Staying networked on the cheap

WHAT with our Federal Treasurer exhorting us to boost confidence and prop up the national economy by draining our bank account, the small business that Bleeding Edge supports probably should have ventured into a proper client/server network, when it became obvious that our Windows XP peer-to-peer network was showing signs of strain.

Harris Technology, for instance, would have sold us a rugged HP ProLiant ML110G5 E2160 box, bundled with Microsoft Windows SBS Standard Edition R2, for a mere $1299.

Somehow, however, the fact that we'd bought the admittedly slower G4 predecessor last year for just $899, discouraged us. We'd used that particular box as an Asterisk server, handling all our incoming and outgoing VoIP calls, and slashing our telephone bill, rather than installing the server operating system.

What had troubled us then, and continued to discourage us, was the fact that Microsoft SBS would usher the business into the expense of outside support. Bleeding Edge doesn't have that sort of specialist network experience, and we didn't have the time to acquire it.

We weren't even convinced that a network of five or six computers, typical of a small business, and a surprising number of modern households, needed a client/server solution.

We continue to be amazed at the way small to medium businesses roll out Microsoft Exchange Server - part of the SMS suite - to manage their email. Exchange Server requires considerable experience and expense to maintain as a secure, spam-free and reliable email system.

By contrast, our business-class IMAP email service gives us better than 99.99per cent uptime, and filters out spam and viruses for a fraction of the cost. We can manage all the user accounts and complex things like archiving, from a simple web interface.

When we examined our network problem, we were convinced that it was the result of poor provisioning. Like most small business networks, ours had grown like Topsy, without proper planning. Now the allocated server/reception PC was taking too long to boot up and interfering with the other network nodes.

We were prepared to bet that a dedicated box to house all the user folders and the database for the primary network application would allow us to decrease the load on the reception PC, and simplify backing-up operations.

Fortunately, like many small businesses, we had a relatively modest computer that wasn't gainfully employed. We'd bought it through Grays Online auction site for about $650, and used it as a Linux box.

It would be a simple matter to reload Windows XP Professional. It had a 150GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM, which was perfectly adequate for our purposes. We could put it in the same cupboard as the Asterisk server, and hook it up to the same UPS.

Reinstalling Windows proved relatively simple, although it didn't pick up the Ethernet card. We solved that in a few minutes, by downloading the driver from Lenovo's comprehensive support site.

We didn't need a screen and keyboard or mouse for this box, because we were going to control it over the network with Remote Desktop. You can find out how to set that up at tinyurl.com/5o9hde

It's a surprisingly powerful feature, and particularly useful in a network scenario, because it can provide remote access to each computer from a central internal, and if necessary remote site.

Although you can theoretically secure Windows Remote Desktop, we're not convinced that it's completely fireproof, and we're reluctant to give hackers a potential window into an administrator account.

Instead we have two LogMeIn Pro accounts, at logmein.com - one of which we immediately transferred to the new office server. The other gets us into the main PC in the Bleeding Edge cave.

Each costs $US59.95 a year. We've found Logmein is a particularly secure way of accessing remote computers, and aside from giving you control of a PC, it also sets up a simple drag-and-drop file transfer window through a Firefox add-in.

Once we've logged on to the office server, we can control each computer on the network through remote desktop. That can save us an unnecessary trip to the office if someone fails to log off the central database, which stalls the backup routine.

Because we've set up a link on Firefox on the server to the Asterisk box, we can even monitor and control that box remotely.

Our new system has solved our network issues and allowed us to extract even more value from LogMeIn and Windows Remote Desktop.

We regard them as an essential part of a small system administrator's toolbox. Combined with a well-managed business-class email system, they can help cut IT costs to a minimum.

The economy, we're afraid, will have to look after itself.

Questions, comments to the Bleeding Edge blog at bleedingedge.com.au