AlanD

I’ve used netgear switches for years...decades actually...and I have never quite understood distain those with Cisco and HP switches subject them to. Our 8 switch core is 10gb with aggregated links to edge switches from adjacent stack cores...so ...at least in theory...any port can fail and nothing stops working.... In practice no port has ever failed...although, yes we had a succession of netgear modules failing...and replaced them cheap Chinese ones that never seem to fail...despite being a fraction of genuine netgear modules. And the netgear stuff probably cost me 10% of a Cisco or HP solution....and some of it is second hand kit bought for peanuts off eBay...probably priced because of the biased reputation netgear had. Is it perfect? No...and I understand why some peoples experience is poor. The web interface on early smart switches was slow...really slow...used java..and was fussy about which browser was used. Different models have different looking webinterfaces...which is confusing at best...and new netgear models were prone to teething problems with firmware. But..it all works just fine.. You rarely get what you pay for...

...so what do you have it for?....just to allow single sign on for online apps? If so which apps do you use it for? Or perhaps you use google apps rather than O365 which now does SSO with Azure connect...without the costs of federation... OneDrive mapper was nice...but the new enterprise files on demand has the potential to deliver much the same...although I’ve not it working yet...

Who says you can’t sell on an auction site? It’s possible there might be a policy that you can’t sell stuff ...to avoid any legal come back ..if it was not safe or whatever...but I don’t understand why one method of selling something should be singled out....

We have been advised...recommended...to use Intune to manage a new issue of staff laptops...to deploy apps, limit access to usb...etc etc. Anyone been down this route? Will it work? Will be need SCCM as well?

Sorry...one of the first things? What was that? Getting unify? Or replacing it? What was costing 2.5k? We’re you using a federated azure? And if so...was that just to get SSO?

I bought into increasing our licence from CC4.3 to CC4.5 (no actual change) - but doing so allowed me to use their One Drive Mapper....then they changed things so you can't get OneDrive mapper without buying into Unify....(so OneDrive only worked for part of a year) ..and now a massive price increase on Unify.... Never quite undertood the attraction (is there an attraction) to unify...office 365 will do SSO without it....do we really need it?

no; but we do have BYOD - and the largest numbers of users are ipads…..but of course unmanaged by us (except for their internet access)…..and we have some school ipads which we just use free configurator and profile manager MDM for....because we are far too mean to pay for an MDM...

Are most of these not already done by the MIS? And really - they need to be integrated with the MIS to work well....So if A computer room is booked for a period 4 on Monday for a maths class - you would want that room to show up on the student timetable for that day in the MIS....not somewhere completely different. We use schoolbase (I know - you probably haven't heard of it) and it does bookings, calendar (including ical feeds) and detailed homework etc. I would have thought most do at least some kind of attempt at this. And again - these things need to show up in timetables for staff and students when they look at MIS. Not sure what you are asking for in terms of usernames and passwords? A self service password reset via ? Mobile phone? Email? Teacher? Its certainly possible to write some javascript/asp for a techer set a password via a web page... and there are free helpdesk solutions....into which you could put service status etc.

...while filtering is important....it is monitoring and reporting that we are asked to do by the prevent strategy....and chances are you will want it to automate sending of such reports to different year heads....preferably under headings such as bullying, radicalisation, self harm etc....and needs to be good at "seeing" search terms. I'd also be looking carefully at how it would integrate with your wireless - probably with radius authentication for any BYOD and captive portals for shared devices with a timeout. ...and I'd be getting one on site to test....and telling them that smoothwall had given me a better price to get them to give you a good deal.

As long as no safeguarding/protection/child progress is sent by email - I guess this fine....otherwise we have a duty and there is an expectation to be able to produce such information for information requests - should there be subsequently - some dispute about a child's progress and how it was handled. What is isn't clear - is how long we should hold onto that information. I still often hear quoted 6 or 7 years - on the grounds that is what is required for financial data - which clearly doesn't apply - or not necessarily appropriate. And when you hear of the problems caused after the Windrush documents were destroyed without dur thought process...its not inconceivable that schools might be asked to produce records a decade or more after a child has left. ...by the way - not doing something because you "can't afford it" is no excuse in law. Schools do have money - but (and perhaps sensibly) choose to spend it on things other that IT....(often spending a small fortune on MIS and financial systems....sometimes when they could be done with a spreadsheet and data base almost as well).

