DavR

We had a similar scheme from our LA a while back, where they were happy to supply us certain information about FSM / PP entitlement from their records, but there would be an admin charge for their time to do it. I guess that's probably their defence, you probably already have an agreement in place that permits the sharing of the data, so they're not selling it, just charging you their "costs". It's still dodgy AF though.

True, you get what you pay for. But at the price saving we make on these versus something like Samsung, the failure rates are acceptable tbh. CrystalDiskInfo sounds good, thanks guys!

It was a long time ago last time I looked at this, but SPAG marks were in addition to the marks you get for content, something like an extra 5 marks out of 100. So I guess if they are permitted spell check assisted writing, they're just ineligible for those few extra marks.

Was that the Kingston SSD Manager software? Yeah, I've used that one, although it always tells me everything is A-OK.

Has anyone ever found a useful disk testing tool for SSD drives? Every now and again I get a workstation with unexplained corruptions, that reoccur even after rebuilding the machine, that my gut tells me is probably a dodgy disk, but it would be nice to have a testing util that confirms one way or the other. We usually see the problem in Kingston SSDs that we've bought for upgrades, but I've never found a tool from Kingston.

We have sticky label asset tags. They're flimsy things that can be picked at, but, they don't peel off. I also write the device name on the case with a silver paint pen for ease of identification. This can wear off but is fairly durable.

We're using IPEVO Presenter v6.6 for our visualisers, that has no ads and also works with generic webcams. Although as I recall it did muck around with our Visual C++ versions somewhat on install. There's also the option of just going back to basics and using the Windows 10 camera app if you just want display and image capture, that's what some of our teachers do.

When I worked for an LA team, we did a migration to new Internet connections for something like 70 schools. It was a change of supplier, so the new guys wanted nothing to do with the old Extreme Networks routers. I'm not aware of one single router being collected by the original company, when the theoretical resale was hundreds per unit. That all went for scrap, or worse, is still sat in store rooms. Virgin are getting better - they actually chased me to get my Hub3 returned when I upgraded to Hub4 recently. I'd already chucked it in the WEEE at work assuming they wouldn't! I can only assume that there's a new policy due to how many of them will end up in landfill if they don't come back for them, I can't imagine they're reusing them.

Apologies, yes, those were cloud based options. I'm not really aware of any products that offer cloud to local backups.

Personally, I'd go all or nothing on backups. Most of the restore requests I get are from staff accidentally deleting or breaking files, and mailbox wise you never know when a teacher may have emails relating to safeguarding or suchlike. I've not implemented a solution yet, but the options I've seen so far: Veeam - charged per mailbox, education discount is 30% of commercial price Redstor - charged on data volume Arcserve - charged on data volume at around £2k per TB

I haven't done a SIMS migration in donkeys years, but, what I always used to do was detach the database(s), copy your SIMS, Docstorage and any other folders over, then run a fresh install of SIMS and re-attach the databases. Never underestimate how much random stuff in the SIMS root folder that may still be in use....

We just recently replaced a 10+ year old APC rackmount with the APC SMT2200RMI2UNC in our server room for under £1400. For that, we get our two servers, core switch and a monitor powered for about half an hour in the event of power loss. I think I worked out our maximum possible power load was about 1800W and went for a UPS that was 2200VA. Due to power lost in covering AC-DC and then back again, the general rule of thumb is to assume the UPS is 80% efficient, so multiply the stated VA rating by 0.8, and that's how many watts it will support. In my case 2200VA x 0.8 = 1760W which was close enough (I was generous in my max load). So start by working out what the total wattage of kit you need the UPS to support, and then think about how long you want it powered for in the event of an emergency. Unless it's running a critical system that can't be turned off, then most people just need 15-20mins for the servers to shut down.

Just been looking into the latest MCSA / MCSE, and I see these are all deprecated now, to be replaced with mostly Azure certificates. I can see where they're coming from, but certainly where I am, I can see us using a fair amount of on prem servers for a while yet. What, if anything, have others been using as a replacement to demonstrate server knowledge?

