Best IT-infrastructure For a Small Company? 600
DiniZuli writes "I've been employed by a small NGO to remake their entire IT-infrastructure from scratch. It's a small company with 20 employees.
I would like to ask the /.-crowd what worked out best for you and why? I came up with a small list:
Are there any must have books on building the IT infrastructure?
New desktops: should it be laptops (with dockingstations), regular desktop machines or thin clients? A special brand?
Servers: We need a server for authentication and user management. We also need an internal media server (we have thousands of big image and video files, and the archive grows bigger every year). Finally we would like to have our web server in house. Which hardware is good? Which setup, software and OS'es have worked the best for you?
Since we are remaking everything, this list is not exhaustive, so feel free to comment on anything important not on the list."
Do my job please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Can someone else please make the first post for me?
Re:Do my job please. (Score:5, Funny)
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I need a new way to get to work. Should I get a car, an EV, a bike, a motorcycle? What kind of which?
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Telecommute is the modern answer - you don't need an office.
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The first question to ask the NGO management and staff is: What applications or functionality is required? Who hires these bozos who subsequently post to ./ asking for information about how to do their job? Egad, Master Richie!
Re:Do my job please. (Score:5, Insightful)
Twenty people? Talk to each and every one of them about what THEY need. Then, and only then, worry about IT infrastructure.
Someone has to apparently (was:Do my job please.) (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe that's indeed what he should do since he already doesn't know enough to do it himself, have other people do everything.
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:4, Insightful)
I did exactly this when building out my recent company. Google mail service is fairly good, but hosted exchange is far better in terms of operating like a normal company with blackberries, etc. We outsource our web serving also. We basically have a fileserver and a pair of ADS boxes for inside services, and a redundant Internet connection.
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We use gmail for our company as well, and I have only recently hit the wall with it. I get a mew hundred MB of messages, and there is no method of deleting (or archiving) attachments off the system.
I am still surprised that there is no popular "appliance" type server for this purpose: something that supports file, print, authentication, accounting, and phone system out of the box. Go extra fancy and allow for painless mirroring and snapshot backups with a second (and third) unit if desired. It seems like
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:5, Insightful)
far better in terms of operating like a normal company with blackberries, etc.
How Smartphone Users See Each Other [androidandme.com]
His question begs more questions -- do his employees travel? Do they stream video? Do they do heavy processing? What OSes do their applications run best on? Can you virtualize OSes or will that overhead affect the heavy-duty nature of the applications? Do you have the know-how to build your own central authentication service using LDAP, Kerberos, etc? Or would you better served with an Active Directory? And would it make more sense to pay for Cloud-based AD from Microsoft rather than maintaining in-house servers? How much people-power do you have for IT?
You just have to know the right questions to ask, then your infrastructure defines itself.
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:4, Informative)
Then you can concentrate full time on keeping your internet connection working because you'll be screwed without it
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:4, Insightful)
The way most people work today, that's the case whether the server is in your building or not.
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I know of several insurance companies across 5 counties that have been essentially using "the cloud" for a long time (before it ever was popular).
well, actually, they were using web based applications from either their parent offices or the actual provider to obtain rates and set up policies. It's the same thing as the cloud concept as all they needed to do it route to those select locations.
Anyways, I can count several times a year in which either their electricity, internet, or something along those lines
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It's a 20 person company. Do you really think he's going to have the proper power conditioning, cooling, and remote-access setup for lots of live servers for basic stuff like e-mail and chat?
Keep it as simple as possible. Don't use docking stations, as they will be useless the moment laptops change. Just have people use laptops. Bog standard local NTFS file server with Raid1 for safety, and backed up offsite. Use hosted exchange if they must have meeting requests, or Gmail if not. Chat over skype.
IT i
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Media server? How about S3. Web server? How about EC2. Seriously, why spend time and $ on procuring, powering, cooling, backing up, and upgrading all that gear? Give everyone a laptop and a gmail account. Put the rest in a public cloud.
Kinda like instead of hiring an IT guy to redesign the infrastructure, you can just post the question to /.
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And when Joe Farmer runs his backhoe through your Fiber line? Send everyone home for the day? Tell your clients that their media is stuck on Amazon?
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And when Joe Farmer runs his backhoe through your Fiber line? Send everyone home for the day? Tell your clients that their media is stuck on Amazon?
And how often does that happen? Often enough to pay for server hardware, power, cooling, upgrades every 18 months, backups, and sysadmins to run it all?
