FragglePete

Another +1 for Cambium Pricing very similar to UniFi kit. Cloud managed, UK Support (never needed it though). Redway Networks did the specification and setup for us. Came in around the £25k mark for 97 APs dotted around our site of various specifications. We used existing cabling with the odd 'new' here and there. Just works, gives us no hassle (apart from having to renew a certificate yearly on the RADIUS server) and speed is pretty good. Pete

In a lot of installations where the HDMI cable was going beyond 5m we use HDMI Optical Cables - you pay a bit more for them but they resolved all the issues we were having with screens flickering, not sync'ing when the wind was in the wrong direction or just not display an image. USB we just use active USB Extender cables. Pete

Xibo self hosted here within Docker. Have some of the Xibo signage units and paid a trivial amount for a lifetime perpertual license. Pete

Noted the same last year when we migrated to Arbor and went live in Jan '24. Cunninghams was the only company that charged for the migration - and it only took them a couple of hours to complete it. Whereas, companies such as Locker did it for free and they spent a good half a day doing the migration. Pete

This is how we do it here: We print MiFare Cards and these are given to Sixth Formers at the start of the term. Students accounts are in a particular door AD Group. Students must then register these cards on any MFD device within the Sixth Form - it will prompt for their username and password on the MFD Device when swiped and register their card id number in PaperCut. A script runs about twice an hour on the Print Server that dumps the user database to a .csv file and takes the Card ID number from each student and copies the Card Number into a field within AD. We have Intoaccess Net2ADSyncServer (Synchronize Active Directory and Paxton Net2 ) installed on our Net2 Server - this monitors AD Group memberships and if it sees any changes to the groups and also any updates to the AD Field that contains their card number updates the Net2 server almost instantly. One off cost with perpetual support and updates. If a student account is disabled (which gets done automatically by Locker overnight) if they go off-roll, then their access is immediately revoked and can't get access to the main pedestrian gate or Sixth Form building onsite. Works well for us. I know Locker does also integrate with Net2, but doesn't get around the problem of having to register the cards manually to each student. Pete

Noticed that our Chromebooks were dropping off one by one. Have forced a downgrade to 130 and they have started to pop back up on the console. From their notice on their website, they knew about this since April 2024 - but no update as of yet. I was told quite clearly at BETT Impero Education Pro was no longer under development, which we're still paying support for. Do you think something that supports v3 will actually every happen? Pete

Didn't you see the new RM Head Office there..... pft!

Been going every year, and I do enjoy it mostly as a chance to meet up with current suppliers/account managers to sing their praises or raise any issues. But this year, yeah, a bit "meh". A lot of AI but not as much as I thought there would be. Did also seem to be a lot of more Chinese suppliers (and Korean) trying to sell all sorts of stuff that will just end up as WEEE Waste in the future. What I didn't like, and in some respect I can understand why..... I only represent one school as a Single Academy Trust, but wondering around with a friend who works for a large MAT they would just latch on to him and were not really interested in me even though I started the initial conversation when visiting stands. I normally come away with ideas for the future, but usually feel it'll be an uphill struggle with our budgets, but this year I didn't really come away with anything that excited me. Pete

Regular occurrence that occurs with ours reports failing, then failed but then totally out of the blue it's say Healthy again. Have raised it with CPOMS but they don't seem to think it's an issue and whenever they get back to me (takes some time), it's showing healthy again. Pete

That's just the standard Progress Bar that appears when it does the first tasks. I moved it down the screen by hand to take the photo. Should be attached here..... 9bu3f1v2.bmp Pete

Does this approach still leave the icons in place for the Apps and and they just don't do anything (or give an error) when clicked? Just wondering. I run a script which does remove a number of the Apps, but intrigued by your approach. For reference, I've just built a new MDT server as I kept getting errors on my existing VM when I tried adding 24H2 to it. New box is running Windows Server 2025 (well, why not it works!), with ADK version 10.1.26100.1 and MDT version 6.3.8456.1000. Must have been a slow day, as I added the attached image for use as my build screen when the image is downloading.... Pete

Sorry to jump on this, but I'm too am looking to move away and currently getting quotes in, etc. I don't know if you've been made aware, but RM are changing their pricing structure for RM Safety Net on a per pupil basis at £1.78 each. We're currently paying £895 total for that service so I imagine at renewal they will try and move us to that model which would be in the region of ~£2,500 for us on top of the connection charges. RM aren't committing to an actual renewal price yet as it's too early, but I do have quotes from others. Pete

A3 - Includes P1 which gives us Conditional MFA, and also Intune which we're still playing with - and not forgetting Microsoft365 App so we can install Office Suite on our Desktops. Bonus was getting Minecraft included also and don't forget you get additional OneDrive and mailbox storage. A1 Plus I believe is being phased out so we were kind of forced into it but we were paying for P1 and Intune separately so this was a cost saving overall. We still use A1 to 'maintain' users OneDrive, Mailbox, etc when they leave / off-roll and for people like governors. Pete

