blueplanetit

There are other 3rd party solutions that let you backup and retain your data for as long as you want.

If you need to filter everything centrally no matter the device the doing it on a router or firewall would be the answer, you are not dependent on any local configuration or software. You could swap out the router for a DrayTek with a web filtering subscription, this would be pretty low cost and you would be able to demonstrate that your specifically filtering on Safeguarding sensitive areas, I dont know unlike schools what the library's obligations regarding Safeguarding. There is a link to the DrayTek Webfiltering here Web Content Filtering

As above I would not create a 2nd Office 365 tenant but have all the domains you want verified within a single Office 365 login plus if in the future you want to start using things like Microsoft Classroom or OneNote for Classroom its easier when the teachers and students are in the same tenant when setting up classes etc

It depends how the migration is being done - if this is a hybrid environment then it will be possible, see this information from TechNet: Support for cross-premises mailbox permissions Exchange hybrid deployments support the use of the Full Access mailbox permission between mailboxes located in an on-premises Exchange organization and mailboxes located in Office 365. A mailbox on an on-premises Exchange server can be granted the Full Access permission to an Office 365 mailbox, and vice versa. For example, an Office 365 mailbox can be granted the Full Access permission to an on-premises shared mailbox. Users need to open the mailbox using the Outlook desktop client; cross-premises mailbox permissions aren't supported in Outlook on the web. We don’t, however, support the use of the Send-As, Receive-As, or Send on behalf of mailbox permissions in hybrid deployments between on-premises Exchange and Office 365 organizations. We also don't support delegating permissions to a mailbox or individual folders using the Outlook client. These permissions are only available when both the mailbox granting the permissions, and the mailbox receiving the permissions, are in the same organization. Any mailboxes that receive these permissions from another mailbox need to be moved at the same time as that mailbox. If a mailbox receives permissions from multiple mailboxes, that mailbox, and all of the mailboxes granting permissions to it, need to be moved at the same time. In addition to these permissions, the Auto Mapping feature is also unsupported when used between mailboxes in the on-premises Exchange and Office 365 organizations. For the whole article, see here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj200581(v=exchg.150).aspx#considerations

You got the specific error message she is getting? Also you should be able to filter on the firewall for any denys to the BT Servers.

Microsoft has launched a Cloud PBX which is an add on to your Office 365 subscription, we are looking to install it here in the next few weeks. I will post how it goes and what our impression is.

Team sites would be typical solution for this, be aware of the 5000 item limit in SharePoint Online, you can store more than 5000 items but you have to plan for it.

How are you managing your Office 365 accounts, are they AD sync'd or cloud accounts?

This should be possible, you could create one tenant with multiple domains for each school. What resources do you want to share? How are you managing your office 365 accounts, is this sync'd with AD or are they just cloud accounts?

A+,N+ and then CCNA. Try and source some cheap layer 3 managed switches as well, then you can lab up some scenarios.

That's the sort of thing that really hacks me off, people are in business to make money, I understand that but it doesn't mean that anything goes. We went into one school that specialises in caring for autistic children, a large IT provider went in over sold to them, spent a huge amount of their money and then didn't finish the job, I struggle to understand how people can walk round a school like that and only be focused on closing a deal, but hey maybe that's just me. Glad you got a handle on the issue and no long term damage was done.

Is this an iSCSI San with multi-pathing? We had an issue on just one switch and the whole thing failed. Agree with sister_annex, network looks a likely candidate. In the iSCSI config you can verify the paths and rebuild them from memory.

We have seen a few schools have issues with the way Windows 10 gets updates, their are a few new options in the settings which we had to disable. YOu can do this through group policy using the WIndows 10 ADM and it's under delivery optimization settings. I have included a screen of the setting on the PC.

Good read, thanks for the link.

We've worked with both but we are seeing a shift to Office 365 now with the schools we work with, a few of them have really got going with OneNote for Classrooms and the Preview of Microsoft Classroom and the feedback is very positive. I think it's a win/win but I would favour Office 365 for more reasons that I can explain here.

We use SysAid, very configurable not had any issues. Watch the costs based on the number of assets you have, I believe their licensing involves the number of assets on the system.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. That was my experience with a cluster of schools, the local college was trying to get them all to go for the same deal and really bullying them into a decision saying that they had no choice when in reality they did have a choice, about 50% of the cluster said no to the college deal and have been enjoying fast speeds, flexible filtering for a number of years now without issue at about half the cost of the college deal. It's sad but in the last few years I have been working with schools and charities around Oxfordshire and they often get bad advice and over charged for it.

Hi Mark, thanks for the response. I think I am pretty clear on your position and justification of the costs, please forgive the comment on "frills", I suppose what I was saying that it would be good to give schools a choice what they pay for and if they can only afford a high speed, business class internet connection with web filtering then a product that covers these costs with a reasonable mark up would definitely be attractive to them, this would allow them to spend their budget on their specific needs be it safeguarding or coding etc. Just a small comment on where I come from, in a former life I ran the IT Operations for a large FTSE 100 company with an education division for 1000's of users across a number of sites so I know the costs of infrastructure and running an IT helpdesk in the UK so it's not from a position of ignorance in these matters that I make my comments but again thank you for so clearly laying out EXA Networks offering.

I think all the extra stuff is good but if you just need a business class, high speed internet link with web filtering you could look at cutting the costs that go into running the foundation and the courses to deliver a saving for those schools who's budget is really pressed??? Sort of a no frills, just the core functionality and performance.

it was a 50/50 split between rural and town on FTTC

I know often you get what you pay for and purely as a product I have no gripes with Exa but on the costings people can do better without drops in speed or support. What flagged this to me was the excessive commission I was offered by an Exa salesperson to sell in Exa products when I was acting in an advisory role, schools provide a vital role in our community and I know companies cannot provide their services for nothing but the margins are too high. There is a real cost to our children and their learning opportunities when companies charge more than is necessary, in the example I mentioned those schools were able to provide almost a whole class of new laptops to the children with the money they saved by switching from Exa. Their internet and filtering have been in place for a number of years without issue and without onsite expertise. Without the saving they would have not have been able to fund the new laptops, for me that makes it too expensive.

Exa is expensive especially when you see the wholesale prices for the products they resell, there are much more cost effective ISP's and their are some really good web filtering solutions out there, we saved about £7000 over 3 years for three rural primary schools going away from Exa, the broadband and web filtering solution has been in for 2 years now and was recently adapted to bring it into compliance with the new Safeguarding requirements.

Hi Just a heads up that certain web filtering providers are using scare tactics or at least their sales people are to push through sales of their web filtering solutions. The sort of things being said are that only their product is compliant or that it is Ofsted approved, all lies. We have just spent some time with a number of schools where we have been able to adapt their existing filtering solutions to be compliant but there are a few that we got too late where the sales people had pushed through the sales with inaccurate or misleading statements.