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Because you don't want to upgrade your entire infrastructure every 3 years - you do half now, the other half in 18 months, the first half in 36 months, and so on. Most servers are depreciated on a 3 year schedule, scheduling upgrades every ~18 months allows you to achieve some level of stability without tossing it all out the window at the end of your cycle.
As far as "having enough bandwidth", that's why you do analysis: compare costs of your current bandwidth needs & expected growth with the cost of
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And when Joe Farmer runs his backhoe through your Fiber line? Send everyone home for the day?
That's pretty much my experience with SMB. Especially with multiple locations or a datacenter elsewhere. The local staff just go home because they cannot fathom working without access to the Internet, even if local services are still working.
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And when Joe Farmer runs his backhoe through your Fiber line? Send everyone home for the day? Tell your clients that their media is stuck on Amazon?
Easy! Just fall back on your emergency operations procedure (likely involving paper) until service is restored.
You do have an emergency ops procedure, right? /., at least? :-p )
(Or you will after another next ask
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Dual connections with different topologies and hardware fail over. It isn't that expensive.
Having said that, I still would hesitate to put core assets (or even email) in the cloud.
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But the obvious answer is redundancy [cisco.com] with physical diversity, of course -- regardless of where your IT infrastructure is hosted.
It sure is getting CLOUDY (Score:5, Funny)
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Am I the only person who doesn't trust the cloud? I want my data where I can physically touch it (well, physically touch the media, that is).
Maybe it's because I recently lived through a year with very spotty internet access (in the middle of a city), and anything on the cloud could only be accessed for a few hours every week. And with the internet disconnections for downloading songs, putting anything you need on the cloud seems like a really bad idea to me...
You are not alone (Score:2, Insightful)
Should a company really put proprietary or sensitive information in the "cloud"? Is trusting your data to a remote location with a 3rd party, and thus constantly transmitting and retransmitting the data, really the best solution rather than maintaining your own infrastructure?
For a company that has no such data, the "cloud" may be a viable solution. However, when I routed my university email to gmail for my smartphone (since it did push, rather than pull every 15 minutes), I remember my bosses musing. He
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There is no cloud. Your data are just on somebody else's server. If you are lucky, you and your data are important enough to them to warrant a backup.
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great idea, except:
1) S3 performance is poor. You've got to pay a LOT for performance.
2) Non-hardware (administration) costs are still going to be the same.
3) Cloud services are dependent upon connectivity. Which do you trust more: no link failure in thousands of miles of cables, fiber, and networking equipment, -or- the volatility of your local network and attached storage systems? You will need at least 2Mbit of low-latency throughput for something like this.
4) You will need redundant outside-network links. This may not even be possible in his locale, and if it is, there's no guarantee something upstream won't die (and in many places, the certainty of something failing upstream is fairly high due to shared carrier).
5) Are connections of sufficient throughput and latency even locally available? There's no mention of things like: mail use, type of work performed, etc. What if they do CAD work? What if they do a lot of email with attached documents? Graphic or sound work? These are use cases which are horrible for cloud computing.
That's just a starter list. It's suitable for some purposes, but for most day-in and day-out stuff, it is not good as a primary source of IT infrastructure.
For general purpose daily cloud computing, S3 isn't even a good/best option.
As for the OP... this guy should obviously not be in IT. The most notable thing missing from his list is: competent and experienced IT personnel. Obviously this was not considered as a requirement by those paying the bills, but it is important.
Hint: use requirements are the first thing to consider. Everything is based off of that. The vendors picked depend on experience and available purchase agreements. What I do for 90% of my customers will likely be a poor fit for many of your customers. And so on.
Fucking amateurs. They make us MSPs look bad.
Re:Don't buy any servers. Use the cloud. (Score:4, Insightful)
GMail? Nothing wrong with that... as long as you don't mind all your internal memos being examined by data-mining software.
S3? Cool. Let's just put the video about our upcoming IPO on somebody else's servers, where others can have access to it.
EC2? Yep. All of your financial reports and graphs will look just great coming from somebody else's data store.
Okay, so I'm being a bit sarcastic. But not much. I wouldn't care much if it weren't for the fact that we know they actually do mine data.
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GMail? Nothing wrong with that... as long as you don't mind all your internal memos being examined by data-mining software.
Not to mention state and federal laws (SOX, HIPAA) that require controlled access to certain information.
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Amazon S3's website has a nice spiel on how to make HIPAA complaint web apps accessing it. Encrypting your data before putting it in the cloud isn't exactly rocket science.
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The current Gmail administration seems to be OK, but what if it changes and what if they do by this time the same business?
It would be difficult to compete with guys who host your e-mail accounts and documents.