That's got be a typo ? ! £886.79 and that's including VAT for a 75" screen ! !!! Pete

Newline here also - still relatively new to the UK and the boards (and the support) just get better and better. Have nearly 40 of them onsite now. Stone Computers have always managed to secure good pricing for us. Pete

On group based licensing, you will get an error and it will just stay on the original license so you need to set one or the other - not both. Group Based Licensing makes it so easy to administer - our users get created in Locker automatically and dependent on Staff or Student a AD Group gets assigned which is picked up when Azure AD Sync does its thing and the license is applied. Same when they leave, Locker disables the Account and removes the majority of AD groups automatically but also assigns a new group which I use to apply the A1 license. The only annoyance recently is Microsoft moving the Group Based Licensing from the Entra portal to the M365 Admin portal recently which had me scratching my head for a bit when I needed to make a few changes. I also have a specific group for 'controlled assessment' accounts which applies an A3 license so M365 Desktop Apps Work (Word, Execl, Etc), but doesn't setup an Exchange Mailbox or allow other services. These accounts are used during set sessions only where students work on the assessment but the accounts are only enabled when required. Only downside of this is the AD Sync can take 20 minutes to enable the account online so some planning and notice is needed for when we disable and enable accounts..... sorry, I'm waffling.... Pete

A1 not needed if applying A3 - just check and uncheck - will carry on regardless and the user won't ever know. Even when you remove a license it's on hold for 30 days before anything is lost - you just re-apply the license and everything will come back. We have used A3 for a couple of years now. and assign it by Group Based licensing. Depending on which AD group they are on determines the licenses (and sub licenses) that get applied. I use A1 for staff that have 'left' so it maintains their Mailbox and OneDrive for a period so we can go back and get stuff if need be before they are actually deleted. Pete

PM Sent.... ! Pete

Just jump on this as I've had an e-mail from our ClickView account manager that our costs are going to go up - and what they are proposing is now making the service unviable here in the school. I have a meeting with them tomorrow to discuss. May need to look at alternatives now - real shame. Pete

Cunninghams here also - was using Schoolgateway for payments up until Summer '24 where we migrated payments over to Arbor Pay. In typical Cunninghams fashion, was a chargeable service to do the migration. Works well, no issues and has been a lot less administration than Schoolgateway in dealing with parents having issues. Cunninghams does seem to plod along once it's all setup and running. Our catering company want to move the Cunninghams server to hosted in the near future which will make their life easier as they can update menus, etc remotely easier and one less thing to worry about on site for me. Pete

Yup, HP Switch 5406zl (J8697A) !! I know it's old, but it's like old faithful. It's on my to replace list when the budget allows. We have over the years replaced the 24x1Gb SFP Modules to 8x10Gb SFP+ Modules with 2nd hand units that the likes of SwitchShop have sourced for us. Currently have around 540 desktops running, around 90 APs with Sixth Form and Staff BYOD Traffic along with around 75 Chromebooks, 46 x Printers/MFD's also, 120 VOIP Phones, etc. We have CCTV as well running but I generally sit that on it's own set of fibres bring that back to it's own core using a Unifi XG System but viewing of cameras the traffic certainly flows across the VLANs. We have about 12 VLANs in operation, mainly geographical reasons of the site. I do need to update and did look at the ZL2 range as I believe you can use the same modules. But, I'm at capacity in terms of 10Gb Uplinks to edge switches and 10Gb Connections to the servers we've got connected to it. Pete

We've got a Ye Olde HP Procurve 5406ZL at our core where each has a VLAN has it's IP address at the core. Each VLAN uses this IP address as it's gateway. Been running like that for years and our CPU Utlization is up and down, but a couple of refreshes showed the highest at 37% and lowest at 2% - it chugs along quite happily. Pete

Just received an e-mail from ESS claiming their victory over competitors as the CMA backed down on their action against them for blocking using database backups. They've got their smug face on now. And still they hark about the £40m investment they are making into the next generation of SIMS - For the love of God, shut up already! They've been going on about this for several years now - makes me wonder how much of that £40m is left? Pete

Indeed it does work - our whole summer we rebuilt with MDT with Win 11. I don't bother capturing a 'base' image anymore, I find just basing it on a 'virgin' Windows 11 ISO image and remove unwanted .appx's as a step in the re-image task sequence, and install what we need in the traditional ways, either .MSI with GPO and/or we use Burconix to deploy software to our stations. Pete

Did something myself too many years ago with VirtualBox. Can't remember exactly, but had the config of the VM set in stone so it had no network access, but could however map a folder in the VM directly to their Home Directory so they could at least move files back and forth. Disk was immutable, so always reverted back to its original config once it was shutdown. It did work well, however was a nightmare to setup and getting working correctly. In the end, so much moved to within the browser or just local it was given up as a bad idea and we moved on. Pete