£30k to spend....

[muld]

Right guys, basically we have over budgeted this year on the old consumables budget (by a lot) and as this is an educational establishment it needs to be spent pronto (or we loose it). Our main focus of business is on-line learning and open source solutions.

I'm looking for some useful suggestions on what we can spend the money on. The rules are it has to be of benefit to the IT department, we've already allocated £5k (not part of the £30k remaining) to a new firewall so any other ideas appreciated Oh, and anything that may be a new business avenue or can generate revenue would be ideal!

Obviously we could just blow it on a lot of gadgets and laptops but that's not really needed (basically because we all have pretty new ones from last year!).

We don't really need to improve the network infrastructure and we don't need huge servers with a gazillion terabytes of storage space.

Lets go crazy

Oh, and we can't really buy things from Ebay etc, hehe. Any reputable retailer is fine though, Dell, IBM, Insight, CPC, eBuyer etc.

 

[theduck]

FLOL! Where do you work Muld? I grew up in Stourbridge.

 

[Beef-Mc]

Iphones for the entire IT department, along with walkie talkies.

 

[The Ironist]

Segways!

 

[Omid]

I'd say iMacs

 

[Sargara]

Phfft depends really. Id probably say software if your hardware is "ok".

Upgrade to Vista/Win7 and Office 2007.

 

[The Hoff]

I'd suggest Sharepoint but that's going to come in way over the top. Maybe look at upgrading your Exchange/Notes system, or if you've yet to invest in an email archiving solutions check out Mimecast or Barracuda, benefit being it can be installed in a week. Lastly, maybe take a look at a Websense/Messagelabs solution.

 

[conneh]

Since it's education, maybe a proper server set up running Moodle.

 

[Steve]

Echo 360 or a Christie proj but not both

 

[SamP]

I'd say iMacs

20 iMacs. Done. That or 60'' TV's connected to PC's as group work PC's with a table and pair of sofa's around them. Weve got a couple at uni and theyre so useful. Sadly theres always people glued to them... :/

 

[ChrisR]

Get this, I work in a public sector organisation, so obviously need to be careful about spending.

Already been told this year no money for first 6 months for big things, plus we are being audited to s**t to make sure we're offering value for service.

Oh but the finance dept, who are the ones stringing us up by our balls, have just found well into 6 figures that needs to be spent asap and if you can think of anything to do with it let us know.

Yay public sector finances.

 

[Omid]

Get this

Got it, thanks

 

[ChrisR]

Got it, thanks

My work here is done.

 

[muld]

Hey guys, where to start Thanks for the ideas so far, I don't think MAC's would get used to be honest All our software and OS stuff is covered by the Campus agreement so already have Office 07, Windows whatever we want licenses etc. Not that we really use them as 90% of our machines are running Linux, servers are running Centos and desktops Ubuntu, we have but one windows machine.

Technically we are part of the college but are a subsidiary company so we get the best of both worlds really.

Conneh - Is interesting you mention Moodle, we are actually one of the largest companies in the UK providing Moodle support We have about 100 instances we look after now.

Hoff - the college uses a Barracuda system we are planning on moving to an independent open source email solution in the near future.
Websense/Messagelabs looks interesting

Chris - i agree it's a joke, we are actually penalised next year if we don't spend the money available. What i want to do is put it to better use than simply buying a load of random kit

 

[m1k335y]

I reckon cctv.. network based..!!
External hardedrives? pen drives..!!
Touch Pads thingy type. instead mouse. saw on gadget show looked useful
Projectors? portable ones?
Printers
photocopiers if thats your department.
web hosting?

 

[Cookie]

Public or private sector?

If it's public, spend it on nothing, stop contributing to the sorry state of the economy

If it's private, buy some big plasmas to watch the WC on

 

[Greeny.]

If it's public, spend it on nothing, stop contributing to the sorry state of the economy

This

 

[young_lew]

New Laptops for everyone, Then rip out your current wireless infrastructure and buy a Cisco 4400 Series wireless controller and as many access points as you need.

Or, buy new switches and stack them in a 10GBe configuration. Rapid! lol

We were in this position last year but it was only 15K, so we bought an over the top server to 'test' virtualisation products on. (like windows Hyper-V and SCVMM 2008)

 

[The Ironist]

You could rent Segways out and make money back on them...

 

[DMS]

How about implementing cashless catering? Or printer costing (whereby the students pay to print stuff out at work, therefore saving you money in future and saving waste)?

What about buying some "special" desks for spakko's? Putting in extra wireless access points or even upgrading your entire wireless solution?
New UPS' / UPS servicing? Can never be too safe. Maybe buy a load of new tapes for your backups? Tapes deteriorate over time so it's always worth making sure you have good ones.

 

[Phill1978]

New Laptops for everyone, Then rip out your current wireless infrastructure and buy a Cisco 4400 Series wireless controller and as many access points as you need.

yea you will get a lot of new faults to deal with aswell with regards to wireless


I manage 5 4404 controllers and 385 AP`s a location appliance, and two radius servers..

trust me there are still quiet a few issues with wireless as a full time solution.

 

[Cookie]

Is none of your user-side infrastructure wired then Phil? I don't envy you if it is

 

[young_lew]

yea you will get a lot of new faults to deal with aswell with regards to wireless


I manage 5 4404 controllers and 385 AP`s a location appliance, and two radius servers..

trust me there are still quiet a few issues with wireless as a full time solution.

I manage a 4402 with 25 access points serving upto 90 wireless devices at any one time and it's never ever broke or fell over.

I know that's not quite as extensive as your use but it's been fine for us.

When i win the lottery i'm having one in my house! lol

 

[Peperami]

Focus RS with your departments name on the side as advertising.

 

[ChrisR]

If it's public, spend it on nothing, stop contributing to the sorry state of the economy

I suggested this at my place, they didn't go for it

Focus RS with your departments name on the side as advertising.

I also suggested a team RS6 estate for lugging kit around, this also didn't go down too well

 

[Revels]

I think it'd take me about 10mins to spend that on the Apple store

 

[Westicles]

Focus RS with your departments name on the side as advertising.

^ Best Idea IMO