[K12OSN] Responses to the central office

[Todd O'Bryan]

Right. I don't know solutions myself. That's why I'm asking you guys!!!

:-)

Todd

On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 08:52 -0500, Ray Garza wrote:
> Outlining their concerns is good but I would have taken it a step further by 
> giving solutions to each bullet item. Not only does it show that you 
> understand their concerns but also researched the issues and have come up 
> with possible solutions. They'll probably still say no. You might want to 
> offer to train one of their techs on Linux.
> 
> Even without Internet access you can still do many things with it. Perhaps 
> later on down the road you can convince them to allow you to hook-up on a 
> "trial" basis. 
> 
> On Tuesday 24 October 2006 16:21, Todd O'Bryan wrote:
> > Hey all,
> >
> > My department and the school are now on board with doing thin clients,
> > but now our purchase has to be approved by the Telecomm department at
> > the central office. When I called to talk to the director of networking,
> > he said we could do whatever we wanted, as long as we didn't connect to
> > the district network. Obviously, that makes the whole enterprise much
> > less attractive.
> >
> > Below is a copy of an email I sent him outlining what I think are his
> > concerns with the plan. If people who don't mind being quoted (and
> > preferably have titles that central office folks would be impressed by)
> > wouldn't mind taking a look and responding, I'd really appreciate it. If
> > he responds with other issues, I'll let you know.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Todd
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Mr. Thompson,
> >
> > As I'm asking for advice from other people who use thin client labs in
> > school districts around the country, I just want to make sure that I'm
> > having them address the concerns that you have.
> >
> > Please take a look at the issues below and let me know if I've
> > mischaracterized them or have forgotten any particular concerns.
> >
> > To be clear, we would be interested in creating a local network within
> > the classroom which would connect to a single Linux server. The server
> > would run all applications for the client machines. The clients would
> > not be directly visible to or from the network as all network traffic
> > would be handled by the server.
> >
> > As I understand it, your concerns are:
> >
> > 1. The server would not have been configured by Telecomm and you can not
> > be sure that settings would not be changed in such a way that they would
> > interfere with normal operation of the network. Problems could include
> > address collisions with other machines on the network or the server
> > attempting to usurp roles which other machines fill (attempting to serve
> > DHCP to the network, trying to act as the school's Master Browser or
> > something similar), both of which would cause havoc.
> >
> > 2. Because the server would not be Windows-based and is not part of the
> > domain, you couldn't directly manage it and could not insure that it was
> > properly configured.
> >
> > 3. The server would be routing traffic from the clients to the network
> > and from the network back to the clients. Attaching a router to the
> > network can always cause problems.
> >
> > 4. Troubleshooting network problems caused by non-managed computers on
> > the network can be incredibly difficult. It is always time-consuming and
> > often tricky because non-standard software can interact with your
> > software in ways that make problems difficult to identify and resolve.
> >
> > If I've missed anything or haven't sufficiently identified the issues,
> > please correct me. I'm hoping the people on the list I subscribe to can
> > figure out ways to sufficiently address the issues so that you'd feel
> > comfortable with a solution.
> >
> > To give you an idea of the economies we're talking about here, here's a
> > breakdown of the cost to completely replace my lab:
> >
> > ~$3900  30 PXE-boot thin clients @ $129 each
> > ~$2000  server built from parts, optimized as an app server:
> >         4 GB ECC registered RAM, 2 dual-core Opteron processors,
> >         2 SATA hard drives in a RAID array
> >         (assuming you eventually approve, we'd buy a second server to
> >         mirror the first as a backup in case of hardware failure)
> >
> > Because we'd be using Linux (all the software I use to teach programming
> > is free and available in Linux versions), we wouldn't have to pay any
> > licensing fees.
> >
> > In addition, because the thin clients do not run any of the
> > applications, they don't become obsolete nearly as quickly as desktop
> > machines. Buying a new server upgrades the entire lab and the thin
> > clients can be used for 7 or 8 years instead of the 5 or 6 year lifetime
> > we get with desktop machines.
> >
> > Compare this with the $15,000 price tag you mentioned for lowest-level
> > desktops available with licenses and you can see why we're really
> > hopeful that we can make this work.
> >
> > Thanks for your attention,
> > Todd O'Bryan
> >
> >
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