Dantech

In that case I might as well put the old switch back in! No cost! However if all my LAN cards are 1Gb it makes sense that the switch is too.

Hi Chris Thanks for the reply. You are right they are stati routing only. The routing is done on the Core. We just have one Core Switch - an HP 5406Zl. This has RIP commands set in the config. I just wondered if the 1910 will not respond to this? I assume all traffic on VLAN's on this switch will just go back to the Core to get to the internet so maybe this is irrelevant.

This was not my choice! This is the point - the SLT brought him in to "help". It seemed a good idea to have a consultant that we could call on if there issues with the network which we could not find answers to quickly. However it seems that this is being used as a money saving exercise. He says these will "do the job". Well, a Robin Reliant will get me to work but when I need to take more things with me or over take in a hurry I would rather have a more powerful car with lots of storage. I will being pushing to ensure they buy the 1910 series as someone said earlier because this will help with my VOIP phones. I have one problem though. We do indeed use RIP on our Core Switch and if these don't support RIP then I don't know what problems this may cause. Maybe none. We had an HP Gold Partner in two years ago to install a new Core Switch and he did the configuration and did explain why we should use RIP at the time. I still think it is just bad advice to put a Small Business level switch in an enterprise network - totally false economy when we need the best network we can as we move forward. It maybe that because I want to move to a 10Gb backbone in the next few years they don't want to spend more on the switches when they will have to replace them in the future

Basically the building has been refurbed and I took out a working 10/100 fully managed switch which I can fully support using procurve manager. the two smart switches I have are 1800 series and seem slow compared to the fully managed ones. I intended to replace these with 10/100/1000 switches to fully utilise the 1Gb LAN connections on all the new equipment going in. I noticed a performance increase in another building when I did this. I am just worried that they will fall over once BOYD is fully implemented. I guess I hate someone forcing me to have just enough spec to do the job rather than having something better. All my colleagues in the county do not use any Smart switches in their networks and therefore it seems like a backward step to me. The VOIP QOS issue is a big one for me and I am pleased to hear that the 1910 range will tick all the boxes. I just hope the consultant does not persuade those with the nod to accept even cheaper Smart switches that will definitely not be up to the job. All this hastle over a few hundred quid. Last year I was virtually forced to improve the wireless network and so I was allowed to spend £20K to improve our Ruckus deployment. By buying decent dual band AP's, a new Wireless LAN controller and putting AP's in each room in the centre on the ceiling beaming down the wireless is now perfect. I wasn't going to scrimp on switches then and I don't want to now. Unfortunately this time I have to accept and do as I am told.

Thank you so much - that is the re-assurance I wanted to hear. The strange thing for me is that up and til now I was never challenged on what switches I should buy and since all of the others we have had for the last 6 years have been fully managed (apart from two Smart switches I bought to backup our server to a NASbox in another building and which did nothing else) and I spent the last couple of years throwing out NetworX Smart switches which were old and I could not manage with Procurve or even see they were on my network. Now when they refurbish a block and I removed a perfectly good 10/100 fully managed switch and I want to buy a 10/100/1000 fully managed switch so that I can actually utilise all the 1Gb ethernet cards in the thin clients, PC's etc I am told I have to buy an inferior Smart switch. I reconfigured every switch last summer when I VLAN's everything and it was so quick to do. Trying to understand how to do it on a Smart one was a lot harder. I am hoping that when all the kids start using BYOD on top of this that the whole lot will freeze and then I can say "I told you so and just sign this order for new Switches". Knowing my luck it will work to start with and they will say we were right. I have already told them this and said you will only see problems once heavy us starts.

Just saying they are designed for small business will not persuade the powers that be to change their mind. I need hard facts

I agree - we have around 36 Procurve managed switches (school size of 850 students and 100 staff on site with 9 or so buildings all linked via optic fibre and only 1Gb capable backbone at the moment but have fully VLAN'd the network.) Only two are Smart switches and these are only used in locations where I have not been given the money to put in extra cables and then only to seperate the Printer to be on the printer VLAN and the computers on the Wired VLAN (all staff and student PC's)

Thank you Encryption is not an issue since students have been locked done with group policy and I have unique usernames and paswords on my switches and they are in locked CABS around the school

I have never used SSH. Telnet is quick and easy. I use all three methods I know depending on what I want to do. With telnet you can flick between the switch config and command line very fast. I prefer Procurve Manager because it gives me an instant view of the entrie switch network and I can see at a glance when there is a problem.

