Hello!

I am hoping some of you more experienced than I can help me make some decisions as to the direction to go with my situation. I work for a small company and one of my responsibilities it to manage our LAN. Currently we have about 30 computers set up in a peer-to-peer configuration with most running WinXp and some running Win98SE. The network is connected to a Sprint DSL box which also functions as our DHCP server. We have set up 3 main pc's as a form of "server" for lack of a better description. One is called FILESERVER and it is used by the front offices for the file storage they use and two shared printers are hooked to it. No programs run from that pc and it runs under Win98SE so that I can go don't have problems with how many people can access it at once. Another pc is called PRODUCTION and it also runs Win98SE and is used by the manufacturing division of our company for file storage of there programs only. Again, no programs run from that pc, only files are stored. Last, we have the ACCOUNTING pc and it hold our accounting program which other pcs with client software access. It is currently running Win98SE.

I would like to introduce a true server or servers into this system. I was thinking about Win 2000 or 2003 server, but I see that there are various versions of each and I need to figure which would be best for my needs. Can I use more than one server on my network? I would like to keep the ACCOUNTING pc separate and I can change it to use Win XP Pro since this will allow me to have 10 concurrent connections which is more than enough for that pc. But the FILESERVER and PRODUCTION pc will have many pcs mapped to them, so I feel I need a true server. Should I combine the FILESERVER and PRODUCTION into one pc and thus run just one server? I can do that and it might simplify my needs.

I don't ever expect our network to exceed 50 pcs. But I do want to have better security and prevention of some pcs accessing our FILESERVER and ACCOUNTING pcs. Over the years I've learned a lot about pcs and networking and I've gotten our current system working pretty good, but I want to get it more secure and update the software (away from Win98SE)

I would appreciate any advice or recommendations anyone might have as to a general direction I might explore. Once I know which way to go I can then really start working to get a deeper education in that specific area.

Than you in advance.

Ron

What it comes down to is budget....how big is yours?

Your best bet with this number of users is a Windows Active Directory Domain. This gives you centralized security and account management for users.

If it were me, I'd look at creating a domain with two DC's for redundancy. I would then have a 3'd server setup as a standalone (ie: not a DC) to host your FILESERVER and PRODUCTION files. It's easy enough to control access to the two separate sets of files. You would use groups and only allow the appropriate groups access to the appropriate shares.

example:
Group Name: F_Office
This group would have access to the FILESERVER folder and files but not have access to the PRODUCTION.

You would want to look at a second standalone server for your Accounting info and any other sensitive data such as company financial info, client info, staff/user info etc. This could be put on a separate network for security reasons and only the appropriate users would have PC's in that same network. This would prevent casual access from other network users.

So, in my example, you're looking at 4 servers minimum. You could do it with 3 by moving the Production/Fileserver info onto one of the two DC's. You could get away with 2 servers by having only one DC and one standalone. No matter what you do, you will really want sensitive financial data on it's own server and have it separated from the rest of the domain.

I would give serious thought to upgrading all client OS's to XP Pro if you go with a domain. You'll have a lot less hassles.

Or even with that amount of users, If no growth expected, Try looking a small Business Server 2003, If you go for the premium, then you'll have SQL, & ISA 2004 which would then act as your firewall, & the server can act as the DCHP, as secure as you want it. You'll get Exchange 2003 (All this for one box). You can then limit the files for Production to users in Procution, Acounts (etc..).