Discussion on:

10 things you should know about designing a small business network

Have you encountered obstacles in the planning or execution of any of these network design considerations? What other issues would you add to the list?

I would like to thank you so much for the valued information it was really good for me

thanx again

I've used SMEServer & ClarkConnect in small businesses to great effect.

VPN coupled with Remote Desktop access to their XP Pro PC's and web mail have provided these users with the services they need to do their work.

These systems can also be run 'headless' so that they can be tucked away in a corner in the back office. Useful when offices are tight for space.

I've used Win 2K3 Servers when businesses needed to have terminal services or other special requirements. Often because they have satellite offices or road warrior users.

It's important to remember that in order to avoid unnecessary call-outs, you should do the following:

1) Delegate / enpower the office manager to handle day-to-day tasks (backups, account mgt, printing, etc)
2) Enable remote access to your PC / Laptop (so you can fix minor issues on the fly)
3) Automate as many tasks as possible (updates, garbage collection, system checks, etc) and get the system to email you the results. That way you can pro-active with your system maintenance.

4) Always use a UPS unit. They are cheap and will save your bacon in the long run. If you can, put the Internet router & switch on it as well so that remote access can still be maintained.

Remember that they demand reliability from their systems and do not (usually) have an on-site IT engineer to help them.


Dom

I have a couple of clients who just have a box running XP (or 2000) as their server.

If you have 5 client PCs, use GoDaddy for $5/month for web & email, you really may not need any apps running on the server. So why not just get a $400 XP box (incl. UPS), and use Mozy ($5/mo for 30 Gb) for online backup, and you're good to go.

I agree it's good to have file and print services all served from 1 PC, but for a lot of very small businesses that's all they need.

Yes, if you know them and want to save a few bucks, go ahead and use Linux of FreeBSD, or whatever's your favorite. They all so file and print serving just fine.

Actually, in my experience, even XP (Pro) does a perfect job at this: I've never seen a crash in an XP box just running file & print services, and 1 GHz / 256 Mb is plenty, as long as you don't measure performance while you're logged in.

If you've never tried Mozy, do yourself a favor: by default, it wakes up every couple of hours and does an incremental backup to their servers in Berkeley. Throttling (my idea!), encryption, and all that stuff included. I'm very happy with it. FREE with 2 Gb for home use. Get an extra 250 Mb if you use this link: https://mozy.com/ref/VKXPV7

A lot of us are making good points for a p2p XP server etc. I
agree, as I stated in my last post, that in many cases that is fine
a small client. But, the debate is somewhat off. First thing
anyone does is ask the client their current needs and future
projections for growth. Then most would ask for a budget. If the
client says $1500 setup and done....here comes the p2p. If they
say $5000 finished and running then sell them an entry level
$2500 to $3500 server and some server based AV and install it
for within, or very close to the budget. The debate should not be
which is better...p2p or Server. It should be what does the client
want, need based on growth and budget, and wish for feature
wise.

I too agree that linux or a Mac server would be great (as I am a
mac fan) but, even in a 5 user shop their are great benefits to
using GP and server based Anti-Virus etc that are features a mac
server does not give you. I really wish someone would come out
with a GP app for a mac server so that I could control pc settings
from OS X. Now that is a dream.

razz

you said you wished that there was a app that would let you control pc setting from osx... and there is. it is called 'remote desktop connect' or 'rdc'. microsoft offers this mac application that allows you to use the remote desktop feature of windows server 2003, windows small business server 2003, and windows xp profesional. check it out. works like a charm.

Just to clarify, I said an app to provide Group Policy control, not
remote control. Remote Desktop while a wonderful tool, that yes
is available from the Mac side, is not a substitute for Group
Policy.

One of the biggest obstacles in a small office is the in-house "IT expert" who starts telling you how to do your job.

1/Support 10 XP Clients instead of 1 Server.
2/Files not centrally Saved
3/Spend more on Client PC's
4/Erratic Security
5/No RAID protection of data
6/No centralised printing.
7/No centralised Backups
8/Dificulty in monitoring backups
9/Extra expense if Company does grow.

I could go on and on but needless to say that any proponent of workgroups as a viable business solution is not involved in keeping their customers need's at the forefront of their mind.

As an on-site IT consultant I come across many clients with peer to peer networks set up by someone who is inexperienced. SBS 2003 is perfect for 1 to 75 client workstations. Why shouldn't the small businessman reap benifits that large businesses have enjoyed.

"SBS 2003 is perfect for 1 to 75 client workstations."

Sure. Just don't expose that delicate, vulnerable stack to the bad guys on the Internet. You'll be 0wned and spamming, and *you won't even know it*. Hardly anybody (one in half a million, reliable estimate) bothers to report spam any more, and the big ISPs don't even act on complaints.

Now consider, if the bad guy's trojan can send spam, he can just as easily steal your business data.