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Host your internal media in the cloud? Are you crazy? Would you really prefer to have your large media files, gigabytes in size, at the other end of a 1-10MB/sec Internet connection, or hanging somewhere locally at the other end of a gigabit Ethernet connection?
Just remember (Score:2)
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Re:Just remember (Score:4, Insightful)
These days, bloated Microsoft solutions, Oracle, long-term service contracts, etc. are just plain foolish, unless you have lots of money to just toss around.
For 20 people, you only need 1 good server for all your internal needs, unless it's a software development house and the server gets hit heavily. 20 people? No need for video streaming. Just link to the video file.
Of course for serving web pages OUTWARD, to the public, you should have a separate server. That's another matter and has as much to do with security as anything else. But it can still be set up with Apache, which is relatively simple and is the most used server software in the world. Yes, even counting Microsoft.
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For mercy, sir!
You want to muck about with user training to get them to use OpenOffice? I know it's mostly compatible and lookey-likey with MS Office, but 'mostly' doesn't cut it with office workers. Office workers despise change, hate the unknown and will go into mutiny if you take the usual and replace it with something different just to save a little (OK, a lot of) money.
Dell server, DROBO filestore and a bunch of really cheap desktops will cover many usage needs.
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AND, the workers will benefit a a result. Unlike MS Office, Open Office works on Windows, Linux, and OS X, so no matter what company they go to when they leave they will be able to fit right in. And it works with files other than Microsoft's, so it's mo
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You're a few years behind. MS Office works great on Win and OSX, makes PDFs straight from "save as" dialog, and costs less than half a day's employee cost (often north of $75/hr, burdened) - which is barely enough to show them that 90% of their stuff sill work as usual, and that the other 10% either doesn't exist or works differently/is incompatible with all the legacy documentation they have.
As for worrying about someone going to a shop with linux on the desktop (the only place where Office doesn't exist n
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Why spend twice as much as you need to? If you're halfway competent at your job, you will have Linux machines (definitely not MS if you want to manage cost). Open Office for your basic office work (regardless of whether the individual workstations are Windows or Linux). MySQL or PostgreSQL controlling your database(s). Apache as your web server. Today, this is all simple, cheap to implement, there is plenty of support FREELY available (unlike Dell or Oracle or any company that uses MS-based solutions), and it all works, just fine. These days, bloated Microsoft solutions, Oracle, long-term service contracts, etc. are just plain foolish, unless you have lots of money to just toss around. For 20 people, you only need 1 good server for all your internal needs, unless it's a software development house and the server gets hit heavily. 20 people? No need for video streaming. Just link to the video file. Of course for serving web pages OUTWARD, to the public, you should have a separate server. That's another matter and has as much to do with security as anything else. But it can still be set up with Apache, which is relatively simple and is the most used server software in the world. Yes, even counting Microsoft.
I'd think the cost of a couple of dozen Windows licenses & office Licenses would be dwarfed by the training cost for OO and Linux, plus the salary premium of a Linux admin vs Windows admin (and depending on region, the extra time required to find a qualified Linux admin when the current one leaves). I do agree that they should go with an open source database, because licensing tends to be expensive and MySQL devs are a dime a dozen and even if you can't find one, it's not much of a leap to go from Orac
Re:Just remember (Score:5, Insightful)
And tbqh having used Calc, I tend to agree-- Calc really is no replacement for Excel for serious usage (though I use it for my once-a-week time accounting). There are times to avoid MS, but I would be INCREDIBLY cautious about thinking you can install Linux+OOO everywhere and have everyone be OK with it. You may find your solution replaced just as quickly as you are.
And lets keep in mind this is ask
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"You may find your solution replaced just as quickly as you are. ... And lets keep in mind this is ask /.. We dont know what this guys company does, or if they have other vendors that provide web interfaces requiring IE-"
I agree. BUT I can only give opinions on what I would do, given certain assumed circumstances. If I tried to give advice on every possible contingency, I would be either writing forever or not at all.
But as for usability, I simply disagree. Sure... someone in Word Processing will prefer Word because that's all they ever learned and they have used it for 10 years. Anything else is a challenge they don't want to take. But that's their failure. It's not a reflection on the software. And I could say the same
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Sending out OO files is only slightly less stupid than sending out MSOffice files. (Exactly the cost of an Office licence less stupid)
Thats what pdf is for.
And for collaborative work, you need to discuss a software platform first anyways.
What hardware is in place now? (Score:2)
What hardware is in place now?
big image and video files = a poor thin client setup.
Did anyone else read this thread as.. (Score:2, Informative)
Do my job for me?
