Setting up network from scratch

[darkmanx]

If you were to set up a new network from the beginning what order would do create the servers/services in?

I'm looking at creating a test network to mirror as real as I can a working network all using vmware. What would be your first server? Domain controller? then where would you go from here?

I know in a real world situation not many of us would ever need to set up a network from the ground up as many people inherit them from previous people but want to get a feel of where to begin.

Thanks

[jamesreedersmith]

Depends on the needs of the organisation you are building it for - if a school
AD/DNS
Filtering/ISA Etc
DHCP
File Server
Print Server
Exchange
Apps Server (Sims/Integris etc)

Then in no particular order: -
WSUS/MDT/WDS
AV Management
and a few ive proberly forgotton

[FN-GM]

Personally i would start with the firewall and routers then core switches then core servers. Then build from there.

[darkmanx]

fn-gm its just a test environment at home I'm looking at so I can learn things from the ground up but take on board your info.

Is there anything that can mirror firewalls and internet filtering thats free. I'm guessing if I connect my server with all my virtual machines to my router I can bring in internet access and see how that kind of thing works.

thanks

[jamesreedersmith]

Have a look at untangle or smoothwall express - both are free and do filtering, dns control, port control etc.

[maniac]

This is the order that we setup our new network in, some of it was migrated from the old, but most was a brand new setup so I imagine the steps you want to take are something like:

• Domain controller running Active Directory, DNS and DHCP as the basis of the network - spend time configuring these services to make sure they are 100% correct.
• Secondary domain controller next (if you're having one.) Ours runs IAS server to provide RADIUS authentication for our wireless system, and acts as a secondary DNS server as well as authentication.
  (Once these are done, you have a fully functional domain you can log on and off of and add machines to.)
• Storage server and necessary shares for Home folders, shared folders, profiles etc. etc.
• At this point I did our data migration and user account creation
• Web filtering was established next and tested
• Then Exchange server for e-mail
• SIMS came next along with SQL
• Next came the Server which handled our virus checker management, which also doubles as a webserver for Eclipse and other intranet services
• Then our print server which also handles WSUS and our nightly backup.
• Lastly are other minor non-essential services we have running on a couple of older servers.

This is not the ideal order, as some of this was limited by when I could decomission the old servers and re-use them for their new purpose. If doing it from scratch I would establish the virus checker management and backup systems as early as possible, you want to backup your nice new domain along the way incase anything goes wrong - you'll kick yourself if you don't and something goes wrong.

Of course, this varies a lot depending on what services you're running. Basically the rough guide is

Domain Controllers
Storage
Essential Services
Non-essential services

[darkmanx]

also just a thought, would you now start looking at using server 2008 or for learning become familiar with server 2003 first?

[j17sparky]

A good thing to have handy is the IPs of some DNS server - openDNS for example. We dont have any DNS servers on our RBC grid, which is fun when our internal DNS is down.