I just inherited a network that consists of 10 desktops, one server, a switch and a modem/router, two network printers and a canon network copier. The server is new (SBS2003) and has been used primarily as a trophy for the office. They don’t know anything about it and they aren’t using it for anything except to confuse things.
The office has finally realized that they could be doing a lot with the server, but they don’t know where to start. Well, neither do I.
How do I get a good grasp of what’s going on with these guys in order to plot a path to improved service?
They are using Mailstreet for Hosted Exchange with e-mail forwarding through goDaddy, but their office connection is through their phone system, netcom. Needless to say they want to run their own Exchange server to share calendars and such and they want to be able to access their office from home
Netcom is promoting VPN, but I think that’s overkill for these guys. I would like to make remote login to the office network as similar as possible to their login AT the office.
Since they are setup with a star-network, they all get IP addresses from netcom (including the printers and the copier)and they all login/store files on their local desktops.
Right now they scan documents on the Canon copier, then walk to a specific desktop to e-mail their scans to themselves (rather than accessing the files from a network share or anything logical like that).
I want to set things up correctly, but don’t know where to start and what all needs to be taken into consideration so that nothing is lost and everyone is happy.
Any advice for resources or direction would be greatly appreciated. I’ve setup a couple of networks before, but that was from scratch. These guys have adapted to life without a server and are pretty entrenched in the way things work currently. (not that they like it)
Thanks in advance for any advice.
jase
P.s. Did I mention that this is the office of a high-powered criminal defense attorney who doesn’t know a thing about computers? Or was that obvious when I mentioned “trophy server”