"I've been hired by a small NGO. They have about 20 employees. I do not yet know enough about what I have been hired to do, so I am turning to Slashdot. Please, do my job for me and help me look good."
Re:Did anyone else read this thread as.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Do my job for me?
"I've been hired by a small NGO. They have about 20 employees. I do not yet know enough about what I have been hired to do, so I am turning to Slashdot. Please, do my job for me and help me look good."
No. but that's only because I'm not afraid of other people's opinions. I actually like trying to see things from others' point of view. It makes me better at my job.
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"IT is for failed engineers anyways"
A bold statement on Slashdot where IT is a large part of the community. Oh but I see you posted as Anonymous Coward...
Let's stereotype! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, NGO = NON Governmental Organization = tree hugging PC hippies who have no clue. They'd only hire people based on their ability to fit some diversity requirement because no honest government would ever hire them... governments hire only the most competent and skilled people, which is why all US citizens are so happy with every government agent they ever encountered and why they support the government taking over all sectors where private businesses operate.
Yeah, I took your trolling and jumped full for
FreeNAS (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't like laptops as primary machines (Score:4, Interesting)
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Dell Precisions have been pretty good. The failure rate on the Precision line of laptops in particular is incredibly low, and the performance is fantastic thanks to their shoehorning a desktop chipset into the laptop form factor. :)
Laptops only when needed (Score:4, Insightful)
If you like the idea of people taking their work home do you accept the increased costs of lost and stolen laptops and the decreased lifespan that frequent travel brings? Is your data secured on an encrypted volume? Even if IT creates an encrypted volume are users actually using it rather than saving files to the unencrypted desktop? Have you planned training to address this sort of issue?
When traveling overseas these lost/stolen concerns magnify. Furthermore is there anything on the laptop that your country does not allow to be exported or anything that the visited country does not allow to be imported? Perhaps even that state-of-the-art encryption software you normally use has export/import issues. Not to mention the "personal" folders where porn was downloaded. Have you planned training to address these issues? Even when a laptop is clean customs may hang on to it for some reason, its fully within their power to do so. Will having a person lose their day-to-day computer be an issue?
When a person takes work home are they on the clock? Do you live in a jurisdiction where unpaid overtime is becoming more and more of an issue even with salaried people? You may be setting your company up for an unpaid overtime lawsuit once someone becomes unhappy and quits. I've seen it happen. I've seen companies in California switch all their engineers and lower level of management from salary to hourly due to this sort of thing.
The list goes on
Laptops can be great and they can be required while traveling. Perhaps have a few than can be checked out on rare occasions when people *must* work at home or travel. Have them copy only what they need for that day or trip, and wipe the laptop when returned.
Don't want to be rude or flamebait but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Keep it simple (Score:5, Informative)
Don't go cheap with hardware (Score:5, Informative)
For servers: Use Supermicro-based servers with LSI hardware RAID cards. Run CentOS with SMB so that you can get domain support in place for the Windows workstations, but avoid having to pay obnoxious per-seat/per-connection licensing ON TOP OF server licensing as you would have to do with Microsoft's solutions. If you need a full feature alternative to Exchange, check out Scalix or Zimbra (both are very inexpensive compared to Exchange) and run either one on CentOS. For backups, I've become partial to just writing bash scripts to back up to external drives. Get three or more external hard drives and rotate through them day by day. If Windows is required for your server, I would recommend the same hardware, but be aware that the total costs are much, much higher when you factor in Server+client access licensing + groupware solution + realtime antivirus (annual subscription) + email gateway antivirus (annual subscription unless you want to wrestle with perl to get ASSP running on 64-bit Windows) = your new server is incredibly expensive. Another problem with Windows licensing is eventually Microsoft will pull the plug on client access licenses for your installed version, which means that you will be forced into an OS upgrade if the current OS would otherwise be perfectly adequate for your purposes.
For workstations: to decrease total cost of ownership (the pain of maintenance. If you are not married to Windows, consider using Macintoshes instead. Mac Minis offer pretty decent performance and take up a lot desk estate than PCs of comparable quality, plus you can also run Windows and Linux on Mac hardware if you need to. Why OS X? You can escape the insanity of malware/virus/trojan horse breakouts, maintenance is a heck of a lot easier, and backup and restore is far easier on a Mac than it is on Windows.
