Tech Forum

True about FHC computers, and some still have some old 'cascaded' boxes, which are mostly XP machines with slower bus speeds, a recent Optiplex 780 ran all the updates on startup some multiple of times faster than the older 66mhz buses, I think the Optiplex had a 1gb bus.

Since we are on Zscaler now for filtering and other management along with Tivoli in the meetinghouse space, I've noticed download speeds are significantly better even during times when things were so busy that Websense (old filtering engine we used) could not handle the hit. Only takes a couple of minutes now to get a Sophos update now. Patch management in Tivoli and possibly via Zscaler, can be used to manage how much data from a patch deploy goes through at any given time, and can be used to help speed up what the user is doing online while the machine is being updated via Tivoli.

Tivoli has a system-properties and rules-based way of handling patch deploys. If properly used, ICS can manage when bigger patches will deploy versus smaller ones, so as to load-balance the patch deploys throughout the meetinghouse, and evntually FHC network when FamilySearch decides to pull the trigger on pulling LANDesk and going more with Tivoli.

Here's a Youtube video I found demonstrating how Tivoli can be used to manage patch deploys. Video is about a year old so there may have been some additional features added in interim updates that may have been issued since this was shot.

http://youtu.be/GSrZU9vW1ZA

JamesAnderson wrote:True about FHC computers, and some still have some old 'cascaded' boxes, which are mostly XP machines with slower bus speeds, a recent Optiplex 780 ran all the updates on startup some multiple of times faster than the older 66mhz buses, I think the Optiplex had a 1gb bus.

Some still have... that just tickles me pink.... I JUST BARELY got cascaded boxes in the last few months (mostly due to lack of trying really, it only this year occurred to me that I should ask for complete replacements of the junk we had through the cascaded program and was delighted to have 20 computers sent to us), these are new and spiffy compared to what we used to run. In my Stake with 5 FHC's we have exactly 1 of the newer computers (because that center opened this year). The 3 year program to roll out computers to all the FHC's went a few months the first year, and ran out of money, then a few months the 2nd year and ran out of money. I think it safe to say that MOST have the older computers.

When managing systems like this with combinations of church purchased and managed, and user donated,etc..., and setting up remote management of those systems, it must be designed to be unobtrusive to those OLD Cascaded computers. If it is designed for the Patron or Clerk experience using the slowest known system, and the least amount of RAM, you will always get it right. But if you design it with new, fast, efficient systems and let everyone else deal with it... that is a recipe for a bad patron or clerk experience IMHO.

JohnShaw wrote:I recently sat at Family History Computer and waited for a good 5-10 minutes where the computer was UNUSEABLE

I don't know if it had anything to do with your post, but I noticed that the policy for Sophos has recently changed for FHC computers so that it should be less intrusive.

Sophos is indeed much more of a resource hog than the previous Symantec, although the newer versions and newer machines handle it better.