Technicians: James Gorman / Lee Foxcroft / Eric Haworth (School’s Technician)
The school was set up with the traditional two networks: administration and curriculum. This was causing extra network maintenance and management issues for the school technician, along with other limitations that come with having two separate networks, for example, teaching staff needed to use both networks as they were unable to do everything under one login on one computer.
There is a long-standing partnership between Central Lancaster High School (CLHS) and Bowker IT and also the current Network Manager, Eric Haworth. Over the years, we’ve provided them with many solutions, from copper and fibre to switches and audio visual, having previously moved a large number of physical servers onto a virtual platform which had been very successful. This was stage 2 of the overall solution.
The solution was to simplify the network onto one domain, which we call ‘flattening’. We also added all the admin staff and devices onto the curriculum domain, and simplified and restructured group policies. At the same time, we tidied DNS and add more NICs to the host servers. All of these put together improved the network traffic speed and resulted in a faster overall user experience and less of a headache for the Network Manager going forward.
Client Feedback
“The migration to a single domain was virtually flawless with minimal snagging. Network speed has improved considerably with backups simplified. Staff can now log on to any computer which has been an issue in school for a considerable length of time. This puts the school in a good position going forward to migrate to W10.”
Eric Haworth