For laptops if maximum reliability and desktop-like performance are the priority: I would recommend Macbook Pro, or if you want real mobile workstations and if the budget allows it, Dell Precision M6500. I have a Dell Precision M6400 and it's great- they cram a desktop chipset into the laptop form factor and performance is excellent, plus if I enable all the power saving features I can still manage to get 3-4 hours of use on a charge (about an hour if I turn off power management for max performance). The M6500 is far better than my M6400 performance-wise as it uses Core i5/i7 processors and a newer generation nVidia chipset. If portability is a concern I would still go with the Dell Precision line, but the M4500. If budget is a concern and rules out the precisions, some of the Latitudes are pretty good as well, but I would stay far away from any of Dell's other laptop lines as the other lines are not built nearly as well (their netbooks are okay though).
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Remember - they wont be paying corporate rates for MS products. The difference is huge.
What do the people need to get their job done? (Score:2)
Let the new desktops vary according to what needs to be done; the needs of someone who's going to be editing a ton of video files are very different from someone who's going to be writing text in Word. There's only twenty employes, I don't think it's an onerous task for you to sit down with each new person who needs a new machine and talk about what they're going to be doing and how they'll be doing it; what's the setup of their dreams for doing their job if money's no limit, what can you get together that'
wow (Score:2)
New desktops
Get 20 desktop machines. For those employees who sometimes work remotely buy a laptop with docking station instead.
We need a server for authentication and user management.
Buy one server for authentication and user management.
We also need an internal media server
Buy one media server with lots of hard disk space.
and the archive grows bigger every year).
Make sure you will be able to add hard drives (possibly external) to the media server in the future.
OS: get what the IT admin (you?) are able to administer. A 20-employee company might not have a dedicated network administrator, so setting up a Linux environment in a MS-centric company coul
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Baloney. Use SME Server [theregister.co.uk] or Zentyal [theregister.co.uk]. I run a nearly identical organisation and my headaches have been significantly reduced since we stopped relying on Windows servers.
And to all those who derided the OP for asking others to do his job for him: This is why you ask others' opinions: because sometimes what you think you know isn't always true.
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I stand corrected. SME Server looks interesting and is worth investigating. Thank you.
No problem. Feel free to contact me if you ever have questions. My website has all the info you need....
Re:wow (Score:4, Informative)
Except SME Server has issues with Win 7.
Fixed in 8.0. I'm running it right now.
Great way to start off with headaches. Not to mention how unstable the product and company are.
Yeah, only 11 years of solid, steady progress. Best to wait another decade or so before it's ready, huh?
I wouldn't want to place a bet on that pony, even if it was someone else's money.
I did and I do. I work in the developing world, where the cost of failure is measured in people's livelihoods - and occasionally their lives. Even $1000 dollars can keep a family going for months. Getting basic infrastructure working matters a lot here, so I don't recommend things lightly.
SME Server was first used in production after the desolation of East Timor by the Indonesians. Dili, the capital, had been ruined. 80% of the existing infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Oxfam Australia needed some way to keep their office running, and they chose the SME Server. It ran 3 offices, connecting them and managing their email using tiny bandwidth volumes and with NO local IT support.
Here in the developing country where I work, reliability and robustness matter. I've seen SME Servers left untended for periods as long as 18 months without incident. I don't base my recommendations on purest speculation. I actually profile things.
NGO status (Score:2)
Erm, need more info... (Score:2)
In a BI-project I now assess the maturity of the organisation before I implement anything. I've had bad experiences with implementing advanced solutions in non-technical environments: they just don't get used.
So:
- Who will be maintaining the IT-infrastructure after the project is done, and is that full time or parttime?
- What are the skills of said person(s)? Windows, Linux, or non-existent?
- Is it the intention or even a possibility to outsource the maintenance?
- Is it the intention or desire to have the o
Few things to consider (Score:5, Insightful)
First off is keep it simple. The simpler the better. This is not an enterprise, they don't have a lot of people to call on for support. So don't build anything complex.
I probably wouldn't bother with central authentication unless there's a reason, just do it per computer. Ask yourself what it gains you to have. If the answer is just "simpler administration" then don't use it. 20 computers is not a problem to administer without it, particularly since not everyone logs in to all computers. However the central servers are a point of failure, a place for problems.
Also have someone else host all your servers unless a file server is needed. There are plenty of good server hosts out there. For the web, depends on what you want. Pair is a top notch web host I used for many years. Top flight quality in every regard. Hostgator is who I use now to save some money and I'm perfectly satisfied. It works well, is reasonably fast, and they don't bitch that I do like 100GB of traffic a month.
For an internal file server, something simple and reliable. A computer with RAID-5 or RAID-10. Make sure to do offsite backups. An easy option for that is Acronis Trueimage. Great backup program and they will do network backups for a fee. It can encrypt the backup so no security issues. If their service is too expensive, use the software to backup to external HDDs and lock them in a safe or something.
