AlanD

...interesting to hear of another - possibly like minded - who has decided to use smoothwall after TMG.....allows us to run a radius server...DNS...DHCP...tightly integrated for BYOD... I miss the SSO capability that TMG offered...but everything else seems pretty much covered...although I had thought MS were on a winner with TMG.... Sophos UTM would have given us the SSO - but "prevent" reporting seemed much better on smoothwall...and ready to go out of the box. ..I do complain about Smoothwall with mobile devices though....think they should put some effort into making this much better....because its not enough to simply tick the box to allow social media for example- you will then find you also need to do a load of stuff to make it work with APPs - even though it works fine for desktops.

If you are serious about high density users and high data rates you can only achieve the high QAM rates with an AP in the same room as client...and around 3m away at most..and that is with full power. The problem arises is when you have a large block of classrooms and want to reuse those channels. This is almost impossible with 2.4ghz, but might be possible with 5ghz, especially if you stay away from the wide channels introduced in “ac” wireless. Sometimes you can leave a room without an AP if it’s surrouned by other APs .. and those APs are not going to heavily loaded.. I’m never that enthusiastic about WiFi surveys...which were pretty much essential when you had a thin sprinkling of 2.4ghz APs. ...but today are largely going to tell you that if you want high data rates you won’t get them through a wall with 5ghz. And I’m particularly not keen on surveys done by those selling you their kit...who will make anything and promise everything to fit your budget while selling as much as possible. I don’t see any problem with power at 100% ...unless it’s 2.4ghz and you are attempting to reuse those channels....in which case..it’s either get coverage ...and put up with massive cochannel interference and lower data rates...or sacrifice coverage to get better data rates. Remember one weak connection in some distant room at 5mb/s is taking All the air time to deliver that. And while airtime fairness may give a local class of laptops a look in, that distant connection..possibly the heads office ...is going to suffer enormously. So it depends what your priorities are...but getting both range and client density are mutusll6 exclusive in a classroom block.

I would say...TMG ... surely that’s dead and gone and not supported...but actually we still keep ours in place in case smoothwall stops...it doesn’t carryany traffic, but it could if required... I’ve read the description...which is probably clear to someone understands routing...but I’m afraid I couldn’t understand your issues...but I know my weakness is forgetting to include a return path for packets....

We use schoolbase...by furlong solutions. Surprisingly capable and flexible..but maybe not so pretty....

...oh, I don’t think the future is windows at all. Right now that might be a difficult move for schools with accounting and MIS systems ...and Sibelius...and autocad...but the landscape is changing... Word PowerPoint and excel run just fine on tablets....and students will have their own just like calculators...in fact most students carry phones with better capabilities than many of the PCs in schools....

While I would agree Windows 10 "looks" different...its pretty much the same...click the start menu...open all programs...find the folder you want...etc... And Windows 10 has been around for ages now - both on new PCs purchased...and those taking advantage or free upgrades from Win 8 and 8.1.. ..or rather getting upgraded whether they wanted it or not.... I think Edge works nicely - and I don't think I have said that previously about any Microsoft browser.... It is a bit more greedy on resources - running as 64bit ...if you previously used 32bit Win7....and can be tight in 2GB by the time you have applications open. Yes - we have had some whinges from some corners...but after ten minutes or so they realise its just the same.....About half way through doing staff computers....will do student computers next term.

Well I could (just about) understand RM being unhelpful with stuff that is not under support contract...it would make the rest of us wonder what we were paying for if those not paying it were still entitled to get it. So - I'm largely pleased to hear they are being fair....albeit unhelpful. I've never bought RM computers (although we are an RM server school...). Actually - that's not correct - we have a few laptops and the odd desktop PC.... no sign of anything customised...and I've updated BIOS on them without problems. I could (just about again) understand that RM might ship PCs with a customised BIOS so that the "default" setting is the one to do a PXE boot or whatever...or a customised Logo...but I am somewhat surprised to hear they bothered to do this. But its only £10 or something to buy chips programmed with the latest version of BIOS. Buy one, and use a programmer to copy it over existing chips... It can definitely be done...because I've done it....but not because of RM versions of BIOS- just because Asus bios software doesn't work well.....I couldn't for example reflash existing BIOS chips using ASUS flash from penstick ...because there was something buggy in the "parent" part of the existing BIOS that wouldn't let me flash a new version. The same chips flashed just fine when using a separate programmer tool. And you can get later than 4202 if you hunt around the Asus site.

Just taken a look at Asus web site... version 4202 is validated for ALL versions of this motherboard. But if the existing BIOS is old - you probably can't even start up the MB with a later CPU in it....and so can't update the existing flash. So either buy a ready flashed replacement chip (...around £10...off ebay....from Germany or somewhere...) or a blank chip and program it...or buy a cheap old CPU to get the MB to boot update the BIOS then put new CPU in place. But Yes, ASUS is a bit funny with their BIOS....which I know aonly too well have running into problems with H81M versions of their boards...but persistence did get me there in the end.

