remote location newbie question

[77zxmax]

need advise from your experience
currently i'm manageing a hotel, and they just bought another hotel (they are not too far from each other, about 2-3 kms apart)
they want to make the current location as the mother location, and the new one as a child - shared files, database..etc

now what is the best configuration for the new location? do i make a stand alone server with DC for local users, and use it as a vpn server ?

if you could help me just put my feet in the right direction, i'll greatly appreciated

thanks

 

[buddafish]

If you need to segregate the the two hotels in that fasion, perhaps creating another SITE in Active Directory will suffice. Unless you really need to define different domains and domain policys, there should be no need to create a parent --> child domain structure. Sites will offer some control for traffic, ect, while allowing both to share the same Active Directory information ect... how you connect them is subject to many varibles. If you will be pushing / pulling lots of data, then a dedicated point-2-point circuit (T1 or 3/4 or 1/2..) should be sought out. Frame-relay is another possibility. If you will be using IP phones, then personally, I would not go the frame-relay option... whatever you do, sketch out the possibilities prior to spending money...

scottie

 

[technome]

Even a T1 is not a fast speed for network access, especially with database or large programs running, especially with VPN involved.

Look into Terminal services via a VPN setup. A Terminal server(s) could be setup at the main location and the second hotel could remotely connect to the TS server via RDP. The TS server should be a member server, not a domain controller for security reasons, I would use VPN between the two hotels. If these you have the resources for redundancy. I would recommend having two broad band lines between the buildings. If you have "cable" in town,this would probably be the best bet for the primary line, DSL if obtainable, as the secondary, ISDN as the last resort. TS uses little bandwidth and file/program access is very fast; it also offers centralized management in the main hotel.

 

[77zxmax]

thanks for advise,
Technome, if i use the VPN between the 2 hotel, is MS vpn is good enough , or do i go for Cisco products
for the interent - we have DSL with true 4M download, and 0.8M for upload , is this speed suffetient to handle ?

in the new location , there will be about 5-6 users logging in
thanks again