Hi I have strongly recommended NOT taking a consultants advice who recommends using HP Smart Switches in favour of fully managed ones - all our main ones already are. I have been overruled by the SLT. I was told they will take the rap it is does not work. These are my reasons why this is a bad idea: So far I am told that HP Smart switches : • Do not support QoS so I cannot apply this to the VOIP phones – which may not be an issue if I do not have any other devices on that VLAN but will be if I need it. • Does not allow LDAP pass through – therefore the Script that we have written to allow teachers to change students passwords will fail because it uses LDAP. • Cannot be telnetted to • Cannot be fully seen in ProCurve Manager In a Smart switch you do not see a table showing all the VLANs and ports in one screen so managing it is a pain and very time consukming. Also you cannot see or edit the config file. Is there anyone out there who can tell me other reasons not to do this just to save money! I am so frustrated by non techie bosses who thing that this guy knows better than me. I have had countless HO Gold Partners recommending NOT deploying these SMART switches.

Hi I have moved from no UPS on most of our HP Switch cabs to putting them on everyone. We have constant power outages and over voltages which have killed Macs, Printers and PC's. Battery replacement every three years is not a hassle and only costs about £20 each. Well worth it to ensure a smooth supply to the switch.

Thanks for your comments. You misuderstood number 5 and have actually agreed with me. Metro apps will install on a Windows 8 RT but not any programs. The is one very good reason not to just use a laptop: - I have never found a laptop yet that will last all day on the battery. Tablets will. Notebooks will but they are not powerful enough. This is why a Slate may be the answer to what I want at least. I want to be able to carry (not lug) a machine around that I can do everything on and not have to carry it on my shoulder around school. Given that the majority of th world use PC's I think Windows 8 will succeed simply because this is the way things are going. Whose to say someone won't make a touch pad "mouse" which sits on the desk where your mouse was. This would make using the new interface quite normal in an office environment. Microsoft may be late with their offering in the tablet arena but they do seem to get it right eventually. If you think £1K for a slate is a lot just try buying an Apple laptop which has a decent spec.

Hi Sorry - let me qualify that. My understanding from reading the mag is that you can't install windows programs (which are technically still "Apps") onto an Arm Windows 8 tablet. I think apps are fine from the Microsoft Apps store. Mark

Hi I must disagree here. I think Windows 8 will be a resounding success for the following reasons: 1. The Metro Tile Interface will be the same on desktops and Mobile devices 2. People will be able to have a mobile device with full office and windows functionality - one such device already exists and will run Windows Release Preview (just come out). The Samsung Series 7 Slate PC. This has a decent i5 processor, 4Gb RAM and a solid state hard drive. Just costs over a grand though!! 3. Group policy can be applied to this in the same way as normal so security is spot on - you can't do this with an Apple iPad or an Android tablet. For this reason alone businesses and schools will love this. 4. Web browsing is complete - no problems running flash or moving to HTML 5 5. Everything will work on it - full office and all windows programs for Windows 8 will run on it - just can't on the cheaper Arm Tablets (they have Office built in but you can't install any programs - read the Windows 8 Magazine available at all good bookstalls!) Mark

Hi Thanks for your input - I have not heard of a slate. I assume it is more bulky than a tablet (ever tried swollowing a slate?) but will run "proper" windows.

Hi We have used Webanywhere for about three years now and I believe we were the first school they installed a Moodle Server into which they managed totally remotely (because I insisted on it so that if the internet failed we could still teach). When we migrated to Moodle 2.0 last summer they did the whole thing remotely and it has been running well until now. They use a software raid and a management server (virtual) to access the Virtual Moodle Server so they are responsible for all backups and disaster recovery. The guy who set this up originally was Anthony Wright who runs a company called Overnet Data Overnet Data - Moodle / MIS Integration Specialists who now provided Moodle support and SIMS integration. Webanywhere are not a cheap solution because they have grown fast and have a large support team. Overnet data may provide a cheaper quote but I know that this chap is brilliant with Linux and really knows what he is doing. I played with Windows Moodle but it kept crashing so decided to stick with Webanywhere for now so I did not have the worry of things going wrong. I am now looking at load balancing because I am not happy that when the server needs fixing it can take more than a day for it to be sorted (usual remote support problems- engineer not available, delays from them and me being able to spend time on it etc etc). Ideally I would want two Moodle servers with failover to the second one should the main server fail. Our teachers rely on this for their day to day teaching and the Moodle Server is available directly from the internet.

Thanks Norphy and Cybernerd - I was unaware of this. I stupidly believed Microsoft were going tp produce a tablet system that actually did what I needed! I was hoping for a windows tablet that was fully controllable by group policy that could replace laptops in the classroom and be a lot more useful than the iPad.