If you run a Microsoft office, you need a robust bastion host between you and the criminals.
Two, if possible. One to de-fang incoming hostile Web content, and another to proxy and de-fang email.

We will allways set up a hardened firwall on the perimiter with UTM for Spam/Virus/Phishing built in.

This will forward through a DMZ subnet to an external Network Card on Server and ISA will forward to an internal Card.
No direct routing between cards.

The Firewall will not be plugged to the same switch as the internal LAN as this allows a back door arround ISA (layer 2).
We see a lot of "IT Experts" doing this.

We run Anti Virus on Desktops/Server/SMTP.
Also SUS for ensuring updates and saving bandwidth.
Anti spyware on all Desktops.

We work too "you can never have to much protection for YOUR CUSTOMERS NETWORK".

PS;Do not sell SBS Standard as at some point you will need to manipulate a VPN product through the firewall and you will not have the customisation available in ISA.

i service a number of small non-profit groups in the DC area. They range in size from 2 to 50 employees. Most of them do not have a server, the larger ones have one or more servers. It is quite possible to use workgroups for those with 10 or fewer employees, and, in fact, I get fewer calls from those smaller non-profits without servers than those with. I'll generally set up one machine in the workgroups to act as a server, were all files are stored for ease of backup. If there is a central printer, it will be a networked enable printer or hang off another machine, generally the machine of the person who is deemed to use it the most.

I don't understand your comment os spending more on client PC's. With 10 full time employees, you are going to need 10 PC's whether or not you hae a server--an extra expense in and of itself.

If you are setting up the PC's yourself, there is no erratic security to speak of, since they willall have individual anti-virus and firewall protection along with the protection of the firewall built into the router. Anti-spam is generally handled by the ISP, but SpamBayes makes an excellent backup or primary anti-spam filter, etc.

Monitoring of the backup may be a problem, in that the employee in charge of the monitoring may not really pay attention to it, but since you have remote access enabled, yu can check the logs yourself as part of the service you offer them.

To RAID or not to RAID is always the question. One can have a RAID array in a workstation, and there are many servers out there without RAID. Sure it is easier to just slap in a new drive and let the array rebuild itself, but then it could take as long if no tlonger than hopping over there with a new hard drive, reinstalling the OS and running a restore.

If the organization does grow, adding s server is an added expense to be sure, but having a server prior tothe growth means that that expense, and more, has already been absorbed, and that expense could be holding the organization back from expansion to begin.

There are times, when a small organization may need a server to better serve their needs, and have less than 10 employees. That is a fact, but each organization must be looked at with a fresh view and the need for a server or lack of need must be determined.

RAID is not a luxury it is a requirement!

If you are supporting up to 50 users on a workgroup you are not advising your customers correctly.

I would recommend you look at the 70-282 Small Business Specialist exam to help you understand what is the basic requirement of a reliable network infastructure.

All businesses need a server. A peer to peer network belongs in the home. Businesses need to share more than internet and printers they have Line of Business (LOB) apps, accounting software, and company documents that often need to be shared. It is absurd to not have a fault tolerant central data store in a business. If you sell a client anything less then you are not serving your clients' best interests. Most businesses cannot survive without their data. The high failure rate of hard drives and power supplies is still a reality. Having critical company information spread across the network on individual PCs is a nightmare to even consider backing up. If you think that your customers will religiously backup every system every day you need to have your head examined. It is a simple group policy to redirect everyone's My Documents folder to a users folder on the SBS server. Every busines needs a server with at least mirrored hard drives, redundant power supplies, a good on site and off site backup solution and an engineer to monitor it all at least monthly. I agree with most everything else in your article. You've made some excellent points. However, ALL businesses need a server.

I agree with trevor. There's nothing more insecure than user docs scattered all over with no real backup plan in place. And besides not being able to survive without their data, if someone leaves the company, you may or may not ever find it all.

Now I would also agree a server with dual processors is a little overkill for an office of 5 people, so perhaps #1 should be "size hardware appropriately". Most 5 user offices also don't need a RAID5 array with 146Gb drives either.

Small business think they save money when they don't buy a server but the price of support is much higher with a peer to peer network. And you're never sure that everything is backup on the network.

It worth the change of server when you think about the cost for hard disk recovery service and the headache it give.

A right size server for a business is not very expensive. Don't try to have security like NASA just the essential (centralize docs, backup, RAID 1, firewall, AV) for the beginning and invest more later for more security. But always think in your plan that a business can expand even if they aren't supposed, many of them do.

I also agree with Trevor. At face value the article (which I enjoyed
by the way) has a point. I run across many Small 5 or 8 person
shops with p2p networks and they are able to work fine. They
only share a Quickbooks file and back it up daily to CD. It works
and they are happy with the system and its limits.