Thin clients: You must be joking. Don't do thin clients unless you understand it well and are willing out lay out a lot of cash to make it reliable. Remember that if a desktop crashes, gets corrupted, whatever one person can't work. If the tin client server goes down EVERYONE can't work. There are some situation where they make sense. If you aren't experienced enough to know when don't use them (yours isn't one BTW).
As for computers, get something from a major supplier. Dell or Lenovo are my recommendations. They don't have an in house IT department they can't really be faffing about with repairs. Get them from someone that'll do onsite service and get a nice long warranty (unless you are sure they'll be replaced sooner). Make sure that there is a company out there that backs up the hardware that people can just call to have shit fixed.
Desktops vs laptops depends on the usage. If the intent is that these are used in the office, then desktops. They are cheaper to purchase, cheaper to find repairs for out of warranty, and harder for someone to walk off with. Don't get a laptop unless there's a real need to get a laptop. If people are going to be walking around with them for work reasons then fine, though it still might be good to have a desktops as well in case they forget their laptops at home or lose them or something.
For OSes, depends on your needs. I'd say Windows unless you have a reason not to. Yes, yes I know MS evil and MS tax and all that jazz. Forget all that. These computers are tools to get a job done, the users don't care past that. Get them the best tools for the job. That will probably mean Windows for running MS Office, and for working with media since Linux tends to fall down in that department. Only do Linux if you are sure it will meet their needs (and by sure I mean you've tested it) and they can get the support they need.
In general I'd stay away from Macs. They cost more per unit, and they are not good with business support. Their idea of support is generally "Take the system to a store, we'll look at it and get it back to you." Fine for a consumer, not for a business. For a business you want "I call you and a tech shows up tomorrow with all the parts to fix it." Only go with Macs if you have a real reason and if you can't think of one, then you don't have one.
Remember to keep pragmatism in mind above all else. Get people the tools that do the job they need. That is all computers are to non computer people is tools. You are just being asked about expensive hammers or saws or the like. Your job is to figure out what they need, what will do the job the best, what can be th
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It's not very well known, but Apple will actually do on site repairs. Seriously, look in your AppleCare terms, it's in there. I've heard of people who know about it getting on site repairs with great success. They also allow you to mail in your repairs without going to an Apple Store.
Optionally, if you do have an on site IT department, you can get certified in doing your own repairs. Apple will send you a new part, you install, send back the old part.
That said, unless the office is already using Macs, don't
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Easy or not, central auth is absolutely, 100% essential in this case (as in most others). Let's consider the facts:
* NGO
* 20+ Employees
* It's an explicit requirement from TFA
Not having central auth in this case could be disastrous...
What if they ever want to expand beyond 20 employees? (Nevermind that 20 is more than enough to justify central auth)
What if they ever need to be PCI compliant?
What if they already need to be compliant with government security policies?...or compliant with security policies of
Be prepared to change your mind later (Score:2)
Budget (Score:2)
I work for a large non-profit, though we have offices all over the world with a pretty wide range of technology and budgets among them. One of our biggest drivers is cost and what a lot of people forget is that people are more expensive than just about anything else.
Everything you decide to do for yourselves means that you'll need more people who know what they are doing and that's expensive. If someone else can provide the level of expertise you need as part of a service, that can be huge.
Software definit
Anything not on the list? You mean EVERYTHING? (Score:2)
What's typically used in this sort of organization? What types of collaboration have to be done with folks on the outside?
Really, that defines the desktop choices. If, for example, a lot of publication or graphics work is going to be done - you'll want a Mac for those people because that's what the outsiders they'll coordinate with will be using (believe me - we didn't do this and it's been one annoyance after another over the years, thanks to my PHB!). If the support staff will have to work with folks on t
Total Cost of Ownership, right? (Score:2)
What do the users need? (Score:2)
What do your users need to run? Is it basic Web/Email/word processing, or is there something else thrown in? If it's something like that you could probably get away with a bunch of thin clients and a big central server. Check out LTSP [ltsp.org].
As for servers, from the information you gave it seems like a basic file server would work as your media server. Make sure you have enough RAM, and take a look at something like Ubuntu server, should be pretty straightforward to get going for 20 people. For your Web serve
First thinks first... (Score:2)
The first question is, who will be supporting these servers and what kind of expertise do they have? Second question: what are your needs? What kind of software will you be running? Third question: what does your budget look like? Answering these questions may answer your questions.
