StephenPink

Thanks all so far, useful info. Bit more background info - I have recently "discovered" a number of old servers - but that must have been expensive when purchased as still pretty high spec. At a couple of sites, the existing backup infrastructure is significantly older, so trying to work out how best to use this hardware to refresh everything. Keen to find more about which components are virtualised vs kept physical, and the storage options. Some of these servers I'm hoping to repurpose can take a number of drives, but not sure how best to use that storage. Maybe make one a Linux hardened repository? Not sure if I make a physical Veeam server with the on-board storage, how secure that would be vs other options. Cheers

How do you do it - your Veeam backup infrastructure? Curious to see how people have structured Veeam in terms of what’s virtualised, what isn’t, what storage you are using (focusing on on-prem at the moment, but let me know what cloud options you use too), how many hosts/servers, how much storage vs organisation size. We’ve had a number of disks fail on our current veeam server, so figured now is as good a time as any to review, learn and improve! Cheers, Stephen

Yes that's now the plan - the guys above suggested that, my brain wasn't in gear at the time apparently haha. I genuinely can't remember the last actual physical server I built that wasn't a host...

Oh only because I don't currently have the necessary virtual infrastructure in place (yet) - but that's a story for another day!

We have the same (Smoothwall and Unifi) at one site, and have created Reception a login to just the Hotspot Portal so that they can create the codes themselves, when required. Creating a Hotspot Manager Account UniFi Network Portal > Sites > Select "****" Settings > System > Administration > Add New Admin: Role: Hotspot Manager Username: Set the username according to the accounts table Password: Set appropriate password (user cannot change) Hotspot Portal(external - only if they have a Unifi Account): https://unifi.ui.com/manage/hotspot-manager/account/login/default Hotspot Portal(internal - local account only): https://unifi:8443/manage/hotspot-manager/account/login/default

Yes exactly that, virtualised is easy! Haha so its approximately 2000 clients, not large at all in SCCM terms. The back story.... I've inherited a lot of legacy setup shall we say? With no documentation? Oh yeah.... I blame it being a Friday, but I didn't even think of that... yes you're definitely right, that makes the most sense, thank you both. Just standalone Hyper-V host I guess in that case?

Hey all, Hopefully this is the right forum, wasn't 100% sure where would be best. Okay so for various reasons (long back story that I cba to go into!) I'm looking to build a physical SCCM server. Now I haven't built an actual physical server for donkeys years, so used to everything virtual - and am racking my brain trying to remember physical disk and RAID config for SCCM. Microsoft best practice (Site size and performance FAQ - Configuration Manager | Microsoft Learn) is stating that the SCCM database/files should be separate to the SQL database/log files - fine (well should be more split than that, but with the scales I operate at I've never needed to). BUT the physical disk I have available are: - 10x 600GB SAS So for performance and reliability I would go RAID10 - but then I'm unclear as because we're talking physical disks I should be doing: - 1x RAID10 for SCCM database/files - 1x RAID10 for SQL database/logs OR can I - 1x RAID10 for the whole lot - 2x virtual disks on top OR - 1x RAID10 for the whole lot - 1x virtual disks for the whole lot - 2x Windows partitions to split OR - am I overthinking, and really with <10,000 clients none of it really matters?? Hopefully that makes sense! My brain hurts, and it's a Friday - and I need to have this built prior to Summer, yay! Thanks

Haha sorry yes should have clarified - remote as in roaming, based either at the secondary or college but able to support the junior remotely for 4 days a week, with the 1 day a week being for physical/hands-on repairs. Generally we have found the junior to be fairly low maintenance (helped massively by a complete wipe and rebuild from scratch for the entire site a couple of summers ago) Oh yes, approximately; College: 4200 Secondary: 1600 Junior: 400 Which gives 6200 total students to 10 total IT staff, so 620:1? However - I would say the 1:1 at the secondary has a large impact on the level of hands-on support required, not so much in terms of complexity, but time - student questions, queries, dealing with breakages and insurance claims, loan devices etc. Hope that's helpful. Cheers

I had problems with the HP USB-C G5 Docks - work fine with HP laptops and nothing else. Switched to Dell UD22 docks and they seem to work with everything I've tried - up to 3 4K screens as well in some cases. Although good point mentioning the Monitor Hubs! Keep meaning to check those out...

