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Building a Network from the ground up.

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by snsavage

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I have been put in change of building a network for a new company. They will have 4 computers on the network for to start and this number will grow significantly over the nect 5 years to about 50 users. The company would like to host thier own e-mail, as well as, have files, a database, and printers centrally localed on thier LAN. The files that will be stored will be high sensitive so I am concerned about security. Should I set up one server inside the firewall to do all of these functions, or should I have one server inside of the firewall to take care of file serving, database, and printers, and a server outside of the firewall to handle e-mail. Thanks.

6 replies

by ewgny

You may want to consider having all services inside of the private network, and using ISA server to "publish" any services needed externally. Visit www.isaserver.org to read about topology and publishing strategies.

by cg it

Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition. Comes with ISA server 2000 [though 2004 is out]. SBS 2003 will handle up to 75 connections [workstations, member servers], premium edition comes with exchange 2003, outlook 2003, SQL server and as I mentioned ISA server and is designed for "All on one Box" solution [though I would have SQL server on its own box].

ISA server can address all your security concerns [Microsoft claims a properly configured ISA has never been compromised] BUT I would opt for a layered approach with a PIX 505 between the public and ISA.

If you go with ISA 2004, it runs best as a stand alone [on its own box] perimeter firewall running multiple NICs [3 or more].

by cg it

I've run SBS 2000 with ISA 2000 and SBS 2003 with ISA 2004. SBS 2003 and ISA 2004 is more non tech user friendly [lots of wizards do the work] BUT, ISA can be tricky to configure for email. ISAserver.org is a great site to get info on how to configure 2004.

An added benefit of SBS2003 is that it comes with Sharepoint Servcies. SBS 2003 has its own internt web site via Sharepoint which makes collaboration a heck of a lot easier and further comes with Outlook Web Access for those travelling.

All in all SBS 2003 premium edition @ $1,500 with 5 CALs is a good investment imo. CALs can be purchased for about $175.00 to $250.00 for a pack of 5 or higher for packs of 25. Best to use the per server licensing mode [per computer connection].

by snsavage

Here are the ideas that I came up with. Which would be best.

DSL -> Smooth Wall Firewall -> Linksys Swith -> SBS 2003 Server Connented to Gigabit link and other computers on 10/100Mbps

-or-

DSL -> Smooth Wall Firewall -> SBS 2003 with ISA -> Linksys Swith -> Other Computers

The server with be serving e-mail/exhange, file, and print services. I also thought of using a VN Router instead of the Smooth Wall Firewall.

by cg it

I won't suggest a brand of firewall because everyone has merits and everyone has drawbacks.

Heres our setup dual DSL connections with symantec gateway model 360. our SBS 2003 domain network with ISA 2000 is connected to the gateway appliance via the 1st WAN NIC on the SBS server. Our LAN segments are on Cisco Catalyst manged switches [2 stacked] which connects to the second LAN NIC on the SBS server. All workstations run XP Pro SP2 with the security center firewall enabled and use those with internet access rights use ISA server firewall client program to access ISA server. We filter those who do not have internet access rights with Group Policy and not install ISA server firewall client program on those machines. For Antivirus protection, we run Norton Corporate Antivus 8.1 across the network.

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