Best Choice for Small Business Network

[Ellen]

Hey all,

I've got a customer with a small publishing biz.. his IT infrastructure is a mess. Owner has been using friends to do cabling and phone work - nothing is labeled, extra cable everywhere, daisy chained routers and switches and patch panels hanging loose. He has two home PCs set up as his "network".. they have 5 different domains but no coherent email solution and they are in an old, old building (no drop ceilings, concrete walls) so it's a pain to run cable to server closet downstairs. They have 5 computers upstairs, 2 downstairs and two huge Xerox printers downstairs.. owner wants all 7 computers to be able to access all printers, share files, with each employee needed a domain email address and internet access.. Finally, of course, he's on a tight budget.

I'm thinking about either Small Business Server 2003 or some kind of wireless network. I'd love to get your input.. What would you all recommend to this customer?

[mikepsych283]

Yeah every customer always puts the tight budget squeeze on us so that we can try to work miracles. Well I would draw up to 2 to 3 different plans even if one plan if your not comfortable running cable , bringing in someone to run cable .( of course I would hire that person and they would work for me ) .I have run cable in some of the hardest and easily what I thought at 1st was impossible we got it done. But where ever you can run cable I would and make the rest wireless. As far as for domain , why does each person need their own domain could you just create user groups and assign each person with particular rights to that group. Just throwing out some ideas and as far as for 2003 server not a bad choice I'm so old fashion I like win 2000 but I will use what the customer ask for .

[hawks5999]

Get quotes to run cable to each station and then get quotes to run 2 lines out that you can place access points on. Then figure out the cost for wireless NICs in each machine (I'd do 802.11g throughout - if budget was no sweat then do draft-N throughout).

Definitely SBS2003 or wait for SBS2008. Good idea would be to do SBS2003 with SA and then you can push them up to 2008 at your leisure. You look like a hero cause you get them working now and they get the upgrade at only the cost of your time. You can probably bet they don't have a consistent Office installed as well. Open Value Subsription is the best way for them to get standardized across OS/Office on all systems.

Send me an email or PM as I'm a reseller for Microsoft and get you a good price quote.

[Ellen]

Mike/Hawk, thanks for your thoughts, truly appreciate it. Hawk, I'll give you a shout if client decides to go with SBS..

ellen