SME Network Guide

[greggpb]

Hi All,

I wanted to look at options here for a small business incubator. That can be generically applied to opening many small business and a best practise on handling the infrastructure.
Example

Lets use this example, we are starting a small company of about 5 people which is going to grow to 20 over the next 3 years, thereafter the company will look at opening another branch of 5 people which will grow to 20 and so on and so forth.

Let us assume that the company is mostly business people and there will not be permanent IT staff.
How would one best approach the concept of setting up the IT Network infrastructure, from a cost, ease of use and reliability stand point.

Does one go Linux, Windows? Do you need an active directory Domain? The Last One I did was SBS2003. How do bigger companies get away without one (I read something about google) ?

I would like to start a discussion here around this and come up with a best bracket that I can put up as a FAQ or guide for SME’ in the South African Context.

A couple of things I think we should cover

- Email
- Shared Storage
- Backup
- Workstation Management (Laptops & Desktop)
- Shared Printer Management
- VOIP Phone routing
- INTERNET Connection sharing with failover
- Branch interconnection
- Remote Access






If you have any additional information we should add I will add it.

 

[syntax]

use google apps or office 365.
Get internet connection.
use dropbox or google drive for storage (if you dont have too many security requirements)

jobs done

 

[greggpb]

II think they would work in a start situation but as you scale up is become more tricky

 

[greggpb]

No hints ?

 

[initroot]

Hi All,

I wanted to look at options here for a small business incubator. That can be generically applied to opening many small business and a best practise on handling the infrastructure.
Example

Lets use this example, we are starting a small company of about 5 people which is going to grow to 20 over the next 3 years, thereafter the company will look at opening another branch of 5 people which will grow to 20 and so on and so forth.

Let us assume that the company is mostly business people and there will not be permanent IT staff.
How would one best approach the concept of setting up the IT Network infrastructure, from a cost, ease of use and reliability stand point.

Does one go Linux, Windows? Do you need an active directory Domain? The Last One I did was SBS2003. How do bigger companies get away without one (I read something about google) ?

I would like to start a discussion here around this and come up with a best bracket that I can put up as a FAQ or guide for SME’ in the South African Context.

A couple of things I think we should cover

- Email
- Shared Storage
- Backup
- Workstation Management (Laptops & Desktop)
- Shared Printer Management
- VOIP Phone routing
- INTERNET Connection sharing with failover
- Branch interconnection
- Remote Access






If you have any additional information we should add I will add it.

This is somewhat difficult without using budgets. In the end everything the company will do IT related (if its not he nature of the business) will depend on the budgets set out.

- Email
- Shared Storage
- Backup
- Workstation Management (Laptops & Desktop)
- Shared Printer Management
- VOIP Phone routing
- INTERNET Connection sharing with failover
- Branch interconnection
- Remote Access
- Security (policies, firewalls, etc.)

I think these sets out the basics really well, but I would add security to this as well. If we can assume the company will grow to up to 20 people that fast, it would be much better to start out properly rather than investments done on IT being redundant too quickly.

Staff of <10
- Email
any cloud email should do.
- Shared Storage
backup onto cloud, use a separate pc as shared file server
- Backup
backup onto cloud, dropbox or google drive
- Workstation Management (Laptops & Desktop)
depends on policies, since there are no AD there has to be some guidelines
- Shared Printer Management
share printer on the file server, they would prob not have a bizhub. Or get a network printer
- VOIP Phone routing
would be good if you can incorporate with your service provider eg neotel maybe
- INTERNET Connection sharing with failover
same as above, 3G failover or another ADSL fail-over depending on needs
- Branch interconnection
not relevant yet
- Remote Access
can use separate PC to RDS too, or setup webdav for file-sharing over file server pc
- Security (policies, firewalls, endpoint, etc.)
- Software (ERP, CRM, CMS, depending on the needs of the business)

Staff of >20 - more future proof

I would much rather invest in a server here capable to handle at least 3 VM's

- Email
still use cloud or move to own hosting on a VM
- Shared Storage
setup AD vm that will also incorporate the file sharing, keep the shared files on the AD, everyone works onto that
- Backup
backup to the cloud or invest in a small NAS, or just normal hard drive backups for offsite.
- Workstation Management (Laptops & Desktop)
use the AD, setup proper group policies depending on the needs and securities. Limit users to keep it more secure
- Shared Printer Management
run via the AD VM, or network printer
- VOIP Phone routing
- INTERNET Connection sharing with failover
- Branch interconnection
now use a separate VM for the database that will have to be shared. I would rather setup a VPN that opening ports on the firewalls
- Remote Access
use the VPN and AD, can allow the shared files to work still.
- Security (policies, firewalls, etc.)
Have some security guidelines and policies set out. It would be wise to invest in firewall as well. Cyberroam.

This can be so much more in depth, it's better to use a SERVER when you need to start branching out.

 

[Thor]

/subscribe

 

[philaniH]

budget?