network project
 

hey all need some advice. I am an it technician but dont actually deal in the networking side of things so when someone asks me a question i might just be able to get away with it!

Anyways one of my clients has a business which is based at 3 different sights. They have 3 directors who share one laptop as its never needed more than one director at a time. They currently have stmpbeamer running there mail (a cheap version of ms exchange server!) they have cisco routers at each of their sights. The laptop has the vpn client installed. what they want to do is be able to pick up their e-mails from anywhere in the world for instance and also transfer and pick up their files from the server whilst they are working at home and on the laptop abroad for e.g. I contacted stmpbeamer and the current version of their software doesnt allow them to have a web based mail sight. They have told me to upgrade the software which is a free download. Not a problem. However they are being slightly awkward in that they want to still be able to pick up their contacts and diraies etc through outlook. Can this be done with the current stmpbeamer or will they be better off buying ms exchange server and use terminal services to gain access to their files and folders etc.

Like i said before am quite technically minded but when it comes to networks I only know the basis of them.

Also if ms exchange was needed what other hardware/software would i need to make it work! ?

Thanks in advance :luvlove:

Not sure on the networking side but the contacts bit is all local. Just enter all their contacts into the Outlook client. That's what I do at home and work.

Not that much help though ....

Dave

PS: it's 'site' .... 'sight' sees things .... :D
PPS: sorry, think I should have been a teacher with the spelling stuff .... :D :D

There are plenty of companies who would be happy to come in and talk to you about this. I suggest you get someone in.

Look up ABS Computers, they are in Poole, off the high street.

James is a good chap but you don't get ought for nought!

lol thanks i'm actually base din southampton but it'll be a good person to speak to :lol1: :luvlove:

You need someone to set you up a VPN server, unless the smtpbeamer can do IMAP?

If you installed Exchange (2003) you could use Outlook Web Access from any remote location in the world and all the end users will need is access to the internet. Then logon via a web browser to OWA, they will then have access to anything that is in their mailbox i.e. Calendar, Contacts etc etc.
Obviously there are additional things to take into account depending on what’s already installed on your server(s)… OWA requires IIS for example.

If you also want to be able to access documents/data on your server from a remote location then you might want to consider Terminal Services, as you have already mentioned. Again depending on what’s already on your server(s) and what your routers can do you could setup a PPTP connection on the laptop which will connect to the office then once connected the user can use remote desktop (built into XP) or terminal services client to logon to the Terminal Server. Doing it this way the end user will be opening the document up on the server (which will be quicker) rather than trying to open it up across a VPN connection, which will grind it to a halt!

If you are running Outlook 2003 you can use Cached Exchange Mode which will basically allow the user to open Outlook and look at their Calendar, Contacts etc when they are not connected to the server.

I'd second exchange server for ease of access - it'll give you options for web access and Outlook over http which essentially will allow Outlook access over the internet as if you were in the office.

With regards to file access have you thought about something like Groove? It'll allow synchronisation of offline files with an online shared workspace.