Originally Posted by meridian

WHichever the technical solution used the point is that network connectivity should be transparent to the user, just like turning a tap and water coming out the user should be able to connect a device and networking should just come out.

Moving up the OSI layers and implementing security, intrusion detection, rogue AP insertion detection, VLANS, and all the other myriad of techniques available it is possible to achieve the goal of both an easy to use AND secure network.

Totally agree (Transparency) and also about defence in depth.

Originally Posted by scida

I've been reliably informed that each UAD costs 200 squid per month. So your 6K figure obviously includes TCO.. e.g. moves, account maintenance etc??

I was also informed last week that to get an extra UAD that wasn’t scoped will cost 10K!

And if you haven’t read my other posts then here’s one for you:-

A move of 20+ UADs from garrison to garrison cost 13+K…Fujitsu tried to keep it quite…but the onsite EADS lads found out and demanded that they did the patching – cost just to patch from panel to switch 1.8K - - - the mind boggles.

The costs quoted are from an FOI request placed in November last year. The break down is based on total yearly budget and then divided by the number of UAD's (PC's on a desk) The DII results are based on the April - October 2008 then Multiplied by 2 for it's cost and Navy Net from it's highest spending year 2002-03 pre outsourcing.

Originally Posted by scida

Point taken about routing. However, if you want all spare ports in the same VLAN across an entire site (all switches) then you'll need to route if you wish to maintain a single broadcast domain.

That's where VTP comes in as long as of course the switches are physically close enough to trunk them together. Then again if they weren't then you probably wouldn't be using VLANs at all.

But I agree with the main point, I'm all for locking down ports so users can't just move kit about willy nilly, but the price does take the piss.

The trend with security is to authenticate the user and not the device, again something that seems to have passed ATLAS by. Use a multi layered rather than perimeter based approach, its hardly something would seem alien to the armed forces is it, you know, defence in depth and all that.

Again, it is possible, it is in widepsread use in the commercial sector but because of the way that large IT outsource contracts are written where the user and their under paid advisors are pitted against some of the sharpest commercial brains available for any money and you know who is going to come off worse in the small print. I don't want to put down the encumbent because they are 99.9999% of the time doing a very good job with little in the way of resource but the reality is putting an IT/IS Department against a commercial provider is only ever going to result in a less than optimal service for the end user but skewed towards profitability hidden in the small print and contract conditions.

Seen it many times and so has the commercial world who have realised that all out outsourcing is not the way to go but a careful blend of in and out sourcing

It's a shame the Armed Forces don't have their own IT specialists who could run this sort of thing in peace time locations and out in the operational theatres.....

I wonder what capbadge we could fit them in to?

Originally Posted by Argee2007

The only costs i know off with DII(F) is the hour it takes to actually start up in the morning, the hour and a bit where it dies at lunchtime and of course the amount of wasted time when emails just go offline which is about every 30 minutes.

Only an hour to start up in the morning? Are you bang on top of the server? :D

I once set a terminal up for 'critical updates' and after a week it still hadn't finished. As far as I know the terminal still hasn't been updated and I'm not sure it works , apart from attracting dust in it's local area.

Seeing as it's the one set aside for Soldiers to run JPA on, and no one has complained they can't get onto it....

Originally Posted by Trossachs

Originally Posted by Argee2007

The only costs i know off with DII(F) is the hour it takes to actually start up in the morning, the hour and a bit where it dies at lunchtime and of course the amount of wasted time when emails just go offline which is about every 30 minutes.

Hear Hear. Timed mine the other morning, 17 minutes from switching on to being able to read an email. Inter/Intranet is a joke, up to two minutes to load a page. Hours wasted every day. An email last week from higher HQ took 27 hours to appear - an agenda for a meeting already finished !.

Have you seen how many people it takes ATLAS to handle one complaint - I counted 13 in the buck-passing trail associated with my last SPOC call -

Grrr.

Nothing to do with the cost of DII (don't get me started on that...) but compared to CHOtS, DII is fantastic!

But we are getting away from the point of why ATLAS disable ports in the first place…To stop users moving stuff around…so Fujitsu can charge 107 quid for the move and EDS/HP can charge 600+ quid to enable the port and patch.

I thought EADS were responsible for the networks or they have been where ever I have worked, whether on DII/C or F or other systems UADs were the responsibility of FJ and Networks was EADS - dont know what they charge but so far (touch wood) I have not had any real problems, the biggest problem is when trying to use an F laptop via 3g card which is banned on certain MoD sites - not sure how that got signed off.......

Originally Posted by kes1

Originally Posted by Trossachs

Originally Posted by Argee2007

The only costs i know off with DII(F) is the hour it takes to actually start up in the morning, the hour and a bit where it dies at lunchtime and of course the amount of wasted time when emails just go offline which is about every 30 minutes.

Hear Hear. Timed mine the other morning, 17 minutes from switching on to being able to read an email. Inter/Intranet is a joke, up to two minutes to load a page. Hours wasted every day. An email last week from higher HQ took 27 hours to appear - an agenda for a meeting already finished !.

Have you seen how many people it takes ATLAS to handle one complaint - I counted 13 in the buck-passing trail associated with my last SPOC call -

Grrr.

Nothing to do with the cost of DII (don't get me started on that...) but compared to CHOtS, DII is fantastic!

CHOtS had at least 3 different build and port security was in place locked down to the MAC address or that was the case at ABW & Ensleigh - making sure that when a PC was 'repaired' or 'replaced' was an issue as not only did the right build need to be sourced but also the 'brick' for secret machines.......

Originally Posted by ukdaytona

Originally Posted by kes1

Originally Posted by Trossachs

Originally Posted by Argee2007

The only costs i know off with DII(F) is the hour it takes to actually start up in the morning, the hour and a bit where it dies at lunchtime and of course the amount of wasted time when emails just go offline which is about every 30 minutes.

Hear Hear. Timed mine the other morning, 17 minutes from switching on to being able to read an email. Inter/Intranet is a joke, up to two minutes to load a page. Hours wasted every day. An email last week from higher HQ took 27 hours to appear - an agenda for a meeting already finished !.

Have you seen how many people it takes ATLAS to handle one complaint - I counted 13 in the buck-passing trail associated with my last SPOC call -

Grrr.

Nothing to do with the cost of DII (don't get me started on that...) but compared to CHOtS, DII is fantastic!

CHOtS had at least 3 different build and port security was in place locked down to the MAC address or that was the case at ABW & Ensleigh - making sure that when a PC was 'repaired' or 'replaced' was an issue as not only did the right build need to be sourced but also the 'brick' for secret machines.......

Not to mention slower than a tranquilised tortoise and no internet access...God I love DII! :D