Snapshots should never be considered as backups. In fact...I think I'm correct in saying that general advice is never to use use/maintain snapshots in a production server. There are lots of examples - particularly if the server runs databases - where a simple restore from a snapshot is not going to restore working versions of databases - or at least not without data loss. My mantra - is that backups are the ONLY important thing that needs to happen. Servers can be slow, internet can be unavailable clients not being able to connect, etc, etc.... but there can't be an excuse for not having timely backups, even if it means running windows server backup onto a USB drive. The trouble is - because no-one sees or knows if backups happen - its far too tempting to push them down the priority table when everyone is screaming at you.. If I were head/manager of a school - maintaining current backups would probably be at the top of the list of demands. I'd be asking every week (possibly every day)....are backups working? Ransomware is thought to bring down at least schools every week....despite latest patches and AV installed and up to date. Off line backups are the only real protection against these attacks (yes, user training is really important) ....and investment in redundant PSUs, SANS, controllers or whatever are no substitute for having a backup. I guess its too late to ask why the server wouldn't reboot? Assume it wouldn't start in safe mode...I guess its a wake up call to all of us - that a perfectly working server can just break when it restarts. ...wondering if the server restore was only a restore of the OS partition....and the data is still there.

Restored the VM? From what? There is a time limit for which trusts remain valid - I think its 30 days....(...also thinking....why are there not any recent backups?...)

There is a certainly a problem with 3G/4G devices...especially as contracts now regularly have multi gigabit allowances....and are often capable of delivering higher speeds to clients than through a shared WiFi connection. I've always argued that student phones should be subject to both parental and school monitoring, and government need to wake up to do something about this. Children need to be monitored for their safety and to educate - about bullying etc. Perhaps we should be allowed to use 3G/4G blockers in school...(and prisons...) . And yes there is a problem with VPNs (which firewall/web filters are poor at blocking...often a completely open door) ...and yes there is a problem with generic unmoderated content delivery servers which can contain the most useful educational material - and at the same time - contain the most vile content. And yes all these "holes" make us wonder why we are often paying thousands of pounds a year - when a "free" DNS filter would be almost as good. (or bad...depending on your point of view)

..you could....and then get sacked for not meeting the requirements of the prevent strategy in schools....which if Focus on being able to report on ...for example web searches...which would be invisible without ssl inspection. Schools are not being asked to do things for the sake of “ease of use”..... You might meet those requirements by using other means to monitor what is being done on BYOD ...but doing that would always mean something being installed...

I sense that there is much confusion with regards to "backups"...partly - I suspect because "backup" means different things to different people. So you might take a Virtual snapshop of your server as a backup - before implementing some new feature just in case you need to "go back"...but you wouldn't do this on a live server that was actually supporting users - because going back might lose any data they saved. In fact I think its pretty widely regarded that snapshots should not generally be used on a "working" server....and are certainly not the way to provide a solid backup. Then there is "archive" - which to me is not the same as a "backup" - which allows you to restore a file that was last a month ago or "last term" (because it was overwritten with the same filename - or during an edit accidentally had deleted some of it). Typically you would want at last some archive data....we keep tapes at the end of year....and one every two months until that year is up. Then you require backups to get your most recent data (possibly with some intermediary loss) should there be a disaster...and you have to rebuild a server. You would probably employ a variety of "full" and "differential" backups.... and you would probably have some backups (like MIS and financial) which happen in some form or other every hour....while ordinary school data might only be once a day...and stuff that rarely changes - shared files, pictures, etc might only get a fresh backup completed every month. Then you need to really careful about Exchange and SQL backups - if your MIS system uses one - because having a "backup" doesn't necessarily mean you can restore a working SQL server from that backup....because SQL databases are constantly in a state of flux - with live data partly on clients during updates.....so usually you require SQL modules to need to use SQL manger to create separate backups - otherwise you will be for a nasty shock should disaster strike. Personally I'm a fan of "windows server backup"....which you need to "add" in to the server - because it doesn't appear there otherwise. I think this is much overlooked piece of kit that works really well....and is completely free. A perfectly good backup system can be put together with a USB drive and rotating set of 10GB disks. Yes - by all means use a remote NAS box or something if you must.... Cloud backup is great - until you want to restore a server - and unless you have a local disk cache for backups. And if you have a server doing this, the cost of adding an LTO7 or LTO8 tape drive is soon covered by savings from cloud backup costs. Restoring a complete server from cloud is not something you would be able to rush....I'm not sure that I "get" the advantages of cloud backup - unless its a very small installation.

