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8.2

Network overhaul

Asked by mwyatt in Network Design & Methodology, Miscellaneous Networking

Tags: network router

I'm contemplating a network overhaul

I administer a small office network of 20 PCs and some remote PCs. Files are shared on a single WinXP shared folder. Users are frequently in and out of the office so active internet use would be up to 12 of those PCs at any time.

You all have different experience, so feel free to comment on possible scenarios and ideas&even ones beyond my specs.

What I want:
1. Increase daytime internet speed & accessibility
2. Overall suggestions on how to improve the network

These wants could include:
- Load balancing over two internet connections for outbound web traffic
- VPN - this might be nice to replace evening ftp transfers
- Perhaps Bandwidth Bonding, such as Mushroom Networks BBNA, of the T1 and ADSL
- Perhaps a proxy server to cache locally?


Here are the current specs:

Internet access:
  T1 (fairly reliable)
  1.5Mb ADSL line (on different provider, used as fallback)

Hardware:
  The current router is a Netgear FVX538 with load balancing. Need to replace, it randomly freezes. Also auto-failover has a 3 minute delay.
  Two 24-port gigabit switches
  WinXP Pro as "file server"

How internet is used:
  Normal download/browsing traffic during day
  Sporadic heavy daytime ftp uploads one day per week
  Kerio email server is hosted on T1 (spam is filtered off-site, so only real email reaches server and attachments arent very large)
  Nightly online backup (so as not to slow down daytime user traffic)
  Evening ftp file transfers < 300MB to the shared WinXP folder
[+][-]07/09/09 02:28 PM, ID: 24818543Accepted Solution

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About this solution

Zones: Network Design & Methodology, Miscellaneous Networking
Tags: network router
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Solution Provided By: stefanx
Participating Experts: 1
Solution Grade: A
 
[+][-]07/10/09 07:24 AM, ID: 24823578Author Comment

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[+][-]07/18/09 06:30 AM, ID: 24885951Author Comment

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[+][-]07/18/09 08:03 AM, ID: 24886245Expert Comment

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