🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <983390869.5750.0.nnrp-08.9e98a0a9@news.demon.co.uk>, Sean
Bolton <sean@NOSPAMcompsupp.demon.co.uk> writes
>Hi,
>
>I have been asked to implement a system for a local charity.
>
>They currently have NT Backoffice server running their Head Office network,
>mainly serving documents to Microsoft Word & Excel, mail & calendars through
>Exchange and sharing their Internet connection through Proxy server.
>
>They need to allow access to this network to five satellite offices, mainly
>for sharing documents and email & calendars.
>
>I intend to propose that each satellite office has its own Demon Premier
>Connect Plus account on ISDN. The server would have ADSL and each satellite
>office would connect to the server using point-to-point tunnelling.
>
>Does anyone have any experience of this kind of network?
>
>Any comments would be appreciated.
>
>--
>Sean R. Bolton
>sean@NOSPAMcompsupp.demon.co.uk
>
>Remove NOSPAM to reply.
>
Sean,

I have not implemented a network specifically that way, but I have had
recent experience of users on desktops at home using a VPN client to
tunnel from standard Demon Dial up 56k accounts to the firewall on a
512K permanent connection.

With one user on a 56k link to Demon it worked reasonably well, provided
that the users (both central and remote) were clearly aware of the
bandwidth limitations of the environment. This meant not sending multi-
Megabyte documents and Powerpoint presentations as E-mail attachments,
but placing them on the server and e-mailing pointers. It also meant
using text E-mail rather than writing Word memos (with scanned corporate
logos embedded in them) and e-mailing them. Be particularly careful what
you ask Exchange to do on line. It assumes in this environment that it
is on a LAN, and that bandwidth is free. It works best in this
environment if it is set up to operate  "off-line" and the users use
"send -receive" to get & send mail, and synchronise calendars.

If multiple users in each remote office expect to be able to go "on-
line" to the exchange server, and then drag and drop multi-megabyte e-
mails between exchange folders the performance, and user satisfaction,
will be abysmal.

Regards
-- 
Peter R Cook

> I intend to propose that each satellite office has its own 
> Demon Premier Connect Plus account on ISDN.

If the satellite offices can afford about GBP80 per month, go for NDU
accounts + Surftime. This will provide double the bandwidth from each
satellite office to the Internet (128 kbps MPPP) .

> The server would have ADSL

Don't forget that it's asymmetric!

> Any comments would be appreciated.

You may want to consider a Terminal Server implementation at the Head
Office, or at least make use of the Exchange OWA service (using Outlook
over a dial-up without offline folders is a waste of time - MAPI has a
big overhead).

Hope this helps

Steve

"Steven Elliott" <steve.elliott@crsltd.com> wrote in message
news:F4B34D2EDEA7D211A5A400105A46E0822482A1@superman.crsltd.com...
> > I intend to propose that each satellite office has its own
> > Demon Premier Connect Plus account on ISDN.
>
> If the satellite offices can afford about GBP80 per month, go for NDU
> accounts + Surftime. This will provide double the bandwidth from each
> satellite office to the Internet (128 kbps MPPP) .
>
> > The server would have ADSL
>
> Don't forget that it's asymmetric!

Thanks, forgot about that. Still, 256k upstream ain't so bad since the
access would be occasional from each office.

It's just occurred to me that the Demon Express ADSL account is only 10 quid
more a month than SDU, so it may be better to go for that, if its available,
instead of mucking about with Smurftime.

> > Any comments would be appreciated.
>
> You may want to consider a Terminal Server implementation at the Head
> Office, or at least make use of the Exchange OWA service (using Outlook
> over a dial-up without offline folders is a waste of time - MAPI has a
> big overhead).

Not sure about OWA, but I'm off to price up Terminal Server now.

Thanks Steve :)

Best Wishes,

Sean
--
Sean R. Bolton