Question by bigchadmark: what is the best Client-server network to use ?
What is the best Client-server network to use ? What would you suggest for the type of network topology and architecture for our small business? As well as trying to keep down cost becasue money is a factor as we are not a big enough business yet to dump tons of money on a IT department. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of your proposed network ?
Ok if cost wasn’t an option what would you suggest ?
Best answer:
Answer by Colinc
If cost is that much an issue you are nowhere near ready for a fully client-server environment. In fact most companies no longer run a truly client-server system. It is very dated and restricts your options.
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If you’re a small business, then you are probably mostly concerned with sharing files and perhaps calendaring. Look into Microsoft’s Small Business Server.
As far as topology, you probably don’t need much. Get your public IP connection, start off with a router/firewall and start hooking your computers into that. Assuming that you’ll have more than the couple of computers than will connect directly to a basic cable/DSL router, just toss in a 16 port (or more) network switch (switch hooks into router/firewall and computers hook into switch). If you’re going to be running your own website or email server consider segregating that off from your main LAN with your router/firewall. This isn’t exactly an indepth setup or anything, but then we don’t have a lot of info to work off of and if you need a more complicated setup then spend the $ $ on your IT.
Some software options:
* Firewall – IPCop (linux firewall, stick in on an old generic PC) http://www.IPCop.org – Free. Or pfSense from http://www.pfsense.com/
* Firewall – Astaro (Linux, commercial hardware appliance) http://www.astaro.com
* Server – MS Small Business Server (File server, email, calendaring, web) http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/default.mspx
* Server – SME Server (Linux) would get you the basic file sharing and email for free. Lots of other Linux Distros would get you this too, this one just happens to be mostly preconfigured. No shared calendars though – if you need that Small Business Server with Exchange is probably your best bet. http://www.smeserver.org/
Whatever route you go, take the time to figure out what features you need and have someone who knows what their doing set it up. Going cheap on your IT now may just end up costing you more later.