Networking - good practice?

[Mainframeguy]

Hey guys - in the context of this thread I have managed to squeeze out the information that for my final interview I'll probably be asked two things, one will be to go through a set of acronyms explaining what they stand for or mean (like IP address, HTML that sort of thing) and the other will be to explain how I would advise in a situtatin where an organisation is moving on from a standalone machine and say they want a network.

Now that is a pretty open ended question.

I would be aiming to try to cover good practices in the process and thought I would canvas opinions and input here as a way of mulling things over and a kind of "revision".

Some things I know already (though they may be open to question or debate):-

Start from the budget, expectations, and need. Sharing a printer and internet access via a router seem sommon sense. Consider the effect on budget if software is to be server licensed.

A server is surely a very good start point - would a network without one have so much value? Is a samba server a valid option, even if all clients are M$ based?

Ensure there is a network chart as part of plan, ports are numbered, a naming standard for machines (some of these considerations in case in future there are other offices or networks interlinked).

What sorts of things am I missing or need covering here?

All input from the considerable experience out there - but remember this is in a voluntary sector situation and not a commercial one.

 

[Electronic Punk]

What are the requirements? Is it a domain?

 

[falconguard]

Network type, bus, ring, mesh? Will wifi be added or incorporated at a later date?

 

[Mainframeguy]

yeah I meant to mention the wifi and domain aspects (probably stick with workgoup to start with)....

Not usre if I made it clear enough - but this is an open ended question... I really do not know the exact parameters and they may or may not be defined, so just looking for generic sorts of pointers (EG: Samba server will prohibit M$ based server email like exchange)

 

[Electronic Punk]

Well I am sure Samba would quite happily deal with dhcp, dns, file sharing and perhaps even printer sharing.

 

[fitz]

well, having a workgroup instead of a domain prevents using exchange (at least, to it's full potential)

 

[unknownsoul]

What about internet connection? does it need as close to 100% uptime as possible? what about redundancy in both the server(s) and the internet connection. I know that is largely based on budget, but as the network grows, will it need to incorporate those things?

 

[LordOfLA]

Don't assume a network must have a dedicated "server" by default. Most SME's don't need such a network. Most can have a workstation act as a server, say the bosses higher spec machine.

Most UK SME's also have a workstation per employee and don't need the roaming profiles that an AD network would provide.