By Ryan Ellis, Head of Storytelling -
C3IA REBUILD MUSEUM NETWORK
After a chance meeting between C3IA Managing Director John Botterill and Museum Business Manager Adam Forty, C3IA kindly offered to take on the task of supplying and renewing the aging Museum network infrastructure.
After a site visit by C3IA Principal Consultants Dave Owen and Bev Cadogan, a plan was proposed to supply equipment and rebuild the Museum LAN. The board of C3IA agreed the proposal and 13 PCs were purchased. Under the guidance of Dave Owen and George Complin from Grapevine Telecom (Bath) Ltd. the project began. This included the provision of Non-Profit Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses, baseline image creation, software deployment, security, and update policies. A deployment was first tested and proven, prior to a hugely successful rollout to all users.
The new system is a huge step forward and has moved away from the traditional on-premises server-based infrastructure to a Microsoft 365 environment, incorporating Intune enrolled devices, Windows Autopilot deployment, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and enhanced security policies. This has provided future proofing, enhanced productivity, and reduced the museum’s overall threat landscape.
Elements of the servers will remain in place until all the data has been migrated on to a new NAS. Cloud storage was considered but the scale of such storage, and the ongoing cost implications, seem prohibitive. The storage requirement for the ongoing digitisation of the Museum archive has not yet been realistically predicted clearly the scale is huge. Accepted Museum policy suggests that images should be stored as high resolution, lossless TIF files rather than JPG format.
Museum Business Manager Adam Forty reflected; “The replacement of our old PC's has had a hugely beneficial impact on workloads and efficiency. It is not until you update from an 8-year-old computer that you realise how much you have been held back by aging technology! The new system is a dream to work on and we just cannot thank the C3IA team enough for their kind support”.
ROBOTS ARRIVE IN MUSEUM
The Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT), Kerri Mansfield JP, has today watched a small unmanned multi-terrain vehicle circumnavigate a maze in the corridors of Blandford Camp to mark the launch of the Royal Signals Museum’s STEM learning classrooms.
Bought by the Museum via a generous grant from the WCIT Charity, these rugged vehicles offer youngsters hands-on experience in coding, gaining an understanding of robotic system capabilities and the communication requirements of semi- and fully-autonomous systems.
The WCIT Robotics and STEM Classroom bolsters an already lively outreach programme run by the Museum, giving young people an opportunity to learn about the many different employment opportunities available in the field of communications.
Other interactive education activities offered at the Royal Signals Museum include learning Morse code, gaining insight into the birth of electronic warfare, hands-on experience with heliograph and semaphore flags, as well as the opportunity to break declassified Second World War codes.
The Museum has increased its engagement with students and youth groups six-fold over the past year, interacting with more than 11,000. The appointment of a new STEM Learning volunteer will also increase the variety of lessons that students and cadets of all ages can enjoy.
Speaking after the meeting, Museum Business Manager Adam Forty said:
“These little robots have huge potential. Teachers, group leaders and parents have all said that the addition of coding and robotics was fun and engaging, with our unique military angle giving real world context to the theories they learn in the classroom.
“We’re grateful to the WCIT Charity for their continued support as we promote STEM across Dorset and the wider south-west.”
To learn more about the Royal Signals Museum STEM Education Programme, or to book a session, please email visit@royalsignalsmuseum.co.uk