult" on a single database with only a few hundred users. This is clearly a commercial decision.

Some of the rules are quite insane. There are certain exams which DO let you have access to pre-prepared material, but do NOT let you research live (art I think is one). So In these exams; home drives are fine, but internet is not. Exam boards haven't really woken up to the fact that many students homedrives are on the internet. The analogy would be that you are allowed to bring the entire British Library into the exam, but you are not allowed to take the exam in the library.

Didn't you get the memo about schools becoming parents/social services? Sometimes we get involved, sometimes we don't - depends upon personal circumstances and the whim of whoever and whether the problem is likely to affect the student in school

@mavhc @Arthur the licensing will be tricky because at some point we will need to include configuration files, or excepts, that are licensed under a different arrangement. Can I share a Samba/Postfix config file that is licensed for GPL under MIT/CC ?

There are some UK schools that have done this in the past, but entire regions of other countries do it regularly. Remember Chromebooks are still the fastest growing machine in the education market (Google claim they outsell all other devices in US education, combined). I am certain it is possible, but to answer the specifics: 1) The browser is the GUI. See Chromebooks 2) Most staff can just about use a browser, the skills are not hard at all just different if you have only used windows. 3) The document system is in the browser 4) Mostly offer browser based software, but others are available.

My how-to's are a bit out of date, and the only things I'm currently running are file servers (samba3.6), webservers (apache), Virtual Hosts (KVM via RHEV), spacewalk, mail (postfix - mostly for relaying) I have a support contract with RedHat Enterprise, so unfortunately I've standardised on CentOS. Not done very much in the last couple of years but I admire your enthusiasm, and I'll help where I can.

Thanks. I added the running costs to the DR proposal. I've used this as the high cost option.

Even the DfE advised getting three quotes. They probably got told three different things by MS at each meeting!

I recall a time where change requests were just deleted if the Capita support teams didn't like them. Does this still happen?

You could run windows authentication using Samba4. It uses all of the same management tools; your techs probably wouldn't notice, nor would your end users - your bursar will notice, but only in the price drop.

We have Sharp+Papercut+GAFE and scan to email works. You need to setup the email relay in the individual sharp machines to use your O365 relay, and allow port 587 open to them. The papercut provides the account lookup, but the printer sends the email.

I met my boss to plan this too. I don't think you will need to learn account setups from linux, as far as I know SAMBA uses standard windows tools at the front end, once it is set up. My plan is (in order): 1) File servers - migrate to Samba (actually I did this years back) 2) Print Server (CUPS and Papercut on Linux) 3) Migrate NPS to FreeRadius 4) Migrate SIMS to hosted SIMS (I asked Capita about the MSOffice requirement on hosted SIMS already) 5) Migrate Terminal Services to some sort of Linux RDP and only run non-windows apps like this. 6) DHCP, DNS to Linux 7) Migrate Active Directory to SAMBA 4. I think that covers all the windows server side that we run. Still need to find the requirements of hosted SIMS. Should be fun.

That isn't the case: They are not putting the cost of the contract up mid-term; they removing the discount on new contracts which is precisely what they did with TAP.

Precisely nothing will happen. Remember when they discounted MS licenses to school using TAP and then withdrew that last year causing a 5000% price increase? http://www.edugeek.net/forums/licensing-questions/141968-microsoft-tap-kick-teeth-ees-subscribers.html Nobody (apart from edugeek) cared because it was a temporary price (much like the MoU prices)l. Some schools will just pay, some will use something else.

Interestingly; pretty much everything on this list, perhaps with the exception of poledit, I've managed to do with a basic linux box. All the tools were included.

it's free. you only need a license for the chromebook management.

Any idea how the reports work with Capita hosted SIMS?

I'd put a bet on MS releasing all of their operating systems Free of Charge in the near future. Probably around July.

I didn't dispute their current status, but to be relevant in the future things need to change. Besides; schools are small businesses in these terms.