truebluesteve

I'm not quite sure what is was you wanted recommendations for - a tablet or a mobile data provider. Anyway if its the latter then I can recommend giffgaff. I have a sim in my iPad and buy 500meg of data for £5, which lasts for 30 days. They use the O2 Network. Hope this helps Steve

Try and persuade your Bursar or whoever to add the credit card and make it so only they know the password. Our bursar had some reservations but she trusts me and its worked fine with the apps we have bought so far.

We use Bluesky - http://www.blueskyeducation.co.uk at my school. It does all the stuff you mention but I can't really comment on how good it is as it has been used almost exclusively by teaching staff. Until now that is, as all associate staff will be using it soon :-/

We have about 50 iPads and have started using the Apple Volume Licensing scheme. It's a bit of a faff to set up initially but after that its easy enough to use. I use the Meraki MDM to manage the iPads and deploy the apps and it works very well. Plus it's free!

I have an S3 and its a great phone. I had an HTC Desire too as my first droid phone and I do miss HTC Sense, so I may take a look at the new HTC One X which is out any day soon. Then there is the S4 :-)

Lift motors are very well suppressed these days so I wouldn't expect you to get any problems. Is the lift equipment on the same floor as your server room? The actual equipment needed for a hydraulic lift carrying over a couple of floors is pretty minimal. The lift motor room for ours is a cupboard of about 6' x 2'. The other thing is how much the lift will be used - ours is very rarely and not by students unless they are disabled (or have a injury that stops them getting up and down the stairs)

It's a sad sign of my age as when I saw ADFS I thought of Advanced Disc Filing System as used on my old Acorn Archimedes and indeed the Acorn Electron!

Are you still having problems with this?

The report was commissioned by besa who want us to buy their members equipment so the report isn't entirely surprising in its findings. I would ask the following questions - 1. The report mentions wireless in classrooms. Do they mean wireless availability in classrooms or an AP in each classroom. I suspect its the latter, and if so its a very disingenuous question because we all know that you don't need it. 2. What are they going to use the Wi-Fi for. As someone said earlier, it's seems to be that lots of people think that iPads and Wireless are some sort of panacea for education. Without a teaching and learning strategy to go with all this expensive equipment they become a white elephant. We put our wireless network in 5 years ago and it has served us very well, but its not really up the whole BYOD thing, so we are in the process of looking at upgrading it. However we are in the fortunate position of being able to afford to do this, but many schools aren't.

Thanks for the help guys. I arrived in here early this morning and ran the speed test on my own PC and I was getting 10Meg up and down so it seems the leased line is fine. Looks like its more of a contention issue!

Thanks for the info - I have run the command its showing lots of information but I'm not entirely sure how to read the output.

Hi We are experiencing (it seems) some speed/bandwidth issues at the moment and I'm not sure if its the Smoothie that is causing a bottleneck or our leased line that is slow. Is there an easy way of finding out? Steve

There is a very good android app called Wi-Fi Analytics that will give you fair amount of useful information. It's free of course :-) If you want an IOS app then you are going to be very disappointed as Apple have restricted them, or rather what information they give.

We have a Trapeze system here (though not for much longer) and have had the problem a couple of times - this is the solution we used ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On the Radius server, open the IAS logs using the IAS Log Viewer utility and identify when the problem first arose. This will help to identify which certificate is causing the issue. On the Radius server, create an MMC using the Certificates snap-in. (Note: use Certificates, not Certificate Templates or Certification Authority). Select snap-in to manage the Computer Account, for the local computer. Within the MMC, expand certificates (local computer), Personal, Certificates. A number of certificates will be shown. In the expiration date column, find the certificate that is due to expire 42 days after the issue first arose. If there isn't one, look for a certificate that is due to expire 84 days after the issue first arose. Once the offending certificate has been identified, scroll to the last column to identify the certificate template for the certificate. If the certificate template is Subordinate Certificate Authority, do the following: On the Radius server, open the Certification Authority MMC, usually found under administrative tools. Under Certification Authority (Local), select the certification authority, usually called something like CA1 Wireless Access. Right-click All Tasks, 'Renew CA certificate'. . Follow the wizard through; Certificate services will be stopped and restarted by the wizard and the Enterprise Root Certification Authority should be automatically populated with the name of the Forest Root server. Once complete and the services are restarted, return to the Certificates MMC created above and check that a new certificate has been issued. If the certificate template is IAS and Radius Server Authentication, do the following: Within the MMC created above, right-click the Certificates folder, select All Tasks, Request New Certificate, and click Next. In the list of Certificate Types, select RAS and IAS Server Authentication then Next. Leave the friendly name and description blank, click Next then Finish. OK the success message. A new Certificate with an expiry date two years from the current date will have been added to the certificate list. It is now necessary to change the RAS policy to use the new certificate. Review the event ID 2 warnings in the System Event Viewer on the Radius server; identify the policy or policies names. Typically there may be two remote access policies, one for staff and one for students. On the Radius server, open the Internet Authentication Service MMC, usually found in Administrative Tools. Open the Remote Access Policies node and locate the relevant policy. Open its Properties and select Edit Profile. On the Authentication tab, select EAP Methods. On the Select EAP Providers window, ensure that Smart Card or other certificate is selected and select Edit. A Smart Card or Other Certificate Properties window will open. In the 'Certificate issues to:' drop-down box there will be a number of entries that appear the same containing the FQDN of the Radius server. Each entry will relate to a different certificate on the Radius server. By selecting the different entries, the Issuer and expiration date are displayed. Locate the newly created certificate; this should have an expiration date of two years ahead and have something like CA1 Wireless Access as the issuer, not the college name. Select OK, OK, Apply, OK and OK to return to the IAS MMC. Repeat this process for any other affected remote access policies. The issue should now be resolved. Under certain circumstances it will be necessary to boot the wireless devices onto the wired network in order for them to obtain a new client certificate before they can authenticate wirelessly. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hope this helps Steve

