CyberNerd

Google drive data is already encrypted in transit and at rest. It's audited using iso 27001 and you can perform your own audits of access settings using the management console. https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4froD7RGVqtaFlKc3VnTHF0THc&usp=sharing# So yes, we store confidential documents there - it's probably more secure than local servers.

Surely the network infrastructure is now MORE important that ever ??? Anyway, for a tiny independent with less than 300 kids, I'm surprised they even need a single full time tech. cloud or not. Even if all servers are cloud based it doesn't lessen the technician load if you are still running local windows apps, the maintenance still needs to be done. The thing that dramatically reduces the technician workload is the cloud based apps with no local install and no local operating systems to worry about. This isn't something azure really addresses.

Interesting because some of the cloud based IWB products (smaprt-amp, realtime board) have this sort of ad-hoc netowrk at the heart of how resources are shared, as does classroom. Just without the swipe/orientation aspects! yeah - not very long ago we were told you could not program or do ICT on chromebooks because they were cloud based! it didn't take long for that to change. It just means your job role changes a bit. It's actually quite refreshing, instead of scripting on our own server I'm doing the same sort of stuff on Google's. Others on this forum have had similar experiences with Azure. And lets face it - getting a job in future is going to be a lot easier if you have documented experience of running HTML apps and cloud based systems than some near obsolete technology.

The amount of bandwith used by GAFE is tiny. It is mostly upload rather than download: and it is only sending tiny changes in files and not files themselves. The data is all encrypted and compressed in transit. Our stats: We have 1.1+Million documents on GAFE. We have 2000 users. We have 1600 machines with a 1:1 Chromebook scheme. Our PEAK bandwidth is 120Mb/s. Our average bandwidth is 50-60Mb/s. We don't block youtube etc. What you DO need is reliability. Get a decent backup line from a different provider (ie don't use a BT leased line and a BT FFTC )

'server rooms' will be a relic of history. It will be 3-5 yrs and it will be cost effective to run offsite. If server/electricity costs come down dramatically it will be sooner. Why did IBM want to exit the server market and MS/Google/Amazon enter it ? Failure to see that the internet/infrastructure is the way forward is a huge failure of Senior teams (and network mangers for not pressing the point). Example: how much do pay HLTA's, your MS agreement, Capita etc. vs the internet/infrastructure. I'd go for the latter.

That pretty much sums it up. The linux machine is doing nothing except providing access to the local hardware, everything else (including printing) is on the windows server. IF (bold highlight) you want local printing; as in printing from linux apps running on linux, OR the printer is local (not networked) then you need to setup a local linux print server (cups) in addition to this.

Well, I've probably not done it since 2003 and back then we were using kix! I'd search windows printer logon scripts; there is loads out there in VBS,PS. You just need something that will pickup the rdp clientname. You can assign it in your AD.

Install the printers on the server and map them to the printers based upon the client name (ie client X maps to printer X). You can do this using a login script. OR Use a print release system and only map one printer OR Use google cloud printing and map. This is probably the best option if you want to use ChromiumOS as your linux Having done all three of these over the years, I would go with the chromebox/cloudprint option. It's far less hassle.

I think you'll find that was seven or eight years ago. If something comes my way that has an .exe .msi or .dmg I won't sign it off unless I can get it running in a browser. The next "big thing" will be "Big data" in education. It's hit pretty much every other IT sector, but nobody is yet doing anything like this in education because schools are too far behind the cloud curve. What I mean is mapping MIS data against firewall logs, document access, time spend doing X or Y and presenting trends in an easily identifiable way. If all the products have open API's (and most do) then the next big company in education will be the one that can tie it all together.

Really quite exciting! From the Canyon Edge: ZFS is *the* FS for Containers in Ubuntu 16.04!

our kids use them for GCSE photography - it isn't a deal breaker.

...use a screen that flips into a tablet. Lenovo do them, as do Asus.

So Do I. The problem is that the Children are a different generation; ones that have grown up with tablets. What's easier for us isn't necessarily better for them. Some research finds that the 'cool' factor of a modern technology encourages reading from devices when they wouldn't ordinarily pickup a book. It's great the DfE have worked with penguin to make this available to schools, but I also think it's a missed opportunity to encourage schools towards 1:1 devices and allow students access to a wider range.

They are all available on Gutenberg; along with 50,000 other titles - for £0 https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page Perhaps the govt would have been better off spending some money on making the tech more accessible?

And once you've signed in once per machine, it will remember you anyway.

Give the non-GAFE employees GAFE accounts, it's free and will take you all of 10 minutes to sort out. It also means you can put the intranet ont he internet for access at home.

Calendar Settings > Edit shared settings > untick "make public"

We do, but you can pick and chose services - just calendars if you need to .

@timbo343 ^ see my post above

I can say how we do it: We setup separate calendars for various things. Ones that are prefixed WEB are globally searchable and others are private and just shared with teachers. Combined, the calendars make up the whole school diary: So some people can choose to turn off calendars that are not relevant to them. The web calendar is a combination of all the globally accessible calendars and are edited by different people; so somebody with lettings responsibility edits that one, and somebody with parent eve responsibility edits that. The HT just sees a united calendar.

By the time you will get it it will be summer. The main thing is to stop the water/damp getting in so prioritize: Fix the flashing on the chimney (really isn't going to be expensive if you can climb a ladder/scaffold) Clean the gutters Fix the blocked vents, seal the doors and windows. None of this is going to break the bank. I say go for it.

On our servers we're using 80MB for the app AND 32MB for the ancillary desktop services (you don't need to run a full desktop if you stream the app). It's more like 115MB, not close to 250Mb and certainly not 50 times. When a server has 32GB RAM: 115MB for a user session isn't going to break the bank and is very small beer compared to points 2 and 3. IF your running it for multiple sites and have thousands of users then sure you need webapps spread over multiple nodes; which is why Capita's "hosted" method is completely retarded. But saying to schools that you'll use 50 times the resources if you self host isn't true either.

I can't open 10 sessions in the same browser. Here's one SIMS session running entirely in a browser. Chrome says it is using 91MB. ] The point really is that it costs in Citrix licensing and in RDP licenses to do this. It is a stop gap.

I agree that windows handles remote session terribly; linux/unix machines do a much better job of this. Even on Windows, a citrix session is currently (i'm reading off the screen) using 32MB RAM plus the application: hardly 250MB yet a single spreadsheet in the browser is using 210MB. Like I said - I agree entirely with your sentiment that "proper" SaaS is the way forward; but I think you are using the wrong arguments. IMO the best arguments are being able to use tools such as Hadoop with SaaS and the extortionate licensing costs of RDP/Citrix not that one might use a few MB over the other.

I agree with the sentiment, but 50 times more resources is utter BS. We run stacks of apps over HTML5 and it just doesn't use anything like that. I'm sure you COULD configure an app to use 50 x the resources, but you'd be doing it wrong.