Are you sure RM had their own version of a BIOS? May be they have a customised logo, but I can’t see any merit in changing anything else...why would they? We always use manufacturers bios releases and we are an RM school.... never had a problem...or at least not after doing the upgrade. We did have some problems with ASus bios, which had some kind of system which allowed you to recover from a corrupt BIOS using a usb stick. The trouble was...the existing motherboard bios wouldnt boot into the bios with the cpu type we had. So either we had to get an earlier type of cpu...or ...we bought a chip programmer and some blank EPROMs off eBay ..and apart of some guess work trying to understand the Chinese user interface everything went well. I have sometimes had success swapping a bios chip off a motherboard after booting...presumably it cached itsel into ram, with a blank eprom and using mboard itsel to flash it. ...

Go to BYOD section....and email...and tick the outlook box...and it will automatically allow the necessary access to websites through Guardian...automatically add necessary ip addresses as not to be inspected..and configure the authentication rules...and add the necessary firewall rules for BYOD to work with outlook. I jest of course....making anything work with utm/firewall/web filters is increasingly a daily pain that is repeated by every manager. Yes, there are individual configuration help pages for some apps but why these aren’t all integrated in smoothwall - and other utms is mystery. Their design is about 5 years behind what we need.

I am pretty certain the software you looking for does not exist. I despair at the "cluckyness" of our system - which if you read is specifications might well seem to offer - well at least some of the things you are looking for. 30 years ago - we had a manual system and employed two staff to salaries and fees when our school was twice its current size. Today we employ 4 staff - and pay an eye-watering sum for the computer system they operate. And yes - regulations and controls today might be more demanding today...but largely the problem is that computer systems replicate the manual system. I watched with some interest one day when one of them exported data into a spreadsheet and then wrote formula to forecast various things - which they then re-imported back into the software package. Details of invoices that arrive are entered into the system - and then passed to department heads - who in turn enter details into their own and separately maintained spreadsheets from which authorisation to pay is passed back to the accounts office. And does everything tally - absolutely not, Largely because - and despite of every one's best intentions - no one tells accounts that some things end up costing more than they were originally informed - and were still purchased...and then they get the blame because the spending exceeded the budget...which they had no control over. Computers and software won't stop this....although it might flag it up earlier. I was particularly struck by my son (working for a trendy IT company) scanning a meal expense on his phone - highlighting the restaurant name, date and amount - and the getting the expense automatically paid into his bank account within 15 minutes all automatically. Large commercial systems are a long way from this with budgets drawn up on one system, transferred - often manually - to an accounting system - and invoice details often entered in to multiple systems, and almost no integration between personnel systems, bookeeping and other management systems.

There seems to be a conception of a nirvana where ICT can guarantee continuity of service by use of virtual servers, multiple SANs, dual server rooms, duplicated core switches, etc, etc. And somewhere in this mix is the illusion that SLA is going to get you up an running in a few hours - whereas the reality is that despite an engineer being on site within that time there is no guarantee - not even a financial one - that a fault can either be fixed or you can then recover your working systems. Some systems require a whole day just get their data back from a backup. The reality is that even the biggest IT companies in the world, despite armies of highly skilled and experienced managers have had significant outages - sometimes extending to several days of disruption. So sometimes I think a better plan is not to promise what is often an unrealistic guarantee of service. Some house two physical servers, SAN and backup server in same building - sometimes the same server room...with same UPS....but justified the need for two servers to give redundancy should one fail.... Either you need to be really serious about redundancy - and that will be expensive (and still not 100% guaranteed) - or you may be better off explaining the risks to management that you could spend another 100K but you still couldn't guarantee an outage would not take a couple of days to recover....in which case they won't be alarmed or disappointed when it goes pear shaped. And even if you managed 100% physical integrity - you have a much more significant risk of malware or ransomware taking down your system leaving management asking you why you spend an extra 100K.

I’m always surprised that schools can use 1Gb leased lines ... and wonder what they are going to use that much...perhaps they all watch Netflix or something...although it’s even harder to justify what they are uploading. Often think that many schools with 100mb/s leased lines would do better with load balanced fttc and or cable modems..especially with virgin offering speeds is 350mb/s for much less than leased lines.

I am very nervous when users start asking me about encryption...as when they mess up .... and sooner or later they will...I will be expected to magically unencrypt them. I always prefer to use "user" permissions - and remove administrator access (which can be added back of course... Our deputy head managed to encrypt a whole portable drive...with her life's work on it....(despite our policies of no removable storage). It said to see their "system administrator" when it couldn't be accessed...and I had to point out that it was the system administrator of her home computer that was required - not the school system administrator.

