GOALS

A rural construction company needed to upgrade to a network. They built addition to facility for staff growth and needed several workstation computers networked, a server as a central location for company data and shared files, unattended backup, Internet access, Internet email accounts and shared access to printers.

OBSERVATION

The present system had 3 computers running Windows 95 on a peer to peer network for file and print sharing. A decision was made to not use the 3 existing computers due to their age. The office was in remote area and so cable or dsl was not available for Internet access.

SOLUTIONS

The office was newly wired with Cat5 Ethernet cable drops to each users work area prior to the installation of the new computers. The installation included new Dell Power Edge server with Windows 2000, 5 Dell workstations with Windows XP, 16 port switch, Router, 56k external modem and 3 Lexmark printers. Company applications were installed on the server for shared access by all workstations and the printers were installed and shared out to workstations. An Earthlink ISP dial-up account was setup for access to the Internet which was then connected via the modem and then through the router coupled into the switch which shared the connection to all the workstations. The Earthlink account included 8 e-mail accounts which were configured for each individual user. Finally Arcserve 2000 was installed on the server along with Seagate 20 gig backup drive for unattended backups. The system has run now for several months with no interruptions in connectivity.