We have one server 2008R2 that is domain controller, file storage, dns server, and everything else. We currently have this server in one building with around 15 users connected locally.
There are 3 more buildings within a block of this main office that need to be connected. There is one building that is approximately 3 blocks line-of-sight away from the main office. They are all fairly close in physical location but all have different Internet pipes currently.
At these three buildings, I want to have the basic functionality of server access (network drives) primarily. We do have some Group Policies that we have on the domain during login but that is not a big issue. The biggest thing I want to accomplish is to have the remote buildings able to save documents on the server so it is more readily accessible for others and also so the files can be backed up with the rest of the important things on the server also.
I would like to get these buildings all connected so they are all on the domain and on the same network. This would save on extra Internet connections also if we get a reliable solution. This was my original anticipations and the reason that I bought 6 EnGenius ENH500 to do the building-to-building wireless connections for three of the buildings. I plan on using UPS devices on them to prevent power problems also.
I also thought about doing VPN. We have a Cisco ASA so we could do a VPN using that. We also have LogMeIn Hamachi so I started testing using the VPN with this. It works well and does the job well but the performance just isn't there for viewing and opening files on the network which you have to expect using an Internet-piped VPN.
What suggestions can I get from some others on what to do for a reliable connection between these buildings? Time is not a problem if I need to order hardware. I just want to get it all setup initially in a good way to make sure that it is going to be reliable.
This isn't always available, but in one more remote site, the loca ISP offered a wireless solution. So we have an antenna on our building that talks to a lager antenna close by and that connects to the Internet. Within the building we have a Cisco VPN device that comes back to our VPN concentrator. We don't get LAN speeds, but it's been a reasonable alternative.