Internet Sharing 2

[Jazzyjones]

I want to set up a network in my office that would provide internet access to all 20 users. What sort of connection do I need? Would isdn be satisfactory - or would the users find that browsing will be too slow?

Please help.

 

[GunJack]

Hey jazzy,

I've heard of a lot of small offices going with standard DSL service for this. You just need to get a proxy device to allow for mulitiple computers on the same connection. I believe these can be found for a few hundred dollars but you will probably find that they don't have any firewalling capabilities for that price.

If you can't get dsl, ISDN would be a good solution. If everyone is surfing at the same time, it will be slow but if your usage varies throughout the day, your users will probably not notice.

Good luck,
GJ

 

[Meckanic]

Jazzy,

As Gunjack said, you could probably get away with DSL. Cable would be a little faster, but a little less secure. You have two types of basic choices in firewall protection and proxies. You could use a server as the firewall proxy incorporating proxy software such as Wingate, WinProxy, etc. plus a firewall, like BlackIce, Sygate, etc. The other option is to use a frewalled DSL/Cable Modem router. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages.

If you have a spare 'box' (200mhz/64 mbytes RAM/2 gbytes storage or better) and can throw NT4 on it (or Linux if you want to use a "Unix" based solution), the server route might be the easier but require more maintenance over the long run. I would think it is the most configurable and allows fairly simple setup of VPN's and other server services. If you have to buy a new 'box' it will be more expensive than going with a router (about $200 for a 4 port). One fairly reasonable advantage of going with a separate 'box' is that you can cache pages and images that are frequently hit by the workstations, thereby possibly decreasing overall internet connection bandwidth requirements by 50% or more in many cases. This does not work for workstations which constantly download images from Usenet groups or files from FTP sites.

If you need connection drawings for systems that dump multiple clients to a router (usually 1 to 3 hubs per router) or multiple workstations to a proxy server, I'll send them to you if you can't find them on the web.

Meckanic