network noob needs help setting up wide area network

D

darw_n

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 7, 2001
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The company I work for (a bunch of restraunts) wants to set up a simple network solution where the owners can access and edit real time there quick books and excel sheets remotely.

Basically, all the financials are store on on PC, and they want to be able to log on to that PC from say another city, and edit them (such as adding daily sales info, etc.) and not impede the work that is going on on the server PC (which is more an office workstation than a server, But there is a static IP there)

I thought about doing an ftp setup, but I feel that there is probably a more elagant solution out there, and my networking experiences are limited to small home networks.

also, why we are at it, is there a way to use this same WAN to implement an auto back up procedure ofor all there documents?

These clients of mine are very PC illiterate, so I need a very intuitive or "dumb" solution.

thanks
 
If you are thinking about Citrix, check out Tarantella too, its cheaper and I like it better for application publishing.
 
Broadband + 2K* server with VPN + Citrix (Unless Citrix provides VPN type solution over the internet)
 
deadoralive said:
remote desktop would work.... it would be the cheapest solution.
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As stated above.. Remort desktop would work, But there are many ways to do it
 
KevinO said:
Broadband + 2K* server with VPN + Citrix (Unless Citrix provides VPN type solution over the internet)
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Why do you need a VPN?

RDP will work but only allows 2 connections at a time.
 
You missed the obvious, and quickest to set up.

Pc Anywhere. I know it's not the most hightech or best. But it works and it's easy
 
Set up a terminal server on the mashine that wants to be accessed, and then just use the build in remote desktop fucntion for it. There is nothing that should go wrong, if you restrict access, so they dont do anything stupid.

As for the backup solution, i think a sceduled task will do that, if not a Norton Ghost image would do.. I dont know if you can set it to create an image every night, but hey you might wonna look into that
 
thanks for all the tips, but we are missing one point, unless I am not understanding something.

If we use remote desk top or PC anywhere, it will interfer with the person who is doing work on the server PC correct?

plus another thing, the server PC is a triple monitor matrox setup, where as all the remote PC's have single monitors, how would the resolutions work out on that?

anyways, the server PC is always being used, on all three monitors because it is the financials department PC. It wouldmn't be cool if all of a sudden, excel or something opens up in front of everything, and a remote accessed person is working on it.

I need a way where the remote PC's can access and edit the files on the remote PC's, while it appears nothing is happening on that server PC, and the only 2 programs that we need this for is excel and quickbooks.

I just called the owners, and they can not in any way have activity appear on the server PC, and they must be able to open all apps at any time. So, that means we are back to editing files remotely, and re-upping them to the server PC.

and sorry if I am not being clear, like I said, I still have issues hooking up AP's and such
 
oh, I forgot some fundaments:

the PC is running winXPpro, and reformating for win 2k3 is probably the last thing I want to do, along with them.

the other thing, on the automated backups: it can't be a ghost or anything like that, because they use there PC's for many personaly activities. There only real concern are certain file types, and maybe one special folder, and again, it has to be brainless.
 
would a sceduled task do that?

edit: I believe you can ghost a fodler...
 
you know, I never looked into specific ghosting, I always just used old versions of ghost and did the entire drive.

my only problem with ghosting is that it's not intuitive for them, they would like to just see a bunch of excel, word, and quickbook files when they need to retreive there back up.
 
For backup:
Get at the very least an external drive
Create a batch file with the XCOPY command inside for which paths you wish to backup and direct it to the external drive

Since this is for a business I would think you are better off getting a cheap NAS device instead of an external drive, then back it up regularly onto tape.
 
darw_n said:
thanks for all the tips, but we are missing one point, unless I am not understanding something.

If we use remote desk top or PC anywhere, it will interfer with the person who is doing work on the server PC correct?

plus another thing, the server PC is a triple monitor matrox setup, where as all the remote PC's have single monitors, how would the resolutions work out on that?

anyways, the server PC is always being used, on all three monitors because it is the financials department PC. It wouldmn't be cool if all of a sudden, excel or something opens up in front of everything, and a remote accessed person is working on it.

I need a way where the remote PC's can access and edit the files on the remote PC's, while it appears nothing is happening on that server PC, and the only 2 programs that we need this for is excel and quickbooks.

I just called the owners, and they can not in any way have activity appear on the server PC, and they must be able to open all apps at any time. So, that means we are back to editing files remotely, and re-upping them to the server PC.

and sorry if I am not being clear, like I said, I still have issues hooking up AP's and such
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Sounds to me they need to invest in some IT infastructure. Sounds like they just been getting by on some ghetto rigged setup.
 
If the client has such stringent requirements but is not willing to make the necessary investment in order for a solution to work properly, then IMHO, it's a warning sign of a doomed project no matter what you do to make things work on the cheap.
 
SJConsultant said:
If the client has such stringent requirements but is not willing to make the necessary investment in order for a solution to work properly, then IMHO, it's a warning sign of a doomed project no matter what you do to make things work on the cheap.
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And it will cost them more in the end.
 
Is PC-AnyWhere or anything like that an option? What is everyone's take on that..

Might be a lot cheaper
 
Installing Citrix or Windows Terminal Services on the box at your main location should work. This way each person who logs in get's their own virtual desktop. The user currently ON the machine will never know it.

Get each of the locations a broadband connection and you should be golden.

For backups you can tell the main server to ftp a copy of the documents over from the remote sites. You could also use some real backup system like Veritas or something for a more elegant solution. There's also MSI for doing remote backups thru an internet connection. As long as it's not gigs and gigs of data it will work nicely.
 
Again people are missing a key point

and they want to be able to log on to that PC from say another city, and edit them (such as adding daily sales info, etc.) and not impede the work that is going on on the server PC
Click to expand...

none of the provided solutions are going to do this. Buy a dedicated PC. Your not going to get any kind of terminal application or backup solution working that won't affect the host pc and anyone using it. For what your asking about you need a dedicated machine and a powerful one to boot. You can use XP but since you wan't multiple users to use it then you need an OS that will handle it. You don't have to shell out for 2k3 but you will need at least 2k server on a machine with some horsepower. I'd quit spending time trying to figure out how to make this work on a machine that people will be using at the console. Won't work, at least not well. A dedicated terminal server with something like Veritas or other 3rd party backup solution is your best bet.
 
great points from everyone, thanks again.

there is one underlying problem that I notice alot of you pointing out.

there is no room for a decent investment, which would simplify everything. The reason for that is that they are a reletively new, and reletively small company that has a majority of there investments in the basic function and design of each restarant, they have much of there assets tied into the legalities of taking there concept to a franchise level, so convincing them to drop a few grand, just to have redundancy and minor editing is not feasable, yet. They are also considering switching there current POS system to a much more expensive one, meaning they would take on a substantial loss on there previous one (of course it means we would have an armada of dell PC's and small servers to use, which would be to my benefit!)

then finally, they had to drop alot of cash recently to fix all my shuttle PC's I built for them because they all suffered from that damn capacitor 'issue'.

anyways, you guys all seem to recommend a dedicated server machine, along with a bit of software, and a server edition of windows, and maybe some tape drives (the amount of data needed to back up is actually pretty small)

I may be able to sell them on that project, maybe.

thanks!
 
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