If your users are comfortable with Windows and you only know how to admin Windows servers and your business needs MS Office and Exchange, then you'll be buying a bunch of Windows machines. You won't find a manufacturer that
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and I forgot: if possible, use the same *exact* hardware on all client computers, and develop a good imaging solution. This will save you some headaches down the road. If you buy a bunch of Macs, then getting different configurations for different users will hurt less; thanks to EFI and OSX including all the drivers for all their configurations, imaging a Mac is simple.
I would generally stick to desktop machines unless people really are going to be taking them places. Laptops are generally more expe
Here's how we do it (same size company) (Score:2)
I am responsible for IT decision making for a similar-sized startup. I have around 15-years of IT-like activities behind me. At my current job, I keep costs low and the organization agile with a few simple rules.
Everyone gets a refurbished MacBook Pro with AppleCare. If it breaks (pretty much never), the user takes it to the Apple Genius Bar. Once the warranties run out, there's an Apple-certified support center near by. We replace computers every 2-3 years and keep a spare around just in case. Everyone get
Enterprise solutions scale down too (Score:2)
You never mentioned a platform, so I'll assume you will use the same infrastructure as 95% of the world, Windows.
Windows offers many useful tools and functions (group policy, WDS, etc), and in it's small business server form gives you an extremely robust solution for a good price, up to about 50-75 (75 hard limit). It includes Exchange, Sharepoint, and internal media serving via Streaming Media Services should suffice. It also includes wizards for nearly all it functions.
The pain is the need to re-buy softw
Only challenging element here is the media server (Score:2)
The only element of this which really needs any non-standard thought is the media server, and that depends. If you're just archiving stuff, even that isn't a problem, but if you have multiple people doing video editing, for instance, you will need some serious power
in the server and it's network connection. You also need to assess what level of reliability you need in that media server -- for instance can you afford to lose a few hours updates if something bad happens. If so, a standard server plus (say) mi
Hire me? (Score:5, Informative)
OK, seriously, I've done a couple dozen of these 10 to 50 user installations. Half the time is spent at the beginning to determine what the customer needs and wants, and what the budgeting will be. Things invariably cost a lot more than the customer anticipated so your goal is to manage expectations. If you don't do that, your life will either become a living hell (if you will be providing long-term support) or you will leave behind an unhappy customer.
Some of the basic things that were not considered when customers brought me on:
Are there remote employees? Will they need VPN access? What platforms are they using to connect? Can you verify that the endpoints are secure?
What is the anticipated volume of mail? In this day, it's often much cheaper to outsource to Google for smaller installations, but in some cases it makes a lot of sense to keep in-house.
When hosting your own web server how much downtime is acceptable? Do you need 24/7 uptime or will you have maintenance windows? What if your primary site burns to the ground? Do you have the floor space and adequate cooling? How much traffic is anticipated at the beginning of the project? How much do you expect to grow?
What applications do you need in-house? Accounting packages? Company intranet? Database? How will you separate your LAN for security purposes? Do you take credit cards as part of business?
What infrastructure applications do you need? Can you afford downtime on these? How many ports/switches do you need? Wireless? Separate backup LAN? OOB management for your servers?
Before you even start pricing hardware, find out what your customer needs and wants and willing to pay for.
What do you actually do? (Score:2)
What software do you currently use?
This decides a thin-clients vs. fat-client approach.
I'd second giving MacMini's a thought, while outsourcing as much as possible.
The only answer... (Score:2)
The only answer i can give you is: 42!
The problem is, that you don't understand your own question.
E.g. Thin Client vs. Desktop vs. Notebook is not a universal truth. Nearly everything on the IT market exists for a reason. If you are mostly working on large images, thin clients would usually not be the very first choice. A desktop PC may not be well fitting for your much traveling CEO. Laptops in call centers have a tendency to disappear.
I can counter every question you ask with a dozend questions you have
My Office (Score:2)
My firm is a pretty small shop, with everything running off ClearOS [clearfoundation.com]. It's a really fantastic server/middleware package with a great configuration, plus domain services, etc. Honestly, it can do everything you need, and you even have options (can use local clients, etc, or the well-configured horde/kerberos install). It's running CentOS so if you want to branch into more advanced stuff, then it's all there and relative simple (as simple as anything is with SELinux). They also offer a $1000 box with certified
like took some with a BA over some with 2-4+ years (Score:2)
like took some with a BA over some with 2-4+ years in the field with out one.
Re: (Score:2)
As for someone with a BS, I'd never hire someone with a BA in IT related fields unless it were (maybe) a project manager, their knowledge was commensurate with a BS, and they had work experience.
