Day One Hunded 'n Seventy Eight

Testing of the mock network continues today. So far, we have a "native" Windows 2008 Domain Controller. Connected to this is an eMac running 10.4.11 Server. 2008 box does the authentication, eMac hosts home folders for the pretend users. 10.4 laptop and 10.5 laptop both authenticate and mount a home off the eMac via AFP. Which is good. Forward and reverse DNS lookups work too, which the eMac was whinging about. I believe Folder Redirection for XP machines works too now, so everything works like our current network. Hurrah!

Installed some apps on the 2008 server to mock up what would be on it if it were a Citrix server. Everything appears to work apart from Autograph, a retro maths program which says it's unexpectedly quite when you close it (!).

Bids from the installers have come in today. We have singled out 1 as what we want to go for. Fingers crossed the people what pay will approve such a big spend.

Day One Hundred 'n' Seventy Six

So, tomorrow is Citrix quote day. Before this happens, maybe it's a bit late, but in my mind it is still BEFORE, The Other Tech and I have been having a go at a mini network based on Server 2008. 10.4 Macs and XP PCs authenticate. We've turned down the security so that the Mac can get the SMB shares off it too. So the essentials are working. Next we need to try connecting to Mac OS from 2008 to emulate our real network, as well as 10.5. I've been checking application compatibility with 2008, which has been a blast.

The New Guy Tech is working on creating MSI files so that we can start to automate a lot of our Windows software installs. Seems to be going alright.

Day One Hundred 'n' Sixty Six

So today, I moved our domain controller(s) and terminal servers down to the other end of the server room. We have to move them in a month or so, so rather than having downtime then, and now, I moved the stuff now.....

...becuase a man from the LEA came in to install a big HP switch which as 14x fibre gigabit ports, and 48x cat 5e gigabit ports. It's immense. Everything is up and running again. He will be back to install further gigabit switches in the coming weeks.

Windows update was also done on our domain controller(s), so that's all sorted. They are also set to shut down via the network when the UPS kicks in (after a power cut).

Moved Year 7, 12 and 13 to our new RAID array. Was a piece of cake using the power of the command line! Years 8,9,10 and 11 tomorrow methinks. Then we can redeploy the old drives as a resources area.