But, the question should not only be 'do they "need" a server'. In
looking at clients we must take into account the expandability
and growth potential of the company and system. While they
may not need it, an argument could be made that almost any
small business could see better office and LAN performance with
a server like SBS than in a p2p. Centralized user and permission
management. Support by contracted companies becomes VPN to
the server and Remote assistance or Remote Desktop the
workstations. Group Policy control comes into play for a better
working experience, control, and data protection with redirected
folders.. Most small companies can benefit from Public folders
such as a company wide contact list or calendar, internal email,
even (I am chocking as I write it but it is true) Sharepoint
Services. Email clients are easier to manage with the POP 3
downloader etc. Yeah, Dual Core Xeon may be over kill but after
talking with a client that says they have a 5 year plane to triple
growth and add 2 remote offices you may need to use a bit of
temporary overkill. ROI comes in many forms, communication
with employees and clients, faster response from data and
workstation hardware, better disaster plan for data. An SBS
server with an internal 40 or 72 DAT drive, maybe like the HP
internal USB DAT 72 can be as simple as the office manager
changing tapes each AM and taking the last one home.

Does every small 5 - 10 user shop need a server...no, and I
recognize that many will be fine that way forever. But should
most of them have one for the added productivity and
management benefits? I thinks yes.

razz

going to go against the grain here and slightily disagree with trevor.

i agree that all small businesses should have a server, with disk mirroring, etc, but i also see businesses point of view that until they reach 5 users + then its very hard to find the cash for such a move.

i agree if they find a good local IT company it is a good investment but thats not always easy. and even with sbs's wizards most will need quite a bit of support.

if a peer to peer network is used correctly, where one machine is allocated to be the data storage machine, it can serve the one man band quite well when he progresses to his first few employees.

An XP file server in a small business environment will inevitably be used as a workstation too. This is the worst possible scenario. Users break computers, period! Part of the point of a file server is to keep filthy user hands off of the data store. Users will open email attachements and browse to sites that will cripple your XP "server". The cost of SBS is only $300 (see viosoftware.com part #T72-00661-cdo) versus $100 for XP. Spend the money and keep users and their filthy habits away from the mission critical data. Imagine the downtime when you have to reload that corrupted system because you let a user use your server. P2P has no place in a business environment. Fault tolerance and server level security are not expendable, cost saving options. I won't put a bad solution in place for anyone regardless of their budget. Have the courage to say that you'll give them an appropriate server solution so that their business can succeed or that they can take their business elswhere.

While I'm ranting, don't you dare put a server in with a celeron or P4 processor. While they may not need the processing power of a Xeon, what you get when you sell them a Xeon processor is a server class motherboard. Workstation motherboards are for workstations. Cutting corners here will cause heartache.

Your small business customers don't want a server any more than they want to pay taxes and insurance. What they do want is for their business to run smoothly and that means minimizing downtime. You're just asking for trouble and downtime that is far more costly than doing it right from the beginning. You're not doing yourelf or your customer any favors to cut corners. Give them what they need not what they want, they will always want to spend less. Downtime is far costlier than the difference between an XP "server" and a real fault tolerant server.

ALL businesses need a server!

i'm a tech we've quite a bit of experience with 2-5 user businesses. i can appreciate the cost difference between xp and sbs, but it doesn't stop there does it. you inevitably get a higher spec machine for sbs and the biggest cost is normally the IT techs time in configuring, installing and support.

users get told to keep their 'filthy habits' away from the business pc's, although i generally put it in a slightly nicer way.

what you are saying is right in an ideal world, and i'm all for aiming that high. i think its going more that way since the success of sbs2003, but its difficult persuading the one man band that now he's taking his first employee on he needs to shell out for a server as well as a new workstation.

i do look forward to the time when i can work on servers permanently.

Ross,
If I may be so bold; been there done that. If you are supporting "one man band" businesses you are going to go insane and broke. They don't provide enough business to keep food on your table, they whine about every invoice, and they don't provide a consistant revenue stream. Begin to market your skills to businesses with 10+ or even better 20+. It will only take a couple of those customers to make your SMB consulting business thrive. You will need to provide them maintenance every month. Once you break into the 30+ market you'll be there 6-8 hours every week.

In the meantime checkout datapreserve.com and get your clients on an off site backup program and make certain that you are servicing your clients at least quarterly to verify backups, check for issues in the event log, run disk utilities like chkdsk and defrag and blow out the dust. Describe this to them as a 3,000 mile oil change. Check the belts, hoses, fluids, make reccomendations to improve their business performance and they will value your expertise and interest in their business.

Take some Microsoft cert classes and get the certs. A few years from now you'll be supporting longhorn SBS servers. you will have helped the "one man bands" to graduate to a 10 - 20 person company by understanding their business goals and prescribing technology solutions to help them acheive great sucess. Your reputation and profits will flourish. Grow your expertise in supporting servers and become a Microsoft Partner. Also check out SMBnation.com, I hope that it works out for you, good luck.