DavR

Yeah, I've seen a lot of Unifi kit out there operating successfully and reliably in primary school environments. I think the quote I heard from one supplier was "the APs are so cheap, we can just use twice as many!" (As it happens that actually went spectacularly wrong for the school involved, but I digress). Ruckus were a good one too, but the Unifi kit has rather displaced them.

Hi all, Just about to embark on a complete replacement of the wireless network here, the current one being an in-house b/g solution held together with string and good intentions! I'm going out to quote for someone to supply and fit the whole thing, as I'm not wireless savvy enough and would rather someone else take the responsibility. I'm currently looking at getting quotes from Atomwide (we're an LGfL school), Digital Air and maybe LG Networks, all of whom I saw at BETT. Just wondering if anyone had any recommended suppliers, or ones you would avoid? Ditto any recommended kit, or kit to avoid? We're not after anything fancy, just basic connectivity up to AC standard. Thanks!

Sounds like it might be time to crack a few hinges if they're handing out free replacements, and you've a month left on the warranty.... I bought into extended warranties on our E5530s and E5520s for this reason, so I've a bit longer before I need to panic.

I reported both last week, and they confirmed parts not available for the E5530 yesterday, I'm waiting on a call from the next department. Still unconfirmed re parts for the E5520, but I think it'll be a similar situation.

Yup, me too, I've got a E5530 and an E5520 under warranty with this fault, and they don't seem to be able to get the back lid cover for either. They're currently talking about swapping the E5530 out for a brand new one, which is fine by me.

I don't suppose anyone has or knows where I can find a list of what security groups have what permissions in Integris G2? When I used to work with SIMS, they had a very handy spreadsheet showing what group gave what access, I was wondering if the same thing existed for Integris. It would save me a lot of trial and error assigning permissions

Not that I recall, but I haven't done anything with it for a while. Even if it does, there's probably a "don't ask again" checkbox you can track down to a reg key. I'd definitely find out what happens after the trial expires, and mute it if necessary, rather than install an out of date version.

Well, if it's a small network and budget doesn't really stretch beyond one physical server, I don't see a problem with that personally!

Have you tried just setting your system time forward a month to see what happens when the trial is over? I seem to remember it being fairly innocuous. Failing that I've got MSIs for versions 7, 14 & 15. Not sure what the trial behaviour is on any of these though.

I've had WSUS running on a DC before, along with DHCP, DNS, Printers, SQL, the lot. I've never understood what the fuss about having it on a DC has been about, although it certainly is a pig for disk usage (the cleanup tool never gets you back anything like you were expecting) and it's nice to have it separated out. Personally, for the bandwidth usage alone, I'd never run a network without WSUS. In WSUS categories, I download Critical and Security updates. I run the automatic approval rule, because I don't have the time to do the whole delayed release thing (living on the edge!). If I were doing manual updates, I'd leave Recommended updates in there but not touch the Optional ones. If they're optional, not installing them is no threat to your security, so ignore them unless they add a feature you need.

Well, I've tried implementing Classroom using Meraki, but have come up blank. It should just be a case of having a class set up in Meraki, Classroom app deployed on the devices, and a config profile pushed out via Settings. I've got the Classroom app on there, but I can't find a way to get the class set up using the settings under MDM | Settings | (Student Settings) | + | Adv iOS | Education. I can't help feeling there's a part of the implementation missing somewhere in Meraki... Any one else had any luck? I might just wait until this is out of Beta when there might be some documentation!

I would probably have just gone with two good Dell rack servers, and maybe an attached storage unit for extra space. Just my gut feeling though, I've not done any cost comparisons.

I got tentatively asked about this for Office skills a while back, and tbh, I'm not dead keen on the idea of being a trainer. One to one maybe, but leading a session no thank you. I responded with links to online tutorial videos. There's nothing about basic computer skills (and more) that isn't out there online for free.

Also, in a previous life, I had CentraStage, which could do Event Log monitoring. If the correct vendor tools (OpenManage Server Admin etc) are installed, when you get a bad drive, the tools report this as error or warning in Event log. CentraStage then sees the error and creates an alert. If was with great trepidation that I first turned this on across something like 120 servers across 60 customers - that generated a whole bunch of drive replacement jobs! Got me out of the office for a few weeks anyway.

+1 for iDrac / chassis controller monitoring. All of my Dell servers plus my storage array are all set to email me on warnings and failures. Touch wood I've not had a bad drive on my current setup yet though, so I only know this works in theory so far!

We're using a VRTX, with two PowerEdge M520 nodes. VMware based, and the whole thing runs 10 virtual servers, with a DC on each node that also does DHCP/DNS etc for redundancy. I didn't choose or set it up though, it was here when I got here. It's very nice and I like it, but I can't help but think it's a bit overkill for a primary school, even a four form entry like us!

Yup, disabled. This is the setting that means that even though you're an admin, it ignores all your admin credentials under a lot of circumstances.

Fell at the first hurdle with Classroom app - the only iPads I have to hand to test with are iPad 2s, which aren't supported. I'll have to wait to play with this, we have some iPad Airs, but they're in constant use. Thanks smidsy! Just retried the Tips block, and it worked that time. Must have been a typo last time.

Not yet, but hopefully going to have a bash if today stays relatively quiet.

The hide apps settings are working great for me - so good to have this functionality through Meraki! Finally I can hide unnecessary apps like Clock, Calendar, Find Friends etc. There is a bundle ID for Settings (com.apple.Preferences), but that one is blocked, as it seems is Tips for some reason.

I ran across this the other week, it was driving me mad, until I finally tracked it down to UAC. UAC is a pain though, you may have turned the slider all the way down to never notify, but there's actually another setting to completely turn it off. Under your local security policy, its under Computer Config | Policies | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options. The setting is "User Account Control: Run all Administrators in Admin Approval Mode" - disable this.

Probably a bit late to the party on this one, but recently I've noticed instead of the usual three Sophos components (AutoUpdate, RMS, Anti-Virus), my Windows 7 network clients now also have Sophos System Protection and Sophos Network Threat Protection. Anyone know what these actually do? I've read the blurb on the Sophos website and I'm none the wiser frankly. I do wish they'd just install Sophos as one program, rather than giving me now a total of five different programs, just to achieve Anti-Virus client protection. One function, one program!

Lucidchart is great, I did my network diagram in that. I did run into trouble though, the free version restricts how many items you can have in your drawing, I think it was 100 items. As a result, my network diagram is over two sheets!

Really? I'm under 100 devices, so everything I've done with it so far has been free. I wasn't aware there were any charges or restrictions until you went over the 100 device limit...

Not mapped drives, but I have had a similar problem with GP logon scripts, really could not get them to run on a mandatory profile. Could be permissions in the user hive of registry, they can go weird on mandatory profiles. Try taking control of, and giving the user/group full control of the whole HKEY_CURRENT_USER key. That will ensure GP has the permissions to put the new mapped drives into HKCU registry.