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by vanalex

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I was hoping I could get some help from the consultants on the forum =).

I just changed from being a trainer to a consultant (small time =) ).
I just received my first project and I have no ideia of how much I should charge, I'm not in the US oreurope but any estimate in Dollars or Euros would give me an ideia of where to start.

Ok the project is to implement a network for 30 hosts on a furniture store/wharehouse. Install two 2K servers, both AD DCs with EXch2K and MSN IM, DNS, WINS, DHCP, NAT,Sotware mirror, standart security considerations and service pack/hot fix instalation.

I'm not buying or installing the cabling or hardware so I'll be only doing the software part and all the decisions on what systems to install and hardware to buy.

Any thoughts?

A single 48 port Switch would be enough for this network? (no need for subnets I think)

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by timwalsh

Getting a cost "guesstimate" from anyplace outside your region will do you absolutely no good.

My telling you that my company charges $125/hour (in California, USA) for my time for such services does you no good if the prevailing rate for your region is less than one third of that (for example). Your best bet will be to determine what are the prevailing rates for similar service in your area, and go from there. FYI, if you will be installing and configuring all the software yourself, you are easily talking 2-3 weeks of work (this is assuming workstation installation/configuration as well).

As for the switch question, while a 48-port switch will handle the number of users you have, you also need to take into account the physical topology of the wiring infrastructure. Don't forget that the maximum physical run for Cat5 cable is 100m from network device to network device (switch to switch, or switch to NIC). It might make more sense (and make the wiring easier) if you use multiple, smaller switches. If users will be somewhat clustered, you might consider placing a small workgroup switch in the middle of the cluster and then running a single cable from the workgroup switch back to the main switch (instead of having a single star topology, you end up with a cluster of stars connected to a central switch), rather than having individual (possibly long) cable runs from each workstation to the main switch.

Hope this helps

by vanalex

Hey in fact it does help me since in the third world country I'm living in every thing is double of the price in a normal country =) ..... Unfortunatly also my expenses, eg. just payed 5000 USD for furniture for two in a small office, nothing fancy trust me =(.

The switch comment also helped and i?ll probably follow your advice and implement switch to switch connections or switch to Hub.

Once again thanks

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