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We use Geode Networks and have been very pleased with the service: Geode Networks - Home Cheers!

We had that before (during a stretch where there was no management in place) - when we came to test the backups, not a single one actually worked. Terrifying.

We have more and more heading to offsite - we just replaced our SAN about a year ago and I suspect that's the last time we ever will. It takes a change in mindset and a lot of buy in from the teachers to the T&L benefits (of which there are many!) but the move to GAfE has been transformational and really worked for us and is gathering momentum nicely. Conversely though I was in a school last week that won't entertain the idea of off-siting key services and that approach works for them! Cheers, James

We bought Veeam and have been incredibly happy with that running to our Windows 2012 R2 backup server, it's insanely quick and very easy to use. We then use BackupExec to offsite it to tape but only because I'm yet to look at Veeam doing it. We purchased from www.ict4.co.uk who gave us a lot of pre-sales help and advice before we made the jump and have been very happy.

We get ours from iCT4 Limited based in Cornwall. They beat everyone else's price, were VERY helpful and made sure we had the right stuff. Recommended! www.ict4.co.uk

We use this - works well for us! Web Security - CensorNet

Yep! Fixed! I moved the SIMS storage out of the cluster and onto a local RAID array with SSDs Now we are back in business and it takes 5-10 seconds to access parts of SIKS that took upwards of a minute. I still feel it could be faster but it's much more useable.

Hi Steve, If you're in the South West, you'd be crazy NOT to speak to iCT4 - iCT4 - IT Support in Cornwall We use these guys and they are genuinely the best thing we ever did - the service is just superb. No commercial link to them...but I can't speak highly enough of them! Cheers, James

Using it here, LOVING it. NOT perfect (only available for teachers, not TAs, that's a pain...) and we had an issue with it not saving registers which seems to have gone away but generally good. It's a bit laggy so not sure if that's a network issue or just the fact it's early days for the app. Overall we are impressed.

What do they need to access?

Ah okay, so you're not looking at digitising existing content but instead bouncing around the FTA services? In theory, what would be your maximum concurrent users do you think? There are some consumer-grade devices that might be able to help but would probably not scale well. Is access to iPlayer etc. not deemed good enough? More and more systems are moving towards live streams of their channels, I believe the replacement for 4OD is one example of this happening.

I'm just up the road from you and have a lot of experience with VLEs (and used to work for one!) - if you wanted me to pop in for a chat, you'd be more than welcome? Happy to give you some advice based on my experiences from a T&L perspective? DM me if so... Cheers, James

What is/are your objective(s)? Sorry to sound flippant, but if we understand that we can make recommendations based on things other than cost too! Cheers, James

I've never really liked the interface of Edmodo - it fulfilled a need but I've never really warmed to how it works... Classroom + Google Drive + Google Docs on a Chromebook or iOS Device will be a real winner I think, especially as the iOS apps have kept improving! I'm pretty impressed with the pace of development from Google - healthy competition from O365 is a factor, I would assume!

In my opinion ALL VLE/Learning Platforms will be needing to re-assess their position in light of the growing strength of Classroom. I'll be VERY glad to see the back of Moodle, this is purely my opinion but it's the perfect example of a system designed by administrators that doesn't suit the classroom (I know there are companies that round off the edges and customise so I'm not including them in this). I also think it's a good wakeup call for the likes of Frog/Firefly and that should lead to their products getting better and really trying to innovate rather than introducing 'me too' features or gimmicks that may have been a characteristic of previous development. I do believe there's still a place for premium VLEs *if* they adopt this approach and are responsive to their customers. It helps that we are a GAfE school already but Classroom makes it an even more compelling argument - our current approach is to wait for it to mature and include some of the things that support OUR Academy vision, so we're sticking with our VLE for now. There will need to be a conversation once these features arrive though as the Drive and Docs integration is (naturally) so good! Exciting times.