I have been trying my best to stop teacher (and students) using pen sticks for some time. Much better just to use cloud space....not least of all - because it can be deleted should a password be compromised - or the teacher leave.... Why use pen sticks?

Just like to my weight to the view that it’s not the choice of device, but the training, and support that Makes 1:1 work. I’m not saying that some devices are not better than others and that there are no pros and cons....just that those things are some way down the pecking order. Simply shoving devices in front of students and teachers are not going to deliver anything useful....and it takes more than the odd training session...you need to identify teachers who can lead, and create suitable tasks, and it all needs repeatedly monitoring and updating. Having said that there are some pretty awful devices around, really slow android devices with awful screen size and barely working touch screens. Old iPads which rarely have sufficient memory to hold a few apps and run classroom app on top. And laptops with poor wireless and painfully slow processors. Even with enthusiastic and competent teachers it’s going to hard to make these devices deliver anything useful in the classroom. I like chrome books, and there are good numbers of schools in the UK and and a lot more in the USA which make good use of them. But you do need to manage expectations and training. They can be a bit of a shock for teachers who have never used anything but office on a pc.

...I don’t think there is a universal answer to the OP’s question.... There is no best solution....and it depends how it’s going to be used......write times might not matter....and with only 4 disks the chance of a double disk failure is extremely low, so I’d think twice before making it a RAID 10 or 6....If it’s for a fast SQL server the amount of RAM might be critical...if it’s lots of classes accessing the same files...you might want some form of SSD cache accelerator....and for general server use...I would have been reluctant to go with 7200 rpm drives because access times can important and 15k drives can liven up a server...

...contention is not nearly as bad as leased line providers would have you believe. Typically it’s less than 10% in the day time...and while it can be 30% in evenings that doesn’t affect school. ...and as for guarantee I’d service you get a four hour response time on both....but response time doesn’t mean fix time. For that ...expect Openreach to equally tardy.....

Except it will be 3 times the speed of a 100mb line (albeit download) ... and after 3 years it’s all win... And gigabit speeds are coming to fttp without any install charges....

Just been reading that they lost 46.7 million in a scam last June...and now appearing to be claiming large cash reserves...while at the same time getting bank loans... https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/05/10/1525924800000/Ubiquiti-Networks--of-cash-and-borrowed-time/

Assuming you are a school, with an ovs or other suitable volume licence can buy the full O365 ...E3 or whatever it’s called ...for £0.00 ..but you have to actually go through the purchase process. Once the licences are then assigned to your users through the admin console the app on devices will allow users to edit documents not just view them.

...I think the free version doesn’t offer editing using an APP....but perversely will edit is you use the web editor.

About 20 minutes to rebuild a CC4 machine if you have a restore image os SSD...although...not if you can’t boot far enough to be able to use it. Not sure why they abandoned the RMR facility with win 10..... Complete new build takes around 2hours...but it depends how many packages you install. We tend to build default pc with office then deploy it...and move it to its destination in AD/RMMC where it installs the rest of the packages using BITs so it can be used while those get put on on the background...only asking to reboot if the user logs off. ..I just hate rembering which packages I need to do some individual for like register or enter a key code which despite my best efforts can’t automate.

Short of reading every single item on smoothwall's support site how was I supposed to know about this? OK I knew about QUIC but when we bought our box last year - no one said - "Oh! by the way you will need to do this modification for QUIC" ..and why do we have to created the rules and patterns? Can they not push these down with new releases/updates and either apply them...or have them as a preset for us to select?