So, since you know so much about the technology purchased, how it was implemented, and who was involved - drop by! Once you show them your role, you're in the best possible place to argue for and recieve cash and stock in the new company. I know it sucks, but some times it'll all work out in the end.
So you need to look at a VoIP PBX / phone setup with a built in switch - think a 3Com NBX plus 3000 series phones. Then you would attach the local workstation to the phone. Wifi isn't going to work for everyone, but until then, use the PBX as the reason to run Cat5 for something. Any phone location then becomes a phone + network location. PoE switches from Linksys are the best bang per buck, but keep in mind the power load on the switches isn't expandible like more expensive switches. Wifi will cover lots of people, but in the end the wired workstations will be the least troubled.
Also, do what you can to cut back on cross building traffic. Make sure each building has a local print server, and locate user files closest to the users that will access them. Sending a 100mb print job to the copier around the corner shouldn't involve data leaving the building.
If its all in one complex see about the options to having fiber pulled inside existing conduits. Otherwise it's time to justify the cost over a number of years, and allow for a redundant pathing setup & better hardware. Do 3 links and run OSPF on the back side - that way you're safe in the event of one link failure. Also consider CanoBeam (Canon) free air optics http://www.usa.canon.com/html/industrial_canobeam/ canobeam/canobeam130.html which may also work better for you, depending on needs.
Keep in mind that fog and tall buildings can impact performance on laser based systems, but compare this to everyone 's wifi APs as background noise. Just make sure to go to either licenses bands or the 5.8ghz range if you go the radio path.
So here's 7 things I can say as to why I deploy all new systems as VM's:
1) Upgrading / retiring a server? Set up the new box, install VMWare, shut down VM on old server, copy files, bring VM up on new server - it never will know the difference (and this is without a SAN!) Got a SAN - VMotion the VM to a new server -0- (zero) downtime.
2) Custom app you only want to setup one and forget it! Great Plains, vendor platforms, your monitoring and cacti box. Set it up in a VM and let it live. You're never going to reinstall the box, so why put it on a box you may have to reinstall
3) Backups of a physical server suck. Think, with the box running, you can snap a fully functional complete disk image and move it offsite via nfs, cifs, ftp. If there is ever an issue, you roll back to that snap shot and it's just as if the server had a bad shutdown. No bare metal recovery that takes hours and hours. We're talking minutes (in a SAN enviroment).
4) Need a server to test something - create it! Setup anything you want in a VM - it doesn't care. Don't like it? Delete it! Need more power? Move it! Take it home with you for the weekend? Install player on your laptop and take the files with you!
5) Big hardware is better hardware. Running an enterprise on comsumer gear with a special sticker on the front is just bad. Enterprise grade servers are beaten into submission and have the best possible components. Dell has been known to hault production of a platform if a vendor's component fails during testing (the PE 4400's had this issue ~4 years ago). Using VMWare you can buy 2-3 big servers, rather than the 5-10 pc servers. Get 8-16gb of RAM per system. Get larger hard drives, and not waste so much space.
6) Isolate those apps. Sometimes its just better to let each application server have it's own OS instance. That way if you ever need to, you can replace them without having to worry that some interdependancy on the box will cause failures.
7) Its good to be green - think of the power savings when your entire enterprise is running on 1/10th the hardware. Using a performance SAN and a bunch of DL585's I can't think of a company under 10,000 people who can't run off of 1 racks worth of servers. Think about it - thousands of users, 100 server, in one rack. I have clients that are in the 50-100 user range running on 2 DL385's or PE2850's.
1) It doesn't matter if you use SCSI or FC - if it's connected via iSCSI that will be your bottle neck. 2gb / 4gb Fiber Channel will give you the perf that iSCSI won't. Eiter way spend the money on good HBA's, and get a spare
2) If it's not something you're already fimilar with, you should spend the money and get a box from EMC and let them deal with it. Yes, some times its worth spending the money on. They show up to swap out any "issue" component, and things keep going. The CX300 is where you're looking to be - everything else on the market is going to be bigger (more disks, more features, more $)
3) If you're looking for ideas to make it a "cheap" solution, the XServe RAID is the cheapest way to get into a small SAN. It's $17,000 for 7TB raw disk, redundant components, and Applecare. It's all SATA / FC stuff, but it just works.
4) Server Virturaliation - if you're not already using it, consider the impact of it with this storage array. Look at VMWare ESX - VMotion is a beautiful thing, but costly. This is where your HCL list should drive your spending.
5) How are you going to backup this thing? It's easy to have 2-5tb of spinning disk, but you still have to have a backup plan. Maybe buy one that's 2-5tb now and get the 5-20tb one in a few years, moving your existing SAN into a backup type role.
