Setup my office Network

rterke

Reputable
Aug 14, 2014
2
0
4,510
Dear All,

We are a small embedded software development company (Practically a startup) and have about 7-8 Dell OptiPlex systems, currently working individually. For Internet we have Wireless router and 4 systems with web access are connected to it using Wifi dongle by Netgear. Our business is growing and so is the demand for more PC's and more features. I have gone through many post on many websites, even spoken to few vendors, but I am confused as every one wants to sell the idea what the believe in and most of the times I find it may not the best optimized (cost wise) option with scalability.

Some time back I bought a 16 channel netgear switch, which I never used till now. So for clarity can any one please explain what kind of networking with what kind of hardware and software should be good for us.

My requirements are:

Our ISP provides us 4Mbps speed and I have 2 such connections . If I need more I have add more and more connection , i.e. to say our ISP in our area cannot provide me more than 4Mbps speed per connection.

Currently we use Google email solution, but I like to have a system act as email server (don't want to invest in Big servers, though I have T1500 workstation by Dell).

We develop /write lot of technical data and want it to be accessible to every one, so I would also like to have a PC work as Storage server. If PC would not be a good idea then which entry level storage server should we use?

We have a permanent client / partner who needs to access our data, they are in different city, I need then to have access of my document resource pool, so Do I need an static IP for sure.

I read on one of the post about SonicWall TZ series system, where will it fit in my scenario, what else apart from cable's I would need.
What kind of software's , my systems are all with Preloaded Win7 professional.

My problem is I am an engineer with no experience on setting up a professional network and thus just going around in circles and not able to understand what to buy or do.

Regards
Abhinav


 
Solution
Ideally you should look to outsource your IT to a 3rd party company so they can do a proper site survey and recommend the best solution as well as support it. If you want to set up things like an on site email server etc then you will definitely need to go down this route.

In brief you will need to purchase a firewall i.e like the Sonicwall you mentioned. Load balance/failover the two internet connections you have. Configure a LAN interface on the Sonicwall and path this into your switch. You can then either set up a patch panel and have ports around the room or just connect PC's directly to the switch.

Next set would be to setup a server, initially a domain controller/file server. You will need to think about things like how much...

nimbah_52

Distinguished
Oct 9, 2011
127
0
18,710
Ideally you should look to outsource your IT to a 3rd party company so they can do a proper site survey and recommend the best solution as well as support it. If you want to set up things like an on site email server etc then you will definitely need to go down this route.

In brief you will need to purchase a firewall i.e like the Sonicwall you mentioned. Load balance/failover the two internet connections you have. Configure a LAN interface on the Sonicwall and path this into your switch. You can then either set up a patch panel and have ports around the room or just connect PC's directly to the switch.

Next set would be to setup a server, initially a domain controller/file server. You will need to think about things like how much storage you need, what kind of RAID you will be using and what kind of backup solution you will deploy. You will also need to thing about things like UPS in case of a power cut etc.

The above is literally the start of what you will need to do without even touching on external access and email servers etc.. I would definitely recommend outsourcing you IT to another company.
 
Solution