Adam2737

I recommend you get a couple firewalls to handle your VPN connections. We use Fortigate and Sonicwall to VPN over 15 branches. Both have an easy to use web interface, HA, virus protection, etc.

Ha ha

How many users do you manage, and what is your average yearly budget? Just curious.

I should also mention that our mission critical application is already on its own server and SAN. These additional servers would be to just manage the windows clients.

SBS is out of the question since it wouldn't allow us to grow without having to purchase new licensing. We actually have other branch offices that we may want to add to these services later on. My initial idea was to have a simple DC, DNS, and DHCP to make management easier and improve security, as well as a shared file system to store important documents, files, etc... The environment has a only a few power users, and for some users it would be beneficial to have a roaming profile or redirected folders. Virtualization with a SAN sounds like an ideal solution, but that could easily double my budget of around $12,000 USD for this year. Just a step in the right direction this year, would it be better to purchase a smaller spec 1u server for DC, DNS, and DHCP? We could then use a similar 2u server as mentioned above (maybe 2 x quads) to provide backup DC, DNS, DHCP, anti-virus and file storage? The active directory and DNS services would be the most crucial to have high availability. Thanks for all the replies. You guys don't waste anytime =)

I'm not part of a school district IT department, but a programmer/sole IT of a small enterprise. I periodically visit this forum as I find it has a wealth of information that interests me. The company I work for is behind the times, and we're looking to migrate our workgroup network into a domain (roughly 70 users at this branch office). I would like to setup two servers for now... one active directory, DHCP, DNS, and another to provide backup and shared storage, as well as other services like sophos antivirus. What would you recommend for the first server? I was looking at a DL380 G7 with two Xeon x5660 processors, 24GB of memory, and six 600GB 10,000 RPM HDDs in raid 5 (2 smaller drives in mirrored array for OS). This seems like overkill for the few services I would put on without virtualizing. What kind of specs would you do for the two servers? Any response is appreciated.