Why recreate the wheel, the issue that causes Cisco and related products to cost so much is the interface cards. Unless you can source your OC-3 card cheaper, it's not going to matter what software you run on it.
So I have one, or better a client has one, which I had to crack open to see inside. Nothing special, just a Soekris.com net4521 with a different serial header (not rotated 90). Toss in a flash card and a pcmcia card and you can make your own with Metrix Pebble. The reason someone would buy a Junxion is not for style - it's plain "time to make it" vers "money to buy it" logic.
I have used ICS + a Belkin Travel router (in AP mode) to accomplish the same thing. King County Metro (bus service) has free wifi while on the bus, via a Junxion box and Sprint cell service.
I checked the list before posting, but yes, the Infrant boxes are the best. Go for the X6 - it adds external disks via the previously existing 2 USB ports. In addition it supports rsync, and will backup itself if requested.
Take a flash drive running Linux + the Linux version of this, and boot a Windows VM. You could even do it in an encrypted partition so you really could have a high security self contained Win32 enviroment;)
There is a missing piece to this puzzle, and it would greatly help us propose solutions. There were 3 companies before, what software licenses did they already have. Do you already have an Exchange license, or 5 copies of Novel 6.5, or a bunch of Mac's?
This needs to be taken as two pieces. What is your desktop platform, and what can you do to make that desktop the most secure and provide the most services to your company. Why do some people implement Exchange when there are OSS products out there? Easy, Exec's like those fancy pda phones that can get their emails and calendar from anywhere (and it replaces laptops).
Find out what the business needs are, figure out what you have, then look at the software that will support that. -Joe
It'll get you a huge discount on software purchases. Honestly, keep a Windows Server around, install NAV Enterprise, and keep things clean and small. If you get the chance, move to Virtual Server or VMWare so you can do seperate servers but without having to but extra hardware.
1) It'll run on anything - Win32, Linux, BSD, Solaris, x86, XServers, Alphas, Power5 2) It'll scale as big as you can dream - over 5 million accounts with clustering 3) MAPI support
USB and Firewire have taken the high road to expanding a computer without having to add another PCI card. The reasons the Cube failed are price point, and there wasn't much in USB/FW devices, vendors just didn't get it. The reason the Cube beats the Mini is that the Cube has an actual AGP card, so upgradeable graphics.
Just as with x86 desktops & servers, how often do you do an upgrade? Add more memory and replace the video card after a year so you can play the lastest game. But for $500, who cares, go buy another one:-p
Depending on how much data you're looking to backup and what data you're looking to grab, Ultrabac has agents for Exchange, Sql and such. The cool thing is that you should be able to backup to a local tape, and also ftp off the stuff you'd consider most important. ~$200 / month for a box with a raid5 set of 250gb drives sitting in colo that's all pull (internet to box).
Dlink has a product, DSA-3100 that would take a DSL connection and provide a "trusted" network segment, and an untrusted segment. Toss any AP into this "untrusted" network and attach the reciept printer, and there you have a "push a button" reciept that would have login and password info, so as to limit someone to a time you determine.
ZyXel's solution is a lot less configurable, but a little cheaper.
In the end, you need io ask yourself to what level do you want to support this coffee shop, and what would happen in the event that the PC running this place died the night before a final;)
While I know the pain of reinstalling, some times it just works better. For doing backups of one machine, where as I want to upgrade my drive, Ghost 2004 has a few slick features. Install it under Windows, tell it what drives you want to back up and where to (cd-r/rw & dvd-+r/rw drives supported, including disk spanning). Machine reboots, and runs it's backup. To restore, put in disk 1. It's that slick.
While it wouldn't have allowed all workstations back online, throwing down a Cisco WiFi network within the buildings to create an "emergancy network" would have taken a number of hours, and gotten enough of the net back to allow for patient tracking and record keeping.
First one to say security would have been broken in a short time evidently hasn't used the automated rolling WEP implementation Cisco has.
I'm supprised Cisco didn't have a LAN/WAN setup in a crate, complete with servers to handle the authentication, sitting somewhere ready to deply in an emergancy (think 9/11).
Slashdot Mirror
So, since you know so much about the technology purchased, how it was implemented, and who was involved - drop by! Once you show them your role, you're in the best possible place to argue for and recieve cash and stock in the new company. I know it sucks, but some times it'll all work out in the end.
