Hi all, I have a rather unique problem.
I'm a student at a community college with enough funding (in California, would it be a residual of TARP or something?) to definitely update the software and (possibly) update the hardware of the music production lab on campus. The problem is that instead of getting the IT department to do it, the Dean of Music asked /me/ to do it, because I expressed interest in helping (a fool's mistake).
The lab consists of
I mentioned the ethernet thing only because the school's computers (windows or otherwise) run mostly on the extensive WiFi networks around campus. Pretty much every classroom has access to them.
I job was originally to assess the state of the functionality of various licensed software like Avid Sibelius, Finale, Logic, etc. Eventually, this morphed into a proposal for an entirely new system geared towards novice-advanced music production students, composers, and theorists, and includes the execution of said plan, nuking the current OS on every computer and making a single image which is then copied via remote install onto every computer on the network EXCEPTING the two mac minis, which will host various resources.
My dilemma is how to effectively deploy all the software (including OS X 10.9.x) I think the system will need, obtaining licenses for new software, upgrading existing licenses to multi-seat licenses, installing the new images on the computers and assigning/labeling the computers with new netBIOS names, and setting up all of the server functionality on the minis, such as remote home directories for each iMac located on the server, and a remote iTunes library over Home Sharing that each computer has access to.
Any suggestions? I have zero network management experience, and I basically have to work on the hardware we currently have. Ultimately, my proposal will need to have a budget estimate, solid reasoning for every software choice, and thousands of diagrams/references to back up my proposition.
I'm a student at a community college with enough funding (in California, would it be a residual of TARP or something?) to definitely update the software and (possibly) update the hardware of the music production lab on campus. The problem is that instead of getting the IT department to do it, the Dean of Music asked /me/ to do it, because I expressed interest in helping (a fool's mistake).
The lab consists of
- 2 mac minis (c. 2011?)
- 8 iMacs, two of which are 10,1 and the others are 12,1
- an independent ethernet connection tying them all together
I mentioned the ethernet thing only because the school's computers (windows or otherwise) run mostly on the extensive WiFi networks around campus. Pretty much every classroom has access to them.
I job was originally to assess the state of the functionality of various licensed software like Avid Sibelius, Finale, Logic, etc. Eventually, this morphed into a proposal for an entirely new system geared towards novice-advanced music production students, composers, and theorists, and includes the execution of said plan, nuking the current OS on every computer and making a single image which is then copied via remote install onto every computer on the network EXCEPTING the two mac minis, which will host various resources.
My dilemma is how to effectively deploy all the software (including OS X 10.9.x) I think the system will need, obtaining licenses for new software, upgrading existing licenses to multi-seat licenses, installing the new images on the computers and assigning/labeling the computers with new netBIOS names, and setting up all of the server functionality on the minis, such as remote home directories for each iMac located on the server, and a remote iTunes library over Home Sharing that each computer has access to.
Any suggestions? I have zero network management experience, and I basically have to work on the hardware we currently have. Ultimately, my proposal will need to have a budget estimate, solid reasoning for every software choice, and thousands of diagrams/references to back up my proposition.
