Setting up a server - what do I need?

[murfitUK]

I'm working on a project for a small charity split over 4 different offices. Each office has a broadband connection and the computers within each office are all networked.

They would like to set up a server so that all users can save and access documents instead of having to email the documents to each other.

The main requirement is that they can open word and excel documents from the server, make changes and save etc.

I need to be able to set up users - eg barbara (who will be able to access a folder called 'barbara'), margaret (to access a folder called 'margaret') and so on. All users to be able to access a folder called shared.

Each user will have some sort of icon in My Computer that they can open in exactly the same way as they would any other folder on their computer. Also, if they are saving a document in Word, when they do Save As they will be able to save to the server in exactly the same way as they would save to a folder on their computer.

The server will be based at one office but must be accessible by the other offices.

Do I need some special server software to do this. Was looking at Server 2003 but don't know if its what I need.

I would appreciate any guidance. Any easy to understand tutorial websites that I could read? Have looked at a few sites but all start from the novel premise that I know what I'm doing.

[Jon T]

Ideally you need Windows 2003 Server and some way of creating VPN's(your broadband router's should be able to do this). Also note that you will need Client Access Licenses (CALS) for every machine that accesses the server.

Nominate one site as the "master site", this is where your server will be located. Create LAN to LAN vpn's from each site back to this one.

Make sure each site is in a separate IP range, i.e. first site has 192.168.1.x addresses, second site has 192.168.2.1 addresses, etc.

Once the VPN's and the server are set up, you need to create some users and some shares. Let me know if you've followed me this far.

[Sir John Luke]

Small Business Server (SBS) possibly? And something like Safe@Office for the VPN links?

http://www.checkpoint.com/products/s...ice/index.html

[idi banashapan]

with all due respect, I get the feeling your domain/server knowledge might not be up to this task. In order to get everything running, you'll need a fair understanding of networking, server builds, active directory, including groups and permissions, etc. It worries me that your first question is "what do I need to make a server"!

Although what you have been asked to do is very easy, you need to know what you are doing - especially if you are going to be playing with AD. don't forget, you will also need to teach the users how to use the system. and work out if you are going to set their home drives via their user setting in AD, or by mapping locally, etc, etc

there's more to it than switching on a server. Have the charity given you domain admin rights in order to do all this?

[MovedGoalPosts]

Sharing files over a broadband link could become frustratingly slow. Wherever the server is located, any other remote users will be limited by the upload speed of their connection, and more importantly the upload speed of the server connection. That could be dealing with multiple clients of the three remote offices.

How many workstations are there in each location. Is there a definitive head office. How many documents are created and saved each day, and of what sort of size? You may be better off with some form of local server at each office that then synchronises it's files to a central location, or some form of data centre hosted shared server.

Remember too that the average broadband service does not have any SLA should there be a fault. You could very easily end up without a connection.

[Jon T]

Oh dear, I can see the mention of DFS looming(and I don't mean the furniture store).

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by Jon T

Oh dear, I can see the mention of DFS looming(and I don't mean the furniture store).

which would also ideally need to be bit-level by the sounds of it! could be an interesting project!!!

[MovedGoalPosts]

Originally Posted by Jon T

Oh dear, I can see the mention of DFS looming(and I don't mean the furniture store).

Now you've mentioned that acronym, you'll have to explain

[Jon T]

Originally Posted by Rob

Now you've mentioned that acronym, you'll have to explain

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...ew/dfsfaq.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distrib...em_(Microsoft)

[MovedGoalPosts]

Ah so there's technology that makes remote file sharing between servers easy.

disclaimer: In my experience what Microsoft say should happen, and what actually happens are two different things

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by Jon T

...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distrib...tem_(Microsoft)

Ahem.

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name.

[Jon T]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

Ahem.

Link corrected, for some reason the forum software had put the close url BB tag before the end of the link that i'd posted.

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by Rob

Ah so there's technology that makes remote file sharing between servers easy.

disclaimer: In my experience what Microsoft say should happen, and what actually happens are two different things

Use it extensively here, works a treat

[idi banashapan]

Originally Posted by Rob

Ah so there's technology that makes remote file sharing between servers easy.

yeah, but you have to know what a server is first!!!

[Caspar]

murfitUK - this sounds like an advanced project to me, multi-site links, RRAS, DC, Readonly-DC, possibly DFS... if you want/need to do this, then first off I'd run through the majority of very good tutorials over at http://www.itidiots.com. Screencasts, introducing you to 'servers', and all the other things you'll NEED to know, like DNS,DHCP,Domains,RRAS, etc...

My second recommendation is to then sit your MCSE creditation exams, cause you'll be likely upto that standard!, and then jack in your current job and start a new job as an IT Manager... earning big bucks! ....cause what you're asking is demanding, not just to setup and configure but to then maintain (probably the more demanding the troubleshooting side for when things do go wrong!)


....or scrap the idea of the enterprise solution, and install mesh.com at all sites with one single live account - it's not enterprise and it won't do what you want out of the box, but it's free, dead easy to set up and WILL synchronise document and files accross multi-sites in near-realtime. You can setup a Barabara, Margarat, etc. folders in your Live Mesh desktop and they can all access each others...

I'd recommend the first solution, but get your MCSE first!