mthomas08

I am though... We have yet to have a decent WSUS, mainly because we have no spare boxes for it except PCs... (I dont like relying on that way). Anyway, I guess we would be complaining if serious virsus's like the blaster came out again...... at least its this week for patch tuesday and not next week. Meaning I can update 1 Room which is set to manual, update the servers (when I did it all last week and now just doing the last one with a service pack)... All done and sorted this week

Yeah I would agree, good race but it does feel a bit artificial, it is no longer about the best car and best driver. It really is more about "Right tyres, Right time", when last year it wouldnt matter so much. As for JB, it did make me laugh even though I support him. Great result for Lewis, no doubt he drove a brilliant race. Webber - totally shocked but again he did the right tyres at the right time, at the start he was struggling to get past anyone which makes me think again about the tyres... So who knows, it is only the 3rd race over and done with.

Mcafee We use this here and had no trouble, actually I lie there 8.5 was pathetic and did eat a lot of processor/memory. Since upgrading to 8.7i which I have just been dishing out with Epolicy Orchestrator I have a much better system. Only wish it could detect all the new trojans/junk crap appearing on sites.

I would agree, same with some secondarys I have visited. On the other hand it is very easy to sit there and say there is a "lack of good ICT".. 1. Do need the funding 2. Need staff who are capable of implementing ICT (We know schools are not always willing to pay for people who have experience/training). 3. Good value (this is not always easy but you have to shop around), we stick to Brand Name DELL for servers yet we go Novatech for PCs. This works very well for us. 4. Another BSF Failure? When we was given the report on what we needed, where we shopped from and what we was allowed to keep lets just say A LOT of money was going to be wasted because of BSF. As for Primary schools I my self would be happy to take one or two under my belt if I was paid more (it would make more sense paying me a bit more for each then an individual tech per school?). I know when we become an academy we have to take one but not sure exactly how that will work.

Strange that isnt it, I am sure that site is illegal so surely it should be in there

I so wish I did fit that criteria and you could do my job.

Totally, now I want to see more!!

Had been reading about snapshots and AD dont mix, Things to consider when you host Active Directory domain controllers in virtual hosting environments Been doing my home work, and as stated earlier I like my options Thanks guys you are great help as always, now we just need to decide here exactly what path we want to take with these servers.

Sorry old fasioned and old habbit on that front, I refer to: which holds the global catalogue, dns and dhcp and is top of the forrest, just reading a few things and the "suggestion" is to have at least one physical DC. Obviously if its working for you then thats great to know as an option for us to go down.

Does that include the PDC?

Thats what is going through my mind, our current one isnt pushed at all, it was previously our Home/public drives too and no additional DCs. The new one will sit there as a PDC and nothing more or .... that is where other things are going through my mind. When the orders go through I will have two brand new servers. And some one once mentioned about Virtualising them both, we currently have a Hyper V box which has 4 VMs on it and works a treat. I have a little niggle in my neck about virtualising Exchange and PDC/DCs. DC I wouldnt have a problem with but Exchange is much more critical and so is a PDC. Guess I was not so specific

Guess I should have added that. Tricky one that, on one side I have dedicated PDC and nothing more (So yes AD/DHCP/DNS/GPO and thats it). On another side some one mentioned to me having the above and have Hyper V on it for any future servers you may require (given the added HD/RAM etc).

No one watches C5 anyway.

So title says it all, which would you all go for. I have 1600 users, about 800 computers, I plan on having a few DCs down the line to help with the load. Our current PDC isnt a bulky one but it has managed well and never seems to be over loaded. Windows 2008 R2 64x is the OS we plan on going with. I personally am a Dell fan, but by all means go for other suppliers. So which what spec would you go for if you had the 5K for a new PDC. We have also purchased a new email server for 5k which will have exchange 2010 on it I believe I once got told to get two new servers and virtualise them as well. So thoughts and comments perhaps?

Never!!! We do use CS3 though and I believe we have a site license, very good software and is being used more and more.... it is easy to tell when their Home drives are filling up with "Photography/Exam/Art etc"..