Hi I installed the Windows 8 Consumer Preview the day it was released and after spending 10 minutes trying to find control panel decided I would not roll this out to our staff for a couple of years! It's high time we had a shake up and generally I like it but not being able to put "Computer" on the desktop is a right pain. I saw an advert the other day on TV saying there would be a special release for business users and something about only four versions. I cannot see that the Metro Tile interface is of any real benefit on a work PC and just gets in the way of work. Why does everything have to be square though? An the windows 8 logo looks like it was designed by a three year old! Having knocked it I actually do like it and am eager to buy a windows 8 tablet which actually lets your store files on the thing (unlike an iPad), works with flash, can be wired straight to my PC for easy quick file access and obviously works on wireless. It should run full Office and allow me to RDP to any machine on my network so i do not have to lug my laptop around school. I just hope someone makes one in time for the realse of Windows 8 - saving hard from now on! Mark

Ours is a Sonic Wall SSL-VPN 4000 which alows for way more users simultaneously connecting than we ever get but the Head at the time insisted on it thinking that maybe three clesses would try to login remotely at the same time!. I have never seen more than 12 users on at once! It was supplied as a remote access solution by a company but for some reason we did not buy the firmware upgrades which I regret now.

Hi I have had Sonic Wall for about three years now and wondered how costly it is to get a firmware update. How or where do you go for the cheapest price on this. Our Sonic Wall SSL VPN box has been 100% reliable and used everyday, but I would like to improve access for Mac Users. Mark

Thanks Teejay for your clear replies. I too have bought this same core switch a couple weeks ago and cannot get any VLAN which is not one my DC is a member of to talk to any other Vlan. Seems I need to add RIP to these VLANs. Mark

Hi We have a SonicWall Pro 4060 (not cheap I know) and it is feature rich. I cannot work out how to NAT a private range 172.16.0.1/16 which will provide me plenty of addresses for all my subnetting I am setting up. Does anyone out there have any experience setting this up. Our county refuse to alow access even though an engineer came in and said NAT could be configured on the Cisco router we have. The Cisco ruter belongs to Synetrix and we have to submit change requests for ewverything. Since we already have a SOnic Wall Firewall and SSL/VPN box I am trying to work out how to NAT through that whichwill be allowed. Mark

Hi - Thanks for you feedback. I used a USB n wireless adaptor a Cisco WUSB600n which is Dual-Band Wireless -N and found that the pre-athentication did not complete in time. In other words you have to wait until windows has fully loaded before the USB drivers for the adaptor load and by then the drive mapping in the network login script which maps the users h: drive has failed. Therefore the users ring to say they cannot access their work. The solution to this is to manually map the drive everytime (or I suppose you could schedule it but I never tried) or get them to logout and in again. We do not get this problem with built in wireless adaptors. I know if I had the money to replace all my laptops and replace my Access points with 1 Gb ones that the whole thing would be a lot better. Unfortunately we do not have the funding to do this at the moment. Maybe there is some company out there who would like to donate us some! No? I guess they are just as strapped for cash as everyone else. That is why this year I invested in improving the infrastructure in readiness for new laptops. Mark

I just want to say out of sheer desperation I e-mail Ruckus direct and explained my problem and experience with my Support people. They have been brilliant and are going to send someone to sort it out. I have had someone ring me straight away and has gone off to analyse the data. I really hope they fiond the cause. Interstingly has anyone checked the CPU utilization on the real time monitoring screen. I am seeing 100% CPU utilization every few minutes and that is today when our entire network core switch was replaced and only 3 clients connected to the system! I wonder if my Zone director is faulty. Can someone please look at theirs and tell me what is "normal". Take a loook at the attachment of the 5 minute graph. It does not seem normal to me.

Hi Chris We use WPA2 and you are right we do not have a problem with Windows 7 laptops (we can't afford new ones). When the system first went in everything was XP and we did not have anywhere near the problems we have now. Like you the exact drivers are crucial to success. We had a Realtek driver on the HP 550 Laptops (we have 90 of these) had a known issue, but after updating them all we are having few problems with them and they have Windows 7 on them now. The science ones are old running XP and I need to find time to update these drivers. I found this same wireless card in my Toshiba brand new n ready laptop and always had random disconnection problems at home on my Belkin Router but wierdly not on the Ruckas at work. After updating the driver the speed of connection leapt at home and with the Ruckas. The company that installed it did not raise the issue of suitable drivers and suitable wireless cards. I discovered Ruckas do have a less of tested ones, but obviously that can't test all of them. Unfortunately for the unwitting IT Manager who buys laptops based on price and features the wireless card was not scrutinized. If I were buying a new laptop now I would be really carefully to ensure it had wireless n and had a driver I could investigate before I bought it. My advice to everyone is to update to the latest driver on ALL the wireless devices.