And "2-4+" years of experience is inferior in your mind to some schmuck with a 4-year IT-centric arts degree? I will take someone with 3 years of solid IT experience over someone with a BA, any day of the week. Experience, with demonstrated competence, trumps formal schooling unless additional demonstrated competenc
Re:Why do you want to keep webserver inhouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternatively, pay someone $50-$500 dollars a year for the same. It's a no-brainer unless you've got some really, really pressing reason.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. Build everything on your own. For those 20 people, it is totally cost efficient to ditch all those buzzword-toting salespeople and roll your own. Your own certified infrastructure, your own incident team, your own UPSs, your own false floors, your own operating systems, compiled with all optimizer switches on, of course, and your own client PC images, complete with in-house developed software distribution and policies.
After about 300 man-years worth of training, you're able to surpass most commercial
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's a myth. Clean agents displace about 5% of the air leaving oxygen concentrations just about what they were before the dump.
They work by disrupting the chemical process of fire, not by depleting oxygen. They are like an anti-catalyst.
You would eventually get a little lightheaded if you stayed in a room for too long after a clean agent dump, but you have a good 5-10 minutes to take your time to exit the area. Not that you want to stay in an area with a fire in the first place. The smoke is far more
Re: (Score:2)
However, it's almost certainly the case that they haven't gotten their backup system in order and finalized the network.
Asking them what they want should guide things along the way. It might be acceptable to use a service like backblaze [backblaze.com] to handle the back up process or more likely they'll nee
Re:Ask Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask Slashdot: Why do your job when you can ask others to do it for you?
Why indeed?What reasonable motivation could he have to poll a well-established base of computer experts for advise? Could it be that an infrastructure is a hard thing to get perfectly right? Maybe up-front decisions made right will negate hours of work and wasted productivity down the line? Remember those security and infrastructure failings we've been so critical about all these years? Those clueless IT guys who screwed up royally and condemned employees and management to countless hardships? Maybe he doesn't want to end up in that position... maybe he wants to do things right?
That lazy bastard!
Re:Ask Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Why indeed?What reasonable motivation could he have to poll a well-established base of computer experts for advise?
Maybe they should just hire one of these "computer experts" who knows the answer instead of someone who can't even seem to use Google?
Seriously, they're paying him to get the job done. If he doesn't know how to find this information for himself and make an informed decision, he should not have accepted the job in the first place.
Let someone who has the requisite knowledge have the job (or contract) and get the job done using well established procedure and expertise.
Even if he does know, he should come to the table with options and ideas and ask (say, on a forum) for some expert opinions about specific products (or at least brand names/vendors!) This shows that you have at least done some homework.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, all I have to say is that if this bastard has polled a well-established base of computer experts for advice, then he should at least share what those results were with us here at slashdot.
FYI. There is a big difference between asking advice on the pros and cons of something specific and asking advice on "what's this big red button on the wall?"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"NO!!!! MR. PRESIDENT!!!!! thats the one that launches all the missiles.
Well which one gets me a latte?
The other big red button!
Ohh, who designed this?"
Re: (Score:2)
Why indeed?What reasonable motivation could he have to poll a well-established base of computer experts for advise? Could it be that an infrastructure is a hard thing to get perfectly right? Maybe up-front decisions made right will negate hours of work and wasted productivity down the line? Remember those security and infrastructure failings we've been so critical about all these years? Those clueless IT guys who screwed up royally and condemned employees and management to countless hardships? Maybe he doesn't want to end up in that position...
A good way to avoid ending up in that position is not to actively place yourself in that position. Don't bid for jobs you can't do. Don't agree to do jobs you can't do. Don't tell people you can do jobs you can't do.
The problem here isn't that he's asking slashdot. It's that he isn't asking slashdot with any apparent knowledge of the subject to support his questions There's no indication that he understands his clients actual needs, nor any indication that he could figure out any aspect of the job he i
Re:Ask Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm okay with it (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a public forum, we're all volunteers here.
Personally, I'm okay with the occasional "Help me with best practices" post. I wouldn't want to read that stuff all the time, but it adds to the mix, when taken in small measures. Keeps me in touch with developments outside my immediate interests. Sometimes generates lively debate. Maybe helps other readers in the process, benefits the general welfare.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Slashdot editors for publishing this kind of thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
get a couple of Apple BaseStations
You're seriously advising a business to use consumer grade wifi? I don't use wifi, but if i was forced to, it would be on a different VLAN from the company and secured to the hilt and with a RADIUS box, not WPA2.
Re: (Score:2)