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I work for a wee small charideee...Our forthcoming office move is being done as low cost as possible. I am the (rather rank amateur) IT support.
There is a broadband supply into a cabinet on wall, from fibre.
There is full cabling in trunking around office, from that cabinet.
We use remote desktops over internet, no storage needed on system in the office.
We have upto 8 desktop/laptop machines, plus need for wifi for guests and phones.
We have two network printers.
I think that these two should suffice to connect and provide wifi. I am also assuming(!) that simply patch cabling it all via the switch will be really simple...(!?)
Yep:
Fibre > wireless router > network switch > wired PCs/laptops/printers
Phones [and printers] connect wirelessly to router. Get a dual band router that offers a guest network also.
edit: yes you can combine the switch and router in one unit.
The Netgear switches are good, but I don't rate the modem/routers. For a business I would check out DrayTek Routers/modems.
It should be a case of plug and pray. 😆
It should be a case of plug and pray.
I like this approach.
Hi Matt, also work for a small charity and would echo Milkie above. DrayTek routers are about the best value - they're also what we use. With a netgear unmanaged switch for switching duties. I have our Draytek routers setup so that a VPN is set aside for guests (virtual private network - means if your guests have diseases your office computers should have at least some protection).
Marks place in the thread as I have a guest wireless network to set up that will not be able to see the office network (wired and wireless). I'm leaning towards a VLAN setup on a Netgear wireless VPN firewall.
if you dont get a dual band router (2 diff wifi networks) get a unifi access point - about £50 off amazon - works really well to set up a seperate guest network
Draytek +1
Backup? Any cloud connection there. Off site solution.
Accounts PC - may need additional isolation measures, regular password change, payments card industry compliance (PCI) is being strengthened.
Andyfla, from reading about the VPN firewall all ready installed a new piece of kit is required as the current router will not allow another device to do DCHP on the same network, nor will it do fancy stuff with profiles. So a combined wifi/router and separate access point it is, we have a business class access point currently doing a fixed IP single connection job. We also need to keep the network secure due to PCI concerns, the boss requires a gold plated solution as he is a sole trader who frets a bit. Also being an amateur at this learning on the job along with all the other things I have to do it appears to be a simple-ish approach to create a separate VLAN network for the guests with minimal security required to gain internet access (bandwidth will be restricted to 512kbs to allow social media posts by app and email only).
Backup?
Sure the users can afford to lose their data?
+ no file sharing? A central data dump (or access to the cloud) can allow collaborative working for your remote users
We already used Remote Desktop with shared storage from workplacelive.