there are two schools which are involved in a cooperative links program throughout the senior school. the linkage so far is not working as well as expected due to lack of communication and technology for the two schools to function cooperatively. In the following days i need to plan a improvement of the cooperative liks with two schools. There are two LAN networks operating separately and need to merge and work together to form a WAN. The main purpose of the network is sharing the data (eg. student report, attendance, timetable) All nodes of schoolA and schoolB go to each school's central point. SchoolA has a 3X24 port 10/100 switch (stacked)in library and 1X8 Fibre 8 CAT 5 switch in maths staff room. SchoolB has Internet Gateway Router and ISDN connection. 1. in this case, what additional hardware and software i need? 2. how to setup a WAN for two schools? 3. what program can be used to communicate between two school LAN. 4. are there anything else i should pay attention to?? Thanks you. Sue

Okay, you are physically separated. Your only reasonably priced option is to create a virtual link between the two locations over the Internet and simulate a LAN connection (a Virtual Private Network, VPN). For this, you will need two routers (one for each site), which has VPN capability. The configuration for VPN is fairly straightforward. In the routers, you can enable the VPN. The two routers both need an Internet connection. You will need two static IP addresses, again one for each site. When you enable VPN on both routers, they will connection and create the equivalent of a static route of encrypted traffic. The complete VPN functionality is contained within the two routers. No other software or hardware is needed for a VPN.

How far apart are the two schools? Are they connected right now with that ISDN line then? When you say they have to share reports, attendance, etc, are those files sitting on a server at one of the computers? I guess I'm wondering if you would consider one of these schools the "main" school, and the other one needs to access the first one. You said School B has an "Internet Gateway Router." Do both schools currently have Internet access? If Internet access is part of the mix, then you have to be concerned with making sure your network is protected from the outside world. I guess I just answered your questions with a bunch of my own.

Thanks for answering my questions! that helps me a lot. i can give more details. SchoolA is a boys' high school and SchoolB is a girls' High School. they just positioning next to each other. the only gap between them is a play ground. two school are involved in a cooperative links program. some boys come to girls' school study, and some girls come to boys' school study. Due to the lack of communication and technology, the data (timetable, attendance and student report) is hard to share. So now I need to find a way to solve the problem. Thanks for helping me agian~ ^-^

last question: do i need a network adapter? if yes,then how many i need? thanks you

"the only gap between them is a play ground." Consider planning a Cat6 shielded cable line between the two buildings in the future (or at minimum a Cat5e unshielded line). Until then, the VPN is the absolute easiest way if both buildings have Internet access. You can also have a two wireless routers to bridge the gap, but the Cat6 would be more reliable with higher bandwidth.

Yes. both of schools have Internet access. And yesterday, I saw a infomation about Novell's Netware. do i need to buy this software to build VPN?thanks you