I was thinking the same, I work closely now with the head of ICT especially now with Frog coming and shes the head of the project with my self being the top admin. I actually do know a lot of staff personally as well. We do know exactly what staff need and want, the want part we can not always cover but the need part we can. Staff do want their equipment to load fast and access the internet all day. As for Ipads we have a MAC and an IPad sitting in our office and every time a staff member notices it even they want one because it looks really nice and they do also admit, they wouldnt use it as much as their laptop. It actually shocks us here to hear them say things, they "seem" to know what they are talking about when it comes to the IPads, even a Deputy head who enjoys his gadgets (He pushed for IPhones) has admitted getting them would be a waste of money at the moment although he does want one personally.

I was thinking the same as Zuk/MK. Not trying to sound mean but yet to see a real reason why they were purchased. Just wondering how much money has been spent on them and what do you use them for? And who came up with the idea to purchase them? Just wondering what did they do on the laptops?

This is what we got for our IPhones, currently trialing it for 3 months, works a treat. They have just today authorised IPhones but even the head said "Only if: SIMs, Emails, Phone calls, Calendars" can be done on them. It did make sense though because their previous blackberrys were not compatible for Emerge, but did do all the above. The previous phones only did calls (none of this fancy SIMs, Emails etc). The way IPhones are compared to what we previously had is "Much more Functions" the same goes for Blackberry compared to their old nokias. When IPads are capable of much more then perhaps I can think about replacing laptops but to be honest the way Apple works with their MACs I still see Laptops being owned by teachers in 7+ years time.

We currently have the IPAD here for testing, answering the question "Is an IPad suitible for teacher/Replacing Laptops". Today, NO. Most of our staff require specific software to be run and will not work on an IPad, we have ICT, Maths, Science, English, Technology software alone that will not run on an IPad let alone MACs. Can an IPad join a MAC server, so we can at least tighten security? what about SIMs/Remote desktop which also uses VPN to get on SIMs from home. Will all the websites work no problem which staff use? (they do a lot of research and work on websites - some even doing Gov tests online which requires software installation). Will it work with projectors? guessing a USB to VGA will be required. Able to connect up to all our servers? We have a Virtual Box running 08 R2 which has Printers/Programs on it. Also what about OFFICE programs, will staff require new/more training to use it and any work arounds we put in place to get any of the above working? I see some one mentioned Flash? this is a must for staff. I could list a bunch of other software we use but you can guess why I would say no. Personally I do not see it being a year or two but maybe four+ years for Apple to get in to gear, there are still many issues on the above for MAC Laptops. Edit: Have just seen the Parents Fury at IPads and I must say I do totally agree, it is an expensive tool which simply does not help the students in any way just for the staff members accessing the internet. We have just authorised IPhones for SMT which with Exchange 2010 + Emerge (SIMs data) you can see a real benefit, also the SMT do behavior calls all day so able to access student data/numbers/calls/emails quickly is a must.

Would I be correct in assuming they are also doing a server version? We are going windows 7 once I have updated our servers to 08 R2, and knowing MS the second we are updated here they release a new version. Fingers crossed Windows 8 is not a vista or 98 and forcing them to release another OS/SE within a year?

Our kids dont know apple but they do know Iphone and Blackberry.... As for youtube, its not safe... I actually did try and find some thing and I found it.. For our post16 I allow it, luckily they only care about their music videos and they know we watch it.

There we go that's it, I did actually create the network bridge before I even got the software and had both adapters on my network. Network bridges is some thing I have had little experience with and it sounds like that was the problem. Thanks

Sorry EIS are our service provider. Our TMG box is for linking through our service provider (Frog VLE onsite server) to access it all externally in replace for our current website (currently hosted by EIS). I was told it just needed to be setup as a network bridge, not so sure about creating that when you need two network adapters on a virtual box. When I created two, thats when it seems to cause me issues and the moment I got it working was the moment a loop back occured.

Did you have to create the network bridge on the VM? (Sorry far too used to saying images). That is where I struggled, EIS have told me it needs to be setup as a network bridge.

You say you have Hyper-V working with TMG installed on to an image? We have just purchased TMG and awaiting for it to turn up (Frog VLE Installation) and I did try and get it working on an image but strangely enough it caused a Loop on our network... I since then have not tried to get it working. How did you get it working?