Any advice on what an optimum networking solution would be appreciated. We need to upgrade our server and wanted some expert advice on what our system should like.

We are a design manufacturing company that relies heavily on our computer usage for design as well as interfacing with shop equipment. Server related issues can be enormously expensive
Current:

15 workstations
set up for remote access (3-5 users)
server 2003
switch
router
linked photocopier/printers 2
Symantec anti-virus
Tape Backup
NAS backup
DSL connection

Thinking:

Primary server (new) for file/printer handling
Second servery (old) for remote access and redundancy if primary server fails
NAS - mirrored and interlaced
Symantec, or is there something better?
Eliminate tape backup and replace with another NAS or portable hard drive? WD Passport?
Cisco Firewall? or other better?

Are we missing anything or should we be doing something different?

What is the best way to eliminate IM and restrict internet access?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance

 

 

 

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I moved your topic here, where is most likely it's place.
Now, my advices :
First I would not recommend Symantec antivirus, you should better choose Mc Afee.
Secondly, I would not eliminate tape backups, keep tham as long as you can, because a set of tapes can be put in a safe place, in another town, in case of general catastrophy (if your dash falls and water fills your machine room for instance, insurance will pay for buying new hardware and your data will come back from the tapes, just think if several tapes are cheaper than several USB removable disks.
Third. The Cisco firewall is a great solution. Consider buying the one allowing you creating vpn's : only some remore users will be allowed, proving that they have the correct site name, site password, user name and user password. The vpn site will transmit the user's Ethernet adapter Mac address, so you can also ask the firewall to allow anly these persons which computers are known (for instance these people come to your office with these data on their USB flashdisk, even easier if their computer is a laptop).
Fourth. Please be more specific about the NAS. Did you already buy the device ? How much money do you have ? If you could by a real professional NAS device, namely a NetApp filer, you would have a very fast and very secured system, more sophisticated and efficient than the mirrored/interleaving things you were talking about.
Fifth : Linked printers/photocopiers, why not if you already have them. I suggest, as soon as each printer becomes too old and has to be replaced, replace it with a network printer, this avoid depending from an operating system.
If you have more questions, please tell us.
Regards
Yordan


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P.S. Just some comments about NAS or SAN things.
Now the profession NAS and SAN boxes are smart enough, they take care of the disk management, in case of one disk failure, the system continues working, a hot-spare disk replace the faulty disk until you remove it and replace it for a new one. Even the high level disk cabinet automatically send a phone-call to the manufacturer's service center who sends a guy to your office, in order to insert the automatically ordered and shipped brand new disk.
Mirrored Disks are fast, but the cost is that it doubles the needed space : two physical disks for one disk available space.
Raid5 is the most common SAN and NAS professional way of storing the data : one extra disk in the group stores the rotating pariti, in this case the security costs one disk (20% of the total space in a 5-disks raid group, 10% or the total disk space in a 10-disk raid group). A raid5 group is able to survive to the death of one disk. A separated disk in the disk cabinet is configured as hot-spare, it's role is replacing any faulty disk until repair. Raid6 groups can survive to the death of two disks, in this case the security costs two disks in each disk group.

 

 

 

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A quick comment about Symantac. I agree that you should not install the full blown home crapware version but the corporate version is worth looking into. The corporate client is light weight and can be configured to automatically update from your own central server and not from Symantac. You can also lock down the interface so the users can not uninstall it or mess with it except to perform a set list of scans. When compared with the retail version, the corporate version is like night and day.

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