Networking 20 Pc With Server And Adsl

[Freakboy]

Can't find if this was asked previously, but where can I find a couple of good websites that explains how to do this? My dad wants new PCs for his work and asked me to do the setup. He is going to get ADSL for internet. He wants the 20 pc's to be connected with a switch. The switch is then connected to a server, and the server is connected to the ADSL modem.

He also wants to run as mail client on the server, and a database.W2k3 would properly be on the server and the rest WinXP with Office 2003.

Can somebody please give me links to show me how to do this? Will I have to setup a DNS or SMTP server?

Thanks

[Ghostrider]

If your Dad is starting from scratch then I would recommend starting with a wireless (108Mbs) 4 port router, attach a 24port Gigabit switch, wire the place with Cat5e cable and install gigabit NICs in all computers, unless they come attached to the motherboards

Now that you have setup the infrastructure you can connect your router to the server computer via a second 10/100 Nic, this i would have running W2K3 server for small business with exchange server (not SBS, there is a difference in licensing, unless 25 users is enough) you can allow the router or server to act as dhcp, i use the router but it's your choice.

Now i would setup exchange server to login to your ISP and downloads/upload emails and as your workstations are all XP (pro) you can login to the server and have it install Outlook 2K3 and configure shares etc. if at a later time you want to run your own SMTP server you just need to update exchange.

[Freakboy]

Thanks

[fillalph]

Hi,

I am looking to setup a similiar server which about 15 computers.

We use a range of software including accounting software (I believe it is Simply Accounting) and AutoCAD and Microsoft Office. What I would really like to do is have the users not store any data on their own harddrives but have it stored on the server and also able to share it among users. Too many people are computer illiterate and don't backup and what not. At the moment we are using a peer-to-peer network for file and printer sharing and it is chaos in my opinion. Is there anyway to prevent people from making local saves and/or at least syncing a copy on the server? Is this something that SBS can do?

Currently our company webpage (which hasn't been updated in a long time) is hosted externally by a company and I believe they also host our email. If we were to take over the hosting ourselves, would it require monitoring or could we just host it and more or less forget about it?

Thanks,

]Bonkers[

[rendrag]

Hi,

I am looking to setup a similiar server which about 15 computers.

We use a range of software including accounting software (I believe it is Simply Accounting) and AutoCAD and Microsoft Office. What I would really like to do is have the users not store any data on their own harddrives but have it stored on the server and also able to share it among users. Too many people are computer illiterate and don't backup and what not. At the moment we are using a peer-to-peer network for file and printer sharing and it is chaos in my opinion. Is there anyway to prevent people from making local saves and/or at least syncing a copy on the server? Is this something that SBS can do?

I don't know of any way to completely make it impossible for a user to save a file to his/her local drive, however since the majority of files are stored in their My Documents folder, you could manually change the location of that folder to a network share (right-click My Documents and go to properties... change the target location), and each user could have their own folder in the share where they store their documents, or everyone could work out of the same locaiton, it's up to you.

Currently our company webpage (which hasn't been updated in a long time) is hosted externally by a company and I believe they also host our email. If we were to take over the hosting ourselves, would it require monitoring or could we just host it and more or less forget about it?

Thanks,

]Bonkers[

If you're a small business (and you probably are if you're talking SBS), I'd recomment NOT hosting your webpage yourself. Unfortunately there are too many people trying to break into computers nowadays that it doesn't make sense for small businesses to host it internally. With the cost of hosting @ less than $5 USD per month, it's cheaper to host it externall than internally. Maintaining a webserver is not a set it and forget it scenario... you have to be constantly checking for security vulnerabilities and making sure they're patched. Is there a particular reason you want to bring it in-house?

[Nolo]

Hi

two questions from Freakboy and fillalph.

1)Create a small Business environment is not a huge job to accomplish , but if is not well planned and administrated can produce many really hard and dangerous problems, like security, data integrity, privacy service availability risks, etc.

If these jobs are made it for business I suggest both of you to ask at list a consultancy from an IT expert. There are many variables to think about.

as example some thing to care about security:

- Centralized Firewall

- centralized Proxy service (optional)

- centralized Antivirus deploying services for updates

- Centralized security policy for file and folders and shares (who can see what)

- Configuring the switches example Vlan's

- Demilitarized services (services that need to be accessible from the outside world)

- Raid or whatever systems for data security and integrity

- database backup etc...

2) For the storage and backup issue there are many ways to plan what you asked. Just to give you a basic idea you could plan to by a small business NAS (network attacked storage) provided with security Raid levels. After you could map some folders with the right security policies and publish them to the clients.. beside the NAS you could attack a backup system (tape or whatever) as second level of security..... etc.

as example see w*w.thecus.com/products_index.php?set_language=english

3) I agree with rendrag and biggaon for small Companies is easier to host email and web services trough an external Internet and hosting provider.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Nolo