CrootUK

Hi All, Those that are using / tried to use smoothwall cloud filter could you let me know the pros/cons you found along the way? We are majority windows devices, the rest being iPads, we have Intune management for it all. Of our multiple schools only two have smoothwall onprem appliances, but we have devices roaming across all sites. There are a mix of browsers in play usual ones Edge/Firefox/Chrome etc.. quite a few apps with built in browsers too. Has anyone been able to achieve reliable filtering with the limitations smooth-wall cloud filter among others currently have.. eg restriction to Edge/Plugins/Custom browsers etc.. have they had any students find ways around it? Portable browser off a usb etc? Additionally for the sites we have smoothwall, another vlan just wouldn’t be a scaleable solution, so the secret knock would have to be used. Has anyone had success with that? Is it tied to a particular smoothwall or will it work with devices roaming between the two appliances? Has anyone had any students figure this out and bypass filtering? Is anyone leaving it to double filter, I cant imagine the issue with it doing so apart from maybe a extra millisecond delay loading a page? I have looked at a-lot of solutions now and nobody seems to of achieved a onprem equivalent in the cloud that can filter offsite? I keep reading alot about how Apple make it hard to restrict content in safari thus the need for a third party browser, but when I have used Mobile Guardian MDM in the past it could do it perfectly, has something changed since? I know Sophos can also filter on Windows in multiple browsers, but likes of Defender for Endpoint is restricted to Edge for https inspection, just wish there was a all in one solution, that was easy to deploy and scaleable. Appreciate this is a big one, open to thoughts and to hear your own success/failure stories. Thanks.

IT didn’t lead the project, came from SLT + Head so we had no visibility of the order, apologies, I could ask. Thanks would be appreciated.

We have just had a audiebant sound system put in across one our campuses for lockdown, could you ask the staff member if they have any supporting evidence for the sound no longer allowed claim if possible please? I also cannot find anything online for this?

Think plenty of people will tell you how bad option 2 is, you should speak to some other MIS’s moving really isn’t that bad. Wonder if they are going to do this to LAs aswell?

Fedup of trying with enviro always an excuse come pickup day. Use local companies now so much better Think its got something to do with how far away you are from them, as they always have a full van the time they get to us even though we booked in having multiple cages so they never end up taking anything.

Check out Eaton Rich at Transparent can quote for these, they have beaten APC and few others in the last few years for us. HPE currently use Eaton but rebrand them, they are well known. [email protected]

What connectivity do you have between the hosts? Are they direct? 40gb? Rdma? Is it one big volume or multiple volumes?

One to upvote for those doing co-management with Intune. https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/06ec569e-7b23-ed11-a81b-6045bd864d4f

S2D is where the storage is local to the host, so each host has quantity of disks your san usually would have (unless you get bigger disks, you can cache or not cache) and it creates a “software raid” on each node. So effectively the storage is right there next to the cpu/ram so its much quicker than a SAN and also if a node fails all the data is on each node so you continue to operate, where as in the very unlikely event a SAN entirely dies you would be out of service.

If its less than 10 “workloads” vms/servers then you can use community edition completely free. Other than that id look at a VCC seller as they can “rent you a licence” thats about half the cost of buying one annually.

Would highly recommend A5.

For our three recent clusters replacements SAN came in cheaper than S2D believe it or not. Going from what we had to an all-flash SAN was still a big performance boost so were happy either way.

Are you also meaning your firewall? What is currently installed? What does the ISP have installed and what connection type do they provide to you as the customer? Is there an expectation for this same box to have web-filtering etc on it or is that managed separately? Would need more info to offer a solution.

Highly recommend.

I ended up using collection sync from sccm into groups in azure ad (entra id) to get around this issue. Works super well once you got the config right. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/clients/manage/collections/synchronize-collections-aad-group

LLDP enabled across all the Edge RSTP enabled globally BPDU guard on all access ports If your switch supports it Loop Guard on switch uplinks. Make sure your core switch has lowest root priority set

Submit a ticket to Office 365

The person that wrote you’re strategic plan deserves a pat on the back.

Hi all, I am keen to know what your schools/academies/trusts are doing for web filtering? I have seen many solutions thus far such as dns filtering, browser add-on based filtering which both I don't see us pursuing. We are currently a mix of on-prem filtering appliances and I am keen to bring this into one solution, which would also filter devices outside of the network too. Thanks.

Anyone else frequently seeing poor installs of the above? so much potential for them to use pre existing IT systems but suppliers never seem to suggest being able to, rather there own cabs/cabling/switches that tend to be thrown anywhere. Anyone successfully taken these onboard within IT? Anyone centralised these services in a MAT? If so how has it effected your team? Need for more staff? Has there been cost savings? How did you do it?

We use HaloITSM, would recommend.

Hi All, ESS workaround is a joke, will cause nothing but sync issues when working collaboratively. See below for what has worked for us, with no negative impact so far, configured in word/excel options.. also available in gpo.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/authentication/how-to-mfa-number-match

Heads up number matching will be enabled by default on Office 365 Tenants from Feb 27 2023.

For those of you who went the NPS MFA route, make sure you update the extension for the upcoming Number matching enforcement.