On wednesday I’ve got two Contractors coming into school with some new hardware and a mission: BUILD ME A NEW NETWORK!
Being an ICT Teacher, I’m on the front line in the war against ICT Problems. I hear about them first, experiance them first and am effectively the “first line” IT Technician.
I’ve inherited a mess of a network, an oddly spec’ced poorly performing Windows 2003 Server (lots of Hard disk, lots of processor, less RAM then my desktop machine) acting as the Exchange, File and DC. A member server running 2008 doing the printing with a disk fault, and a database server that wasn’t properly licence with more disk faults….. Oh and 170 new Computers, a mixed bag of Wireless points and a set of Network switches that last saw action on ARPANET.
I’ve replaced switches, the database server, thrown out the oddly flipping soldered wireless points and spent so much on licencing its depressing. Oh and new UPSs, re-cabled a lot of classrooms, implemented Internet filtering, and a BTnet Internet connection, and bought software and commissioned a new website.
The final task is tomorrow. A new dedicated DC is going to arrive, and a separate file server. The Terralyte backup system arrived today too! Everything is going to run Server 2008 R2, the current Wheezing does-it-all server is just going to have Exchange – and a massive RAM upgrade, and I’m going to set up a wee linux box for hosting a couple of internal websites. We’ll have a completely new domain with a different IP Range (currently we use a Class A internally, which theoretically allows for about 16 million devices - pffffftttt!!!)
Every PC is getting re-imaged so they actually have the same software on and the staff documents, which are stored in a massive confusing mess is getting transfered along with the Email Boxes. Nothing else will transfer: no settings, no badly thought out usernames, no stupid password policies, no stupid PC naming convention, no horrible logmeinrescue software, and no badly deployed TREND Micro A/V Software. Instead I am looking forward to a wonderland of user profiles that work, documents that don’t vanish, group policies that don’t mess up and contradict and some structure in AD…..some grouping of workstations is going to be wonderful.