Getting Connected
For most businesses the server is fast becoming an essential addition, yet many operate at less than 10 to 20 percent of their capacity. We look at a few ways to stretch your server and streamline your business further
Most businesses never really exploit even a fraction of their servers hardware and software capabilities, but by adding extra hardware to the server – such as an internet connection, VoIP, wireless or some additional drives – and delving deeper into the software you already have you can take your business to the next level.
The human brain is capable of tremendous things, yet most people only use a tiny proportion of its capacity. Servers aren’t much different. According to statistics from Intel and Gartner, most servers are under-utilised, working on average at only 10 to 20 percent of their full capacity.
The internet plays a key part in any business, and with server software like SBS it’s easy to share a connection throughout the whole company – and that’s where most companies leave it. If you delve deeper into SBS, however, it’s possible to do a great deal more. With its bundled Internet Information Server (IIS) and SharePoint software, it’s possible to create your own internal internet portal – also known as an intranet – to share information throughout your company and to handle the booking and reserving of physical resources such as meeting rooms and portable projectors.
It’s also possible to use your server to create a central repository for business projects, with the server handling communication between the different people involved in the project as well as tracking shared resources, such as electronic documents. You can also open up the projects to external users, so your partners and customers can keep in touch with the project managers and see how their job is progressing.
Additional hardware that can be shared on your network includes multifunction printers, workgroup printers, scanners and Network-Attached Storage devices (NAS). By adding workgroup printers or workgroup multi-function printers to your network, you can make substantial savings – typically, total output costs can be reduced by up to 30 percent by moving to workgroup printers. If your server is getting low on disk space, then there is a quick fix available by using NAS devices: plugging NAS devices to the network means you can add terabytes of additional storage in a matter of minutes.
The latest use of the network is to abolish your conventional communications system and put it into your data network, passing all the voice traffic in your company over the network and on to the internet. VoIP enables businesses to make substantial cost savings.
Finally, most users today want flexibility, they’d like to be able to log into the office network remotely, yet they still want to be connected to the office network. To do this, you need to add a wireless access point (WAP) to your network. WAPs enable you to take your wired network and extend it to any device that has a wireless port.
If you want to know more about extending the capabilities of your server and network, PCWB would be happy to help. To talk about your network, call us on 0870 1600 902 or email expand@pcwb.com
Maintaining security
Security is one of the key problems with opening up your server and network to the outside world. If you are going to connect the entire company to the internet, then a firewall is an essential purchase. This sits between the internet and your network and blocks anything suspicious going into and coming out of the network.
The next step up from a firewall is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) device, which takes a firewall and adds additional features such as junk email filtering, anti-virus capability, an Intrusion Detection (or Prevention) System (IDS or IPS), and World Wide Web content filtering.
While a firewall or UTM detects suspicious data coming into the network, it still doesn’t pick up everything. So although it forms a good first line of defence, it’s wise to add additional other forms of security.
Using software like Microsoft SBS, it’s possible to set levels of security and privileges on practically anything on your network that’s controlled by the server.
Microsoft SharePoint
Microsoft’s SharePoint is one of the least well-known parts of Microsoft SBS and is under-used by most businesses. It enables you to turn your server into a centre for collaborative working.
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) was first used in earnest when it was launched as a free add-on to Windows Server 2003 and was bundled in with SBS 2003. WSS offers basic web portal and intranet functionality and includes portal pages, team, document and project sub-sites, version-controlled document storage and indexed search capability. Using SharePoint, it’s possible to create websites that can be made available across the entire organisation.
This article originally appeared in the October 2007 edition of Expand.