Well - actually I thik its YOUR opinion that matters...not someone else's...because I guess most of us have chosen a solution based on our particular set of circumstances and priorities - which doesn't necessarily translate to your situation. Most off free trials - which are easy to do with virtual hardware- and I guess Fortinet and Sophos are amongst these. Fortinet's detailed reporting was an add on (if my memory serves me correctly) - which put me off - and I wasn't convinced that it was going to report of google searches...although it seems to have a good reputation for "blocking". Sophos offered reverse proxy - which I would have liked...but it seemed less than friendly to configure. In the end we went for smoothwall (or stonewall as it was soon rechristened by our staff). I though it was over priced...but I thought they were all over priced....and it doesn't integrate firewall and web proxy controls so you end up having to configure both port rules and web blocking/allows rules - and its not as simple of tick the box to allow Spotify for BYOD....you need to add lists of sites to allow and ports...which must be repeated by every smoothwall user....but it did integrate radius, wireless and AD authentication for wireless quite nicely.

I’d be using paper records or simple spreadsheet/ database....holding the electronic equivalent of what you would have on paper. To be honest, I’m shocked at the thousands schools spend on accounting and MIS systems....and it’s not as if that replaces people...they often continue to employ account clerks, ledger clarks, salary clerks, data officers, etc etc. In fact schools employ more of these staff today than they did years ago before IT Systems with seemingly few benefits .... ok you get nicer formatted account details..and pretty analysis...but I often think the benefits are for those doing those jobs rather than for the benefit of the school.

If you are doing a hard reboot (this is because the server is completely unresponsive..?) And its not because you have non enterprise disks in a RAID (which are failing - but don't allow the RAID controller to mark them as failed - because retries eventually get the data)? And you have ECC ram? Dual PSU? Ideally you need to a check disk after any unexpected hard reset.....otherwise its not surprising it fails again.... ...and it is the server ...its not the switch or network failing - and someone going along to push the server reset switch because its appearing not to be responsive? And nothing in the event log prior to the "restart" that gives an indication of distress?

OK - so its well worth changing network card ... a couple of pounds each would get you dual band "n" off ebay....and that may be your best buy - and not worry about why existing cards are useless...(Wondering how such poor cards ended up in what are otherwise a reasonable laptop). ...But you might decide that paying £10 each would get you "ac" cards...maybe now is a good time to get a new "ac" access point as well in that area (except...be aware that "ac" - especially wave 1 - may not give you anything better than "n" unless you have such a sparse sprinkling of AP s to be able to use wide channel widths)

I always think some get very "blinkered" about using the cloud...particularly at higher levels of management....almost as if using it is an end in itself. The "free" web based office 365 isn't great to be honest - I'd certainly rather use a desktop with Office 2016 installed....and tablet apps require the paid for versions...Google wins hands down here....although some are reluctant to make this move. And while my Backup Exec server and tape library work with no on going costs (...except new box of tapes every now and again) I'm not about to tear it out because cloud backup offers me something it doesn't in terms of ability to recover a working server or retrieve a file. Nor am I about the throw our my exchange server and then have to find budget to increase my internet costs so that outlook works at a reasonable speed. Of course as and when these things are end of life - then I will be happy to weigh up all the pros and cons...

...I'm confused...OP said "not capable of 5Ghz" ...but looking the cards up - they are capable of 5GHz operation....so its definitely worth checking for band sterering - because unless the AP is in the classroom (assume OP has tested with this - to prove its not signal strength) there is often a tendency for band steering to push clients to 5Ghz - and connection rate (If AP not in same room) is then so poor - clients fall back to 24.4Ghz...and then AP drops connection in attempt to force client back to 5Ghz...

...I struggle to believe that those cards won't work...although I suppose there might be some compatibility issue with Unifi.....perhaps they are only draft "n" spec..... thinking they are really old if they don't support 5GHz...which makes we wonder what the spec of the rest of the laptop is like when spending money on replacing the wifi cards... ...And I assume you have the latest WiFi drivers...or perhaps experimented with even early WiFi drivers installed...and actually installed drivers downloaded - not simply let windows tell you it has the drivers... Your access points don't support "ac" so its difficult to justify putting in cards that are "ac" unless you are also thinking of adding some Unify "HD" access point...sometimes its better to future proof.... You might pick up some cheap 2x2 cards on ebay....possibly even 2x2 with "ac" - although they won't be wave 2 "ac" capable as they cost a fortune and are difficult to get (and I know because I've tried).

...I think if schools started to pay for the actual support they require there would be even more serious shortages of money in schools.

We allow - and provide all three browsers. And apply group policies for all 3. A number of times being able to switch browser has got a user out of trouble. I think Edge is quite snappy - and kind of dislike chrome's intrusive attempts to get you to logon....or how youtube seems fussy with it....but most sites seem fine with IE. I always this there is a good learning point for students to understand that the "Browser" is just a program (like word..or Pages...) which does a job...and is not the "internet" itself.

Rm mini books ... do they still have 1GB memory...if so that’s going to make them painfully slow with win7 ...as will the slow HD unless you or previous school has updated them. And unless you configure them with a GPO or something they run at half speed or something when disconnected from a PSU. You can get PSU s for around £10 each of ebay. And pre AC wireless isn’t great. Maybe it would be better if they decided not to have ICT.

Sounds as if a conversation is required with Headmaster - or School Manager so that they understand that 3 hours a week is not going to fix this In fact tiny bite sized chunks of time send repeatedly on a problem often wastes more time overall than spending consecutive days on a problem.