So you need to look at a VoIP PBX / phone setup with a built in switch - think a 3Com NBX plus 3000 series phones. Then you would attach the local workstation to the phone. Wifi isn't going to work for everyone, but until then, use the PBX as the reason to run Cat5 for something. Any phone location then becomes a phone + network location. PoE switches from Linksys are the best bang per buck, but keep in mind the power load on the switches isn't expandible like more expensive switches. Wifi will cover lots of people, but in the end the wired workstations will be the least troubled.
Also, do what you can to cut back on cross building traffic. Make sure each building has a local print server, and locate user files closest to the users that will access them. Sending a 100mb print job to the copier around the corner shouldn't involve data leaving the building.
If its all in one complex see about the options to having fiber pulled inside existing conduits. Otherwise it's time to justify the cost over a number of years, and allow for a redundant pathing setup & better hardware. Do 3 links and run OSPF on the back side - that way you're safe in the event of one link failure. Also consider CanoBeam (Canon) free air optics http://www.usa.canon.com/html/industrial_canobeam/ canobeam/canobeam130.html which may also work better for you, depending on needs.
Keep in mind that fog and tall buildings can impact performance on laser based systems, but compare this to everyone 's wifi APs as background noise. Just make sure to go to either licenses bands or the 5.8ghz range if you go the radio path.
So here's 7 things I can say as to why I deploy all new systems as VM's:
1) Upgrading / retiring a server? Set up the new box, install VMWare, shut down VM on old server, copy files, bring VM up on new server - it never will know the difference (and this is without a SAN!) Got a SAN - VMotion the VM to a new server -0- (zero) downtime.
2) Custom app you only want to setup one and forget it! Great Plains, vendor platforms, your monitoring and cacti box. Set it up in a VM and let it live. You're never going to reinstall the box, so why put it on a box you may have to reinstall
3) Backups of a physical server suck. Think, with the box running, you can snap a fully functional complete disk image and move it offsite via nfs, cifs, ftp. If there is ever an issue, you roll back to that snap shot and it's just as if the server had a bad shutdown. No bare metal recovery that takes hours and hours. We're talking minutes (in a SAN enviroment).
4) Need a server to test something - create it! Setup anything you want in a VM - it doesn't care. Don't like it? Delete it! Need more power? Move it! Take it home with you for the weekend? Install player on your laptop and take the files with you!
5) Big hardware is better hardware. Running an enterprise on comsumer gear with a special sticker on the front is just bad. Enterprise grade servers are beaten into submission and have the best possible components. Dell has been known to hault production of a platform if a vendor's component fails during testing (the PE 4400's had this issue ~4 years ago). Using VMWare you can buy 2-3 big servers, rather than the 5-10 pc servers. Get 8-16gb of RAM per system. Get larger hard drives, and not waste so much space.
6) Isolate those apps. Sometimes its just better to let each application server have it's own OS instance. That way if you ever need to, you can replace them without having to worry that some interdependancy on the box will cause failures.
7) Its good to be green - think of the power savings when your entire enterprise is running on 1/10th the hardware. Using a performance SAN and a bunch of DL585's I can't think of a company under 10,000 people who can't run off of 1 racks worth of servers. Think about it - thousands of users, 100 server, in one rack. I have clients that are in the 50-100 user range running on 2 DL385's or PE2850's.
There are item specific bits to consider on this.
1) It doesn't matter if you use SCSI or FC - if it's connected via iSCSI that will be your bottle neck. 2gb / 4gb Fiber Channel will give you the perf that iSCSI won't. Eiter way spend the money on good HBA's, and get a spare
2) If it's not something you're already fimilar with, you should spend the money and get a box from EMC and let them deal with it. Yes, some times its worth spending the money on. They show up to swap out any "issue" component, and things keep going. The CX300 is where you're looking to be - everything else on the market is going to be bigger (more disks, more features, more $)
3) If you're looking for ideas to make it a "cheap" solution, the XServe RAID is the cheapest way to get into a small SAN. It's $17,000 for 7TB raw disk, redundant components, and Applecare. It's all SATA / FC stuff, but it just works.
4) Server Virturaliation - if you're not already using it, consider the impact of it with this storage array. Look at VMWare ESX - VMotion is a beautiful thing, but costly. This is where your HCL list should drive your spending.
5) How are you going to backup this thing? It's easy to have 2-5tb of spinning disk, but you still have to have a backup plan. Maybe buy one that's 2-5tb now and get the 5-20tb one in a few years, moving your existing SAN into a backup type role.
Scales beyond anything you can be doing, and has the features you're going to want. Check it out: http://stalker.com/
Run it on Linux, it just works...
Why recreate the wheel, the issue that causes Cisco and related products to cost so much is the interface cards. Unless you can source your OC-3 card cheaper, it's not going to matter what software you run on it.