I'm currently doing the same excercise and I've got to say they all have their unique selling points - i.e. features that set them apart from the competiton. Ruckus seems to have very good coverage and will normally require fewer AP's than the rest, whereas Aruba has a system that doesnt have a controller (although one can be added) which seems to work very well and obviously reduces the cost. The Meru stuff is single channel and is supposed to stop the problems of co-channel inteferance I have looked at Meraki and it seems quite expensive and there seems to be a lot of confusion over annual licences since they were taken over by Cisco. Things are never cheap if Cisco are involved! Its a difficult decision and at the end of the day you will hear people say good and bad things about all of the systems, and it may come down to the toss of a coin if all things are equal.

lol.... just seen another link for a company selling CrashPlan in the UK. Obviously they dont deal direct! PS Is Scotland still part of the UK......

I'm guessing that CrashPlan's servers are not based in the UK? Just noticed that the Pro option isnt available outside the US and Australia/New Zealand

This thread has been very useful as I spoke to Ruckus and Net-ctrl at BETT yesterday and was very interested in the kit as a replacement for our current Trapeze system. Are people using guest networks with transparent proxies sucessfully with the Ruckus equipment?

Hi All I'm doing some initial research into cloud based (online) backups and wondered if anyone here had experience of it, or even better are using it now. I'm aware of many of the issues about security, data centre location etc, etc. so my real interest is cost, ease of use and so on. Thanks Steve

I set up the VPP this week and purchased a load of apps and deployed them through the Meraki MDM. The user of the iPad (in our case teachers) gets a message to install the app and they enter the passwork of the Apple ID they have set up on the device and thats it. It works a treat Steve

I looked at the Meraki option - and in fact we are using their dashboard to manage our wireless devices, however their licensing is a bit confusing at the moment and seems very expensive. They are also in the process of being aquired by Cisco and I am a bit nervous how this will affect prices and support. As for the cloud based v physical controller debate, I like the idea of having a box here but I guess thats because I don't subscribe to the " the cloud is the answer to everything" school of thought. We currently have a controller with our Trapeze system and it has worked flawlessly and has never been down in 5 years. Having said that, we are also looking at the Aruba Instant AP's in which one of them becomes a controller for the rest but you have the option to add a "box" later if you want much more granular control.

Hadn't really heard much about them tbh Mark. Happy to do so though

Hi All We are looking to replace our ageing telephone system with a VOIP one - the reasons are many and varied, and I wondered if people here had any experiences they might like to share - both good and bad. Would also be interested in comments on suppliers/installers. Thanks Steve

Hi Folks We have had a Trapeze (now Juniper) managed wireless network in our school now for about 5 years. It has worked very well over that time with almost no downtime other than work we have carried out. However we have now come to the point where we are consdering upgrading to support the plethora of BYoD that are appearing. We want to increase the density in certain areas and also support N devices as these are becoming increasing popular. We have 2 options - 1. Upgrade the existing Trapeze setup - To use some of the latest APs and especially those with N capability, we will need to upgrade the controller as well as any AP's. This is probably the cheapest option, but Juniper dont seem to be pushing their wireless offerings very much and appear to be lagging behind their competitiors when it comes to guest access and BYoD and other innovations. 2. Change to a different vendor - We are currently looking at both Meru and Aruba who both seem to be very active in the education market and seem to have unique selling points for their systems. The infrastructure is already in place so in terms of cost its not going be significant. I wondered if any of you guys had thoughts on the the above. Thanks Steve

Have you ever been to Crawley! We deserve the £500