Slightly different setup, but we recently completed a review and restructure - we are a MAT consisting of a large 6th Form College, a large Secondary and a Junior School. Services such as Finance, HR and IT are centralised/being centralised. Additionally the Secondary is a 1:1 iPad school. 1x Head of IT 1x Head of Network Services 2x Lead IT Network Technician 1x Lead IT Service Desk Technician 5x IT Technician The Leads and the Technicians rotate between the college and the secondary, with the junior getting a one day a week visit and the rest remote. Cheers

Hijacking slightly - question on this. How have you disabled the "old" WebClient access, and ability to download the RDP file itself? I couldn't find a way to do that whilst still keeping the HTML5 client functional. (In the end I hosted the RDP file on a separate server/web site, behind AAP and disabled the RD web components completely) Thanks

Interesting - in case useful to anyone else, I have seen the same change (I knew it rang a bell!) being required for a different issue (SIMS - Solus3) and according to my notes from the time, was a Windows Update that broke it: Windows Updates can reset the below folder permissions, which causes SOLUS to have issues reading database etc C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys Permissions need re-adding on this folder; Everyone > Full Control Then restart SOLUS3 Agent Service, before relaunching the SOLUS3 Deployment Application

I'm hoping that moving to Intune, with RemoteHelp will be usable RMM alternative - as someone else said, RMM costs have always come out too high in the past

Cheers - yeah I've checked what I can in both, but not spotted anything. Securly have come back and said they're not proxying any of that traffic, so not sure what's left to check on that site. Smoothwall as far as I can tell it's exempt from SSL/auth but still not working, waiting on them to respond. When runninng the "ConnectorTroubleshooterLauncher" I get the below output: [h=2]Azure AD Application Proxy Connector Troubleshooter[/h] Connectivity to update service failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://updater.msappproxy.net:8080/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'updater.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Connectivity to bootstrap service failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.bootstrap.msappproxy.net:8080/'. Error: 'The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.'. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Connectivity to registration service failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://register.msappproxy.net:9090/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'register.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Connectivity to registration Trust Renewal service failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://register.msappproxy.net:9091/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'register.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Checking endpoint connectivity to service on port 10100 failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net:10100/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Checking endpoint connectivity to service on port 10101 failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net:10101/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Checking endpoint connectivity to service on port 10102 failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net:10102/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510 [*]Checking endpoint connectivity to service on port 10103 failed Error connecting to URL: 'https://cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net:10103/'. Error: 'The remote name could not be resolved: 'cwap-cu-2.connector.msappproxy.net''. Make sure firewall and proxy configuration are properly and that the necessary outgoing ports are open – see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=401510

Thinking it may be to do with the filtering - one site uses Securly, the other Smoothwall, both of which are proxies. I've opened tickets with both of them, will see what happens. Found a bit more information on Microsoft's sites that led me down this path: Work with existing on-premises proxy servers and Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn

Yeah I'm just testing using the IP, trying to keep it simple. Yep the server with the Connector installed can ping/RDP the destination fine. Have quadruple checked all the settings and nothing obvious jumping out...

Yeah I can only select TCP anyway, so it should be 3389 TCP. Just doesn't seem to get anywhere!

Hi all, Having a play with Microsoft Entra Private Access, but can't seem to get it to play ball. Anyone had issues? Was thinking of using for RDP access to specific subnets - but the RDP client doesn't get any further than "Configuring remote session", then just bums out with a generic error. Cheers, Stephen

I've started working with Reboxed (Refurbished iPhones & Refurbished Samsungs: Buy & Recycle ∙ Reboxed®) due to the value in refurbished kit, plus from a sustainability front. So far they have been excellent. Cheers

Also in progress here - be great to keep this thread going as a do's and dont's / best practice / things you'd wish you'd thought of before... Definitely managing all separately is a headache, and not sustainable long term for us.

We've been using AirServer (the software solution) for years now. Been pretty reliable, and in terms of cost, the best value. Had a quick look at ViVi but very costly by comparison - and we have no need for the extra features at this stage.

Thanks all so far - this is all echoing my own internal thoughts and discussions so great to get others views! Exactly what's being said is what I'm hoping to resolve - making that first step, the WHY, the key piece that kicks off (or doesn't!) the rest of the process - and what/how much details need to be captured at that stage. One piece that I've found conflicting guidance on is costs - on one hand, if the NEED is there, then cost is irrelevant? However, especially being education, cost and budgets are a huge factor, and affect the options available...

Thanks all so far - yes if anyone is able to share examples that would be hugely helpful. I'm struggling to find the balance between simple and meeting all the requirements...

I don't recall doing anything, but it does now appear to be working... at least for every link I've just tried! Very odd...

Hi all, Just trying to figure out a better way to do things and wondered what others do, when there are requests for IT "things" or more generally with projects across site. What does a business case look like for you? How many stages does it have/who approves what? How can I make something that teachers can actually complete themselves, i.e the starting point of identifying the need, that can then lead on to others input (or not if rejected at this stage). Our current "template" is too wordy and complicated, so that teachers can't fill most of it out - which creates a lot of work for me. Equally, costs are in there, which I don't think they should be at the start - as the legwork to get the costs is wasted if the request is going to be rejected for other reasons. Feel like I must be trying to reinvent the wheel, but haven't found anything that isn't too "big" - as in large building project proposals. Want to try and come up with something that is simple, and can scale up if and when required - and so that we have a record of why things were purchased etc. Hope that all makes sense? It's a Monday so brain may not be engaged fully!