I'll give you that, we do have one iPad box here that I built out of a 'Really Useful' plastic box. Even after splashing out a few hundred on a Cambrionix charge and sync USB hub (to allow reimaging), it was less than half the price of anything else out there. In retrospect though, I do wish I'd built it using something with wheels.

We have used iiYama in a lot of locations here, we've had a few failures, but they've been quite happy to come onsite to replace them (5 year warranty). We were previously all Promethean, and last year I was turned back to them with the Promethean Nickel range, which actually came in cheaper than the iiYamas (and means we can legit keep using ActivInspire).

I'd hesitate to put Chromebooks out in anything other than a proper charging solution and storage solution tbh. For peace of mind on safety, and so that I can lock them away over the holidays. We use Lock N Charge cabinets. Every now and then, one of our deputy heads suggests having a small batch of iPads in each classroom for running certain Maths apps..... apart from the fact this would be an expensive and inefficient use of resources, it would also necessitate a secure charging station in every classroom.

As a general rule, you'd pick the region that you are geographically in, or closest to. You can farm processing off to other, cheaper, regions, but you can then run into latency problems for users running applications in this region.

I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but last year I did the Azure Fundamentals AZ 900 course from Microsoft for free. It's a very broad overview, and maybe less about the nitty gritty, but I found it useful. There aren't any listed at the moment, but if you attend the Azure Fundamentals seminar, you get a voucher to sit the exam as well - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/community/events/?query=fundamentals Edit - @RobD beat me to it!

Very similar experience to @rush_tech. We used to run our parents evenings on one night, 4-8pm, with a break. We just did our first online parents evening before Easter break, and we did 4-6.30 with a break two nights. On the booking system, it was one big event, parents could book in for either night, assuming the teacher was available (not everyone did both nights). Teachers thought it was brilliant, if there was any resistance to it being over two nights I didn't see it. They were timetabled for a bit more time in total, but, because the software enforced the time restrictions, they were all done and dusted by 6.30 each day, which they never would have been under the old system.

I'm enjoying the mental image of "fiancé management" We were using RM Finance and it was fairly dreadful. We've now moved to Novus, and too early to say yet whether we'd recommend it.

Also, assuming your Sharepoint is in Office 365, you would be creating them logins in M365 rather than on prem AD users.

Our whole local authority doesn't use SIMS FMS..... but that's because we're tied in to RM Finance instead. Currently in the process of migrating away from that to a new product, but again, this has been LA-led, not a school decision.

I can't comment on it, as I don't have access to it, but our lot use a tool called Governor Hub. This is an online solution that has file store, calendars, tools, etc that allows them to collaborate whilst, conveniently, being none of my problem(!). They seem to like it, plus I give them school domain email addresses. If I was starting from scratch, I would do Office 365 and give them a shared area on Sharepoint. That would allow them to share with SLT and other school staff if required. Can't see why you'd need to bring them onto your on-prem solution?

We've had similar problems with Promethean Nickel panels, and also iiYama ProLites, in the configuration 3m HDMI wall run + HDMI coupler wall plate + HDMI fly lead. I can't comment on premium vs non-premium cables, but through trial and error I found that ALL cables were OK for a direct PC->board connection, but not all cables were OK for joining together in series. I resolved the couple of problems that we had here by replacing all cables in the run, bar the wall plate itself, with new. For what it's worth, I used Amazon Basics(!) cables and they resolved the issue, and have been reliable since. Bit narked that a) HDMI turned out to be flaky in this way after promising to be a nice clean digital upgrade and b) that our installers ran cheap HDMI cables that evidently weren't fit for purpose, but live and learn I guess.

Oh, no, they are separate. My comment was more that it's an irritation that it always defaults to personal devices at Devices > Mobile & endpoints, when I almost always want to see Devices > Chrome > Devices. A minor irritation in the grand scheme of things, just seems an odd choice.