My State of the Network
I have decided to lay out some of the basics of my network at my job. Read forth with caution because it is not pretty. Please leave and and all suggestions that you have for me to make my network better and especially more secure. I have a Grand Vision in my head of what I want the network to be like. Now it is just getting the money, time and knowledge to get it all in place.
I have been at my job since Jan 2006. It is the first network administration job that I have had. I have come from the desktop support arena that dabbled in the network area. When I got here, our entire City Hall network was running on an old Compaq Proliant ML350 with 40GB hard drive. It had Novell 5.1 as the NOS, Groupwise 6.5 for email for 85+ users, Symantec Anti-Virus Corporate 8, ARCserve 6 for our single tape backup and the file server for 30+ users. The backup had not for the 2+ months prior to my arrival, which was revealed when our Sales Tax database got corrupted before my arrival [who would have thought a 300+MB Access database would corrupt!].
Now, this was 2006. Novell was 2 versions old, as was Symantec AV. Surprisingly, the Groupwise was relatively up-to-date [only 1/2 version old]. At that time, I had to make the decision to upgrade and continue to use Novell, or to transfer the network to Microsoft. I thought long and hard [I really did!] and decided to move he network to Microsoft. So I have started that process by getting a domain controller in place and I am now looking to get an Exchange 2007 server in place by the end of 2007.
We also have two other main facilities in our city. All three of us are disconnected on the network. We have a point-to-point (P2P) T1 that connects our City Hall to our Police Station, but it is strictly for Internet access. Another project that I am working on is to create a wide area network (WAN) between the three facilities. I think that I want to utilize that P2P in the WAN creation, and maybe drop a P2P to the Public Works building [currently they have a cable modem for access] and use some Cisco devices to create the WAN.
One of my main goals is to increase the security in place. Currently I am building a server room for all of the servers to live in. At present, one server is at one end of the building and the others are outside my office in another room. I will soon be implementing a stronger password policy to coincide with the placement of the new Exchange Server. I will put in place some sort of spam filter in place. I am not sure if it will be a hosted solution or an appliance. I am considering a content filter for next year as well. Again, I have not decided about software vs. appliance for that either. I will trade out our 6 non-managed switches for 2 managed Cisco switches to cover each end of our building. I also want to set up a Linux server as a monitoring station for the network. When the WAN is complete, there will be about 250 stations on the network across the three facilities. I want a way to be able to monitor all of those machines from one machine. Microsoft Systems Management Server, or whatever it is called today, will be considered for patch management and other odds and ends.
Well, I have a lot of reading and have to find a lot of money to get my Grand Vision implemented. Luckily, I have a couple of years to get it in place.
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