any advice, small lan question

[sambkk]

Hi everyone.
I have 2 lans both having roughly 8-10 pc's and laptops, with some printers,& scanners, internet (adsl) shared through a PC.
The networks are in 2 different cities.
the laptops (2-3) travel from time to time between the 2 networks.

Currently the networks are ok, some small issues surface now and then but normally I manage to make them "go away" in a matter of hours/days.

I am looking for some advice on how to improve the network, suggestions on hardware such as routers (in another thread a purchase of a router was suuggested) etc.. and mainly comments from people with experience in small netyworks as the one I have described and bigger ones.Especially interesting is any information relating to upgrading the number pc's and the issues to consider there.
I am also in the process of figuring out the miost effective way to back up all the data on the system. I am currently simply making copies of all data and outlook back ups of each pc on 1 specified hardisk, specifically set aside for this purpose.
Right nowe I am researching how to properly use norton ghost and go back and will most likely base my back up solution on those 2 products.
My experince does not include any networks bigger than this, so I would appreciate any advice I could get to help me aqvoid any critical oversights and ultimately problems for the people who need this network.

Thanks to everyone,
Sam

[mbossman2]

drop the PC as your internet gateway and go with a router. On the wireless component, you can either go with a wireless router or a wireless AP (Linksys makes good ones in all 3 categories: AP's, wired routers and wireless routers).

behind the router I would place a 12-24 port switch (depending upon your growth expectations).

For backups, I would recycle the former internet gateway PC and put one or (possibly) two large drives in it and use it as a central files server, with production files stored on it (rather than scattered around the network) and then backup that server instead of 8 or 9 individual backups...

[sambkk]

thanks for the reply.
your answer makes sense to me.
On another forum I was guided to have a look at the symantec LiveState Recovery suite of applications as an back up solution, do you have any experience on that?

"..the former internet gateway PC and put one or (possibly) two large drives in it and use it as a central files server, with production files stored on it (rather than scattered around the network) and then backup that server instead of 8 or 9 individual backups..."

by this would you mean that the users would actually retrieve the files that they work on off the server when working on any data and /or making changes on it? thus creating 1 location with all the current data and I would back this up?

In this case what would you suggest for an uniform backup policy for emails. currently I back up all outlook files periodically and store in 1 location.
Do you know if the outlook exchange server is something that could be used in this case? Any experinces with it?
I understand it is more or less a "central" outlook that all the incoming and outgoing emails pass through and are distributed respectively across the network to the correct recipients. I am not sure but I imagine that each work station would still run an individual outlook for sending and receiving but thye back ups could be done from one location?
Thanks for the comments so far moose, they have been helpful.
Sami

[mbossman2]

On another forum I was guided to have a look at the symantec LiveState Recovery suite of applications as an back up solution, do you have any experience on that?

no, not really...


by this would you mean that the users would actually retrieve the files that they work on off the server when working on any data and /or making changes on it? thus creating 1 location with all the current data and I would back this up?

yes...

In this case what would you suggest for an uniform backup policy for emails. currently I back up all outlook files periodically and store in 1 location.
Do you know if the outlook exchange server is something that could be used in this case? Any experinces with it?
I understand it is more or less a "central" outlook that all the incoming and outgoing emails pass through and are distributed respectively across the network to the correct recipients. I am not sure but I imagine that each work station would still run an individual outlook for sending and receiving but thye back ups could be done from one location?
Thanks for the comments so far moose, they have been helpful.
Sami

Instead of storing emails locally, you can limit the size of the main email box for users and store on the server, with the option of creating a 2nd email box that is stored locally...exchange handles this quite nicely....

[sambkk]

Hi thanks for the comments moose,
one more question about the exchange server, backing up the emails, could this be done of the server? I mean the 2nd mailboxes you mentioned, will they be copies of emails existing on the server or would these emails have to be backed up locally?
thanks
Sami

[mbossman2]

yes, they can be backed up off the server.

as to the local boxes, these would have to backed up locally so a certain amount discipline would be necessary about what emails are kept server based and which ones would be kept locally. You can control that to a certain extent by manipulating the server mailbox size. As an example, my company allows for 350mb sized mailboxes and if I flush unnecessary emails every 90 days or so I have no issues