SVM

We are moving to a technician at each secondary and they then also support local primary, we have standardised our Windows image to make it easier for technicians to go into any site to help support. Internet services, we use a mix of VPLS and local SD WAN, depends which is more cost effective, having a VPLS setup is not a priority and not needed I would not look at centralising first, more standardising, you do not need servers and phones etc running from a central position as its normally more cost effective to have them on site unless you can get cheap p2p lines put in but as a large MAT the distance between schools makes it too expensive.

Staff home docs are monitored rather than a forced quota, currently also have onedrive auto signed in they could use, we will be moving to onedrive for all documents shortly Students are limited to 5Gb and can ask for an increase if required Shared areas were moved to Sharepoint a couple of years ago (accessed via browser) soon to be moved to Teams so it can be synced/mounted in explorer with onedrive

Password hash works the same way, we have sso for all Office365 services and onedrive client, if logging on with a domain account no passwords are required

It is one of the main reasons password hash sync was released, you auth against Azure AD rather than a local dc server for Office 365 services https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/hybrid/how-to-connect-password-hash-synchronization Not sure on having passthrough support as I thought you had to pick one setup, passthrough or hash sync but not both

If password hash sync is enabled in Azure AD connect you would avoid any downtime in Office365 if DC/site is down.

Quite a few schools that join us always seem to come with 3 x Servers, a SAN and 2 switches which is overkill and a waste of resources for a single site, the servers get re-distributed as and when required, keeps us going with onsite servers until Microsoft drop Azure prices

I still think onsite is more cost effective, majority of providers are now supporting authentication with Azure AD or Gsuite, local environment factors you wouldn't be able to log in locally with a power cut as not on internet and Office365 can/works without a local DC available At the moment I think costs are too much for Azure, I expect Microsoft to drop prices in the next year or 2 to move us all over but for now I would say local servers are still the best route, we have setup our own mini "Azure" where we have all hyper-v servers on the same domain running across multi sites via VPNs, all in all around 100 VMs, putting them in the cloud would be quite expensive

What would be the reason to move a DC into the "cloud" ? if its for backup if you are in a MAT you could use another school ?

Hi, I was wondering if anybody currently uses Forticloud (subscription) and could let me know how good the reports are, do they offer reports based on usernames, blocked words, blocked website and so on, similar to the Netsweeper daily report I have a couple of small primary schools due for renewal and I am looking at the fortinet and sophos, both are similar price but not used Sophos before

How did your install go ? we are thinking of purchasing a sophos (or a fortinet) for one of our primaries

Depends on the school, primary sites 3k is expensive, secondary it would be cheap. We have a mix of schools so utilise WAN for majority of secondary and dual business lines at primary, primary cost is around £800 without utm

For some reason the calculators show £82.43 for 60TB per month then there are the misc costs getting data there which takes it up to £123 per month but left these at default for write operations etc

What services from Azure are using to store 60tb for £50 per month ? from the calculators it should be around £400/500

It was direct with Gamma, we have some schools on less but it was part of a MAT broadband tender so would not be comparable

For a rough comparison as we have recently installed some phones at 2 schools in the MAT - you can get £6 per channel/month including 5000 minutes per channel. You could install a 70 x handset system in house with onsite PBX server (FreePBX) for around £2500-£3000 one off for hardware and around £70 per month on going for 10 x SIP and 70 x DDI rental.

Have you encrypted the PCs ?

We have a few new schools opening, one secondary new build will be setup as FN-GM said, all cables run back to the Server room with no additional cabinets around school (6 x 42u cabinets) vs an old building with 16 switch cabinets spread around Same with a primary opening soon, everything is run back to the one room. I would make sure ducting is put in outside so BT and Virgin can use in future, ceiling height network points for WIFI, points where you may want digital signage and CCTV etc the designers will group network points together so check at front of classrooms

I would say the main benefit of one forest would be staff/students moving between sites but for most schools I would say this is very small (not including head office staff), if this started to happen maybe a trust between sites would work ? We have a mix of schools on a WAN and the rest on VPNs between sites all with separate forests. As you move more towards Gsuite or Office365 local AD domains will become less relevant I would be interested to see the cost savings of putting sites on 1Gb p2p vs their own broadband as a few MATs have mentioned this but I cant see the savings.

Anybody in the MAT Network Manager grade and above able to merge the networks internally or maybe a local MAT could help ? it will probably cost quite alot outsourcing and upskilling internal staff would be good for future schools joining ?

Did you go with inplace upgrade or fresh install ?

I send out an email to a group of suppliers with what is required with spec or preferred make/model and cheapest price that comes back gets the order. Sharing prices with suppliers so they could beat it by £1 I would not do as I do not think it is fair to the other suppliers + if you go back to your preferred supplier and they can suddenly beat the price of the other supplier makes me think they were trying to rip you off! If I am asked what price they have to beat or what others have quoted I decline to share any info and advise happy to give final price paid after order is placed with cheapest supplier.

If you only have one line with column names the script has not picked up any issues, if you have issues it would show students name and contacts linked that maybe be incorrect.

Get rid of Entrust/Link2ict - cheaper in the long run

Anyone have any Avocor screens with Oktopus software for a primary ?

We had a recommendation from somewhere (cant remember where but not related to GDPR) that specified 2 weeks, anything more you would need to explain why - for example if the CCTV was installed as a deterrent to vandalism / behavior why would you need it longer that 2 weeks as the issue would have already been reported inside those 2 weeks.