So I have one, or better a client has one, which I had to crack open to see inside. Nothing special, just a Soekris.com net4521 with a different serial header (not rotated 90). Toss in a flash card and a pcmcia card and you can make your own with Metrix Pebble. The reason someone would buy a Junxion is not for style - it's plain "time to make it" vers "money to buy it" logic.
I have used ICS + a Belkin Travel router (in AP mode) to accomplish the same thing. King County Metro (bus service) has free wifi while on the bus, via a Junxion box and Sprint cell service.
I checked the list before posting, but yes, the Infrant boxes are the best. Go for the X6 - it adds external disks via the previously existing 2 USB ports. In addition it supports rsync, and will backup itself if requested.
1 box plus 4x320gb NCQ WD drives is ~$1,200.
Who needs the overhead of a windowing GUI on a server?
Come on, please let this be true!
Take a flash drive running Linux + the Linux version of this, and boot a Windows VM. You could even do it in an encrypted partition so you really could have a high security self contained Win32 enviroment ;)
There is a missing piece to this puzzle, and it would greatly help us propose solutions. There were 3 companies before, what software licenses did they already have. Do you already have an Exchange license, or 5 copies of Novel 6.5, or a bunch of Mac's?
This needs to be taken as two pieces. What is your desktop platform, and what can you do to make that desktop the most secure and provide the most services to your company. Why do some people implement Exchange when there are OSS products out there? Easy, Exec's like those fancy pda phones that can get their emails and calendar from anywhere (and it replaces laptops).
Find out what the business needs are, figure out what you have, then look at the software that will support that.
-Joe
It'll get you a huge discount on software purchases. Honestly, keep a Windows Server around, install NAV Enterprise, and keep things clean and small. If you get the chance, move to Virtual Server or VMWare so you can do seperate servers but without having to but extra hardware.
1) It'll run on anything - Win32, Linux, BSD, Solaris, x86, XServers, Alphas, Power5
2) It'll scale as big as you can dream - over 5 million accounts with clustering
3) MAPI support
Well, here's two issues, the P4 isn't a "cool" cpu, it tosses out mass heat and requires high power. Say goodbye to 6 hour charges.
What I want is a G5 core strapped next to an AMD Opteron core, with the two of them talking Hypertransport back and forth.
$100 to $350 in $50 increments. Once you start, you can't stop. "But for $50 more I can get this"
USB and Firewire have taken the high road to expanding a computer without having to add another PCI card. The reasons the Cube failed are price point, and there wasn't much in USB/FW devices, vendors just didn't get it. The reason the Cube beats the Mini is that the Cube has an actual AGP card, so upgradeable graphics.
:-p
Just as with x86 desktops & servers, how often do you do an upgrade? Add more memory and replace the video card after a year so you can play the lastest game. But for $500, who cares, go buy another one
Depending on how much data you're looking to backup and what data you're looking to grab, Ultrabac has agents for Exchange, Sql and such. The cool thing is that you should be able to backup to a local tape, and also ftp off the stuff you'd consider most important. ~$200 / month for a box with a raid5 set of 250gb drives sitting in colo that's all pull (internet to box).
Dlink has a product, DSA-3100 that would take a DSL connection and provide a "trusted" network segment, and an untrusted segment. Toss any AP into this "untrusted" network and attach the reciept printer, and there you have a "push a button" reciept that would have login and password info, so as to limit someone to a time you determine.
;)
ZyXel's solution is a lot less configurable, but a little cheaper.
In the end, you need io ask yourself to what level do you want to support this coffee shop, and what would happen in the event that the PC running this place died the night before a final
While I know the pain of reinstalling, some times it just works better. For doing backups of one machine, where as I want to upgrade my drive, Ghost 2004 has a few slick features. Install it under Windows, tell it what drives you want to back up and where to (cd-r/rw & dvd-+r/rw drives supported, including disk spanning). Machine reboots, and runs it's backup. To restore, put in disk 1. It's that slick.
Here is their BitTorrent link
While it wouldn't have allowed all workstations back online, throwing down a Cisco WiFi network within the buildings to create an "emergancy network" would have taken a number of hours, and gotten enough of the net back to allow for patient tracking and record keeping.
First one to say security would have been broken in a short time evidently hasn't used the automated rolling WEP implementation Cisco has.
I'm supprised Cisco didn't have a LAN/WAN setup in a crate, complete with servers to handle the authentication, sitting somewhere ready to deply in an emergancy (think 9/11).
FYI - backup to hard drive / UNC path / etc.. Ultrabac.com