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networking 2 building

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by den inc.

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Hi,

i have a customer who wants to network two of his branches (about 250KM apart) and wants me to do it. He's requirements are just that the staffs are able to share information and database.
I thought of VPN but I don't really know where and how i should start. Any tips?

And.. aside from VPN is there some other technology I could you. I'm kinda new in VPN..

7 replies

by cg it

there are a bunch of different ways to do this. Each carries it's own price tag. So for starters, how much $$ is available to implement this pretty much will determine how to go about it. Most managers will say as cheap as possible but if you do that, cheap can turn into expensive. Users who need to do their work by accessing shared information cant access it because of down links or slow links, that costs $$ in productivity.

by cg it

to add, there is dedicated lines between sites which assures a connection [but at a high monthly price]. Good if many users will access other sites or large amounts of data need to pass between sites. There is business level DSL which is lower in cost that a dedicated line and allows a business to use the internet [hense VPN] to allow users to access company shares in remote sites. The draw back here is available bandwidth and # of users who will be accessing shares.

These are just 2 forms of remote access for connecting sites together. Another aspect to take in consideration is your existing network and its structure such as a Windows Active Directory based network. Depending upon the # of users and if they are members of the domain, might require having a local DC Global Catalog server [which requires replication to other sites and the requires bandwidth] plus users access remote sites via VPN and all other internet related traffic.

by cg it

I added in a comment similar to synergy but for some odd reason it didn't show up.

recap: there are dedicated lines [T1,T3, fractional T1, OC3,] that can handle large data transfers from large #s of users. These carry a hefty monthly fee depending upon how much bandwidth you need. Normally large businesses such as insurance companies that regularly transfer large amounts of data from many different sites into a large data use dedicated lines.

There are business class DSL lines that come with different upload/download speeds. Again depending upon how much data or how many users are going to transfering data across the WAN link determines what to get. The business class DSL is less expensive than a dedicated [except for the high end DSL which is just below a low T1.

by curlergirl

CGIT has the basics right, but there are some specifics you need to consider. A lot depends on the level of use - are they just going to occasionally download/upload documents and email, or do they need a full-time, real-time connection?

VPN over a broad band connection alone is viable as a solution for this situation only of the usage is going to be casual, occasional sharing of documents and download of email and such. Otherwise, a full-time, real-time connection with multiple users would require a T1 line to attain anywhere near reasonable speed.

A good alternative at a fairly reasonable price might be a terminal server solution of some kind. This would be MS Terminal Server alone or augmented by Citrix Server. Depends on how many users/how sophisticated you want to be, security considerations, cost considerations, etc. Microsoft TS is fairly low-cost, not as secure as Citrix. Pretty good for the basics, though, and using a VPN connection over broadband and then connecting to the terminal server is pretty secure. Speed should be acceptable, providing they use SDSL (synchronous upload and download, get the highest speed available in your area). They both require a fairly robust server hardware configuration, depending upon the no. of users and their level of use - database users would be ranked as highly resource intensive.

Hope this helps!

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