Re: [school-discuss] LTSP and school-provided networks on same physical infrastructure

[john <lists.john@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Daniel,

Seems to me like you *might* be able to use the pysical network for
both implementations but you would have to do some contortions. Let me
get some more info:

1) If I understand correctly, you are saying that teachers and
students use the same drop in a classroom but you want students to use
K12 LTSP and the cable gateway and teachers to use XP and the T1
Gateway. How many student computers v.s teacher computers per room? Do
you use computer labs? Anything else to say here?

2) How do computers currently get their ip addresses, who handles name
resolution. Is there a PDC or AD handling authentication?

3) Are there any network appliances like printers that use jet direct
print servers and the like, how do they get their addresses and who
needs to use them?

4) How many buildings, floors. 100 MB Ethernet over CAT5?

5) How many hosts will particpate in the k12ltsp net and how many
hosts will stay on the current set up? What kind of thin clients?

6) is this a switched environment or do you use hubs?

Whew! That's it for starters. Very quickly and off hand I would say
the easiet implementation would be in a lab based environment where
you can create a seperate subnet by using a second nic on the k12-LTSP
server with the route to the internet pointing to the comcast
connection.

Anyway, hope this helps get some ideas rolling.

John



On 6/29/05, Daniel Howard <daniel@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> One dilemma that we're running into in our transition to K12LTSP is how to
> use the existing school network infrastructure for two independent
> networks.  Until we can convince the city school district otherwise,
> they'll likely insist that we keep the teacher's Win XP computers on the
> school district's network, fed to the school via unreliable T1.  The PTA is
> willing to pay for a business-tier cable modem service (5 Mbps down,
> 384kbps up) to the school, and we want to feed the K12LTSP servers and all
> clients (computer lab and classrooms) via this cable modem network using
> the web filtering capability of K12LTSP (Squidgard, IIRC).  Problem: only
> one network cable is run to each class, so we have to feed both networks
> via the same cabling, all of which lead star-topology into the wiring
> closet (although maybe a few extensions via switches at the end of one
> cable run feeding multiple rooms).
> 
> Logically, can we just leave the teacher's PCs talking to the school
> district's gateway and their T1, while our Linux thin client servers talk
> to the cable modem router and to the thin clients over the same Cat5
> cable?  Will there be problems with net booting, collisions, etc?
> 
> Any other ideas for solutions to this conundrum?  Ultimately down the road,
> we envision the district approving the K12LTSP solution and allowing us to
> combine both T1 and cable modem data feeds to the school into a common
> router (so that we have more total bandwidth for all PCs, plus a backup
> architecture) and the teachers ultimately using OSS for their admin
> applications on thin clients in each classroom, but who knows how long that
> will take...
> 
> Regards,
> Daniel
> 
> 
> 
> Daniel Howard
> President and CEO
> Quadrock Communications, Inc
> 404.264.9123 main
> 678.528.5839 fax
> 404.625.1593 cell
> 
>