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Need help with a little project

B

BluesMan

n00b
Joined
Jun 12, 2004
Messages
8
I'm going to have a nice little contract and i'm looking for help. I have a degree in Networking but never used it so if you want to jump in this project please do...

The project is to have 4 peoples from 3 different location accessing all information in Outlook so that they can all see what's in it, the information being on one of the computer which is a server for one of the location. These locations are independant but in all locations there's a computer acting as a server and it's the servers that are going to be needed to access the Outlook information.

OS are Win 2000 Pro (1) and XP Home (3) with Office Edition PME (1) and 2000 upgrade XP (3).

I need to create a partition on one of the computer and use this partition to put the information that will be shared.

What do i have to do if i want 4 computer from 3 different locations to access the information in Outlook from one of the computer who will be the main server for this purpose.

I hope i'm not too confusing with this but anyway feel free to PM me for any needed info about this and thanks for your help.
 
Are these different locations connected in any way?

Do all of these locations have internet access?

Is the internet access controlled by you?
 
Not of the centers are connected together but they all have access to the internet (Routers).

The main computer acting as a server for each center need to be connected to the one that will stored the data from Outlook and this information need to be available from the computers acting as servers from the other centers.

I would like to find the best and secure options for this project which is a nice one for me. As VPN is concern, any software recommendation for it ?


Thanks for your help.
 
The drawback to sharing an Outlook PST is that only one person can access it at a time. Period.

If you need for people to have simultaneous access, then you'll need to setup and Exchange server.
 
Thanks SJConsultant,

Exchange Server could be the solution but the person who needs this is on vacation and i don't have any information about the price they're ready to pay for this.

Thanks for your time
 
BluesMan said:
Thanks SJConsultant,

Exchange Server could be the solution but the person who needs this is on vacation and i don't have any information about the price they're ready to pay for this.

Thanks for your time
Click to expand...

A low cost solution would be SBS 2003 Standard edition which is around $500. It has Windows 2003 and Exchange built in for much less than the cost of a Windows 2003 license.
 
There are several other softwares available to share outlook files without an exchange server (and the expense of maintaining it) Google it and you'll find them.

Exchange is fine when you need it, but for something as small as this project it sure seems like overkill. Especially when you consider the patching, security, etc. that needs to be kept up to date.

OTOH support for exchange is ubiquitious. Finding someone to support a 3rd party software is problematic.
 
relic said:
There are several other softwares available to share outlook files without an exchange server (and the expense of maintaining it) Google it and you'll find them.

Exchange is fine when you need it, but for something as small as this project it sure seems like overkill. Especially when you consider the patching, security, etc. that needs to be kept up to date.

OTOH support for exchange is ubiquitious. Finding someone to support a 3rd party software is problematic.
Click to expand...

Personally, I think its more overkill to use "x" number of third party products that each require its own updates, patching, and essentially "rigging" something to work the way it was never intended.

At least with SBS 2003 he'd get everything needed (and more) thats designed to work as he needs, along with a one stop for patches, updates, and information to help him configure, troubleshoot and maintain the system.
 
Well what e-mail server is outlook connecting to? Why dont you just set each one of their machines up running outlook and connect to the mail server using IMAP. That way everyone can see the emails as they are stored in one central place and can send emails under the same account?
 
Exchange Server would be a lot of work of course.

VNP is not really the solution here because i'm going to have 3 centers from different locations accessing Outlook database.

SBS 2003 is another possibility and i'll look into it.

Having all of them using one account is not required for this project. They all have their own account but they all need to see the main database.

I need to keep that project simple but i'm wondering if this is going to be faisable.

Thanks again for your time.
 
We run SBS 2003 at work and out of the box it is basically ready for remote access. Just put it in a couple days ago and now, without any toyings with configuration, everyone can remote desktop in or grab their e-mail remotely. It's great. I'm sure with just a bit of tweaking it'd really be great for your needs.
 
Thanks psychofurryewok,

It looks like a really nice option and i'm tempted to try it. The price seems alright and it seems to do everything that i need.

Can you give me more information about the computer that SBS is install on...hard drive, space, ram....i have read that this software is needing a little more from the computer to work properly.

Thanks for your time
 
BluesMan said:
Thanks psychofurryewok,

It looks like a really nice option and i'm tempted to try it. The price seems alright and it seems to do everything that i need.

Can you give me more information about the computer that SBS is install on...hard drive, space, ram....i have read that this software is needing a little more from the computer to work properly.

Thanks for your time
Click to expand...

That depends on what the current use will be and the near (1 or 2 year) future will be. I would start off with a single Xeon system capable of dual Xeon later. Minimum 1GB Ram, and preferably if the budget allows, SCSI drives. Next in line of SCSI's will be SATAs, then last PATA drives. I recommend at minimum RAID 1, preferably RAID 5.

SBS should be installed on at least a 10GB partition, and if possible allocate 20GB for expansion of log files, AD information and the Exchange store. Normally I allocate about 30 or more GB just so I don't have to hassle in a year or two with drive space for the OS.
The rest of the HDD space can be allocated for file serving, etc.
 
Thanks again for your time.

It looks like i won't be able to install and run SBS 2003 on a small partition on a regular PC with only one CPU and 256 MB.

Is there any solutions for what i'm trying to do, simple and that does not need a lot from the computer?

Seems like this project is not going to be easy to do.
 
The project is to have 4 peoples from 3 different location accessing all information in Outlook
Click to expand...

The specs given are way bloated for what you require. Your not going to be able to use a beater that you found in the closet, and SJ's recommendations do give you PLENTY of room as you might add users and services later but for a few people and trying to keep you budget tight, overkill to say the very least. What are the specs you have available to you right now? You'll need a healthy hard drive and a decent CPU with a good amount of RAM, 512 at least. Just depends on what your users are going to be doing but if sharing an outlook database is it then you can get away with a somewhat moderate PC. I'll say this, In this business it's ALWAYS a good idea to get more than you need. From the sounds of it you probably don't have enough machine to do this well, but it probably could be done. You'd just have stress related to it working well, and being dependable. A redundant disk array would be something I'd consider critical, along with the aforementiond RAM. 512 May not be enough. Hard to say without seeing a detailed plan of what you want it to do.
 
Thanks ktwebb

The information that i have are the following ones:

3 centers from different locations need to access the Outlook mail, agenda and adress book.

One of the center will be hosting all the information on his main computer and i was ask to create a partition for this project.

In one of the center there will be 2 computers for a total of 4 all together that needs access to it.

Specs:

1 X P3@866 MHz with 128 MB using Win 2000 Pro and Office 2000 Edition PME, 20 Gig HD

1 X P4@2.6 MHz with 256 MB using XP Home with Office 2000 upgrade XP, 40 Gig HD

2 X P4@2.4 MHz with 256 MB using XP Home with Office 2000 upgrade XP, 40 Gig HD


I don't have any info about the budget but i presume that some money will be available for a software and again this project must be kind of simple to implement and user friendly if it's possible. I have some knowledge on Networking but did not use it a lot lately so i'm really looking for expert advices on that one.

Thanks for you help.
 
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