My office was not fully computerised but computers were there wich are networked by a windows WORKGROUP environment. There are 14 suboffices under this Head office and broadband internet connectivity is available to all offices.
Now there is a plan to implement centralised networking and implement web based/networked software for administration and other matters.
My plan is use two servers-one windows 2003 using as the domain controller and and file/print server - second with LINUX OS, as Database and web server.
My questiones are
1. Can the broadband internet connection can be used for implementing a local network between the Head Office and suboffices instead of using a leased line.

2. Can I use the linux systems as router in each sub-offices. I know it can do it but what would be the performance?

3. What should be the configurations of the Servers for the purpose?
The number of users expected is below 500 and number of nodes is below 200.

Expecting valuable advice

Check what broadband speeds are available at all the sites. A speed of 10/1 is fairly typical. The 10 part would probably be fine but (depending on the data load) the 1 can quickly become an issue. Caps are also becoming very common with ISPs (ranging form 5-250gb/month), so this also needs to be checked. The rest of your questions will also be dependent on how much data is going to be moved around and what type. For instance text files are pretty small but PDFs are not. A lot of companies use PDFs to minimize document tampering.

Yes, no, probably.
Or, it depends. It depends on the structure, how much traffic there is and what the time-requirements are for that traffic.

So you can structure the system to make this possible or structure it to make it impossible. I can guess which of those you want, but you will have to do the hard work of making it happen if you don't give enough detail.

What kind of answer would you like? If I told you that the answer was 15.7 (or some other number which I pull out of thin air), how would help??

No. That depends on the structure and you have to work your way towards that.

This really needs someone who knows what they are doing to go through the requirements, decide on a structure, work out what is needed and explain the compromises to you to see whether that is acceptable. If you can't do that yourself, be prepared to pay...

For example, my first impression is that to make this workable you would have to structure the whole system around reducing the need for 'net bandwidth/low latency access, but the only way that it would be possible to find out what is in my head would be workable would be to analyse workloads of various 'use cases' with the people who would use the system. That isn't going to happen on a forum.

An alternative might be to construct a system, not knowing how well it will work, and fine tune it in the cases in which there are problems. Depending on what has been 'sold' to management, this may or may not be acceptable and it may or may not be efficientand it may or may not give the person who is promoting the system an unnacceptably bad reputation.

Thank u for the quick reply to my questions

More on the issue

In the sub-offices, the number of nodes are less than 10 (14 sub-offices)
Programs like Pay roll need to be run in network based environment
(The volume of data-number of employees is less than 300)

This programs should work as a LAN including the sub_offices

PDF files and word, excel,presentation...etc files need to be transferred

Our broadband connection offers minimum 256 kbps speed but I don't know
how the speed is measured

I do not think that anybody is going to be happy with 256kbps. Fast Ethernet (what most people are using today) runs 100 Mbit/s(note Mbit not kbps) and GigE (what people are migrating to) is 1000Mbit/s. This will be really bad when you are pushing an update to all the offices at once. You will be splitting 256kbps over 14 lines (18kbps each office). To put this in perspective, the last of the regular phone modems were 56kbps.

What about running a web based software?
Data is stored in Central office server

IF you are still using the same connection (going out from the web server) you still have the same problem. The problem is not the download speed of the remote offices it is the upload speed from the central office (assuming the majority of data comes from the central office).

As I am afraid that I that as I rather expected, you are completely missing the point. You can connect these various island together, but whether you get acceptable performance depends depends on what is acceptable, which in turn depends on many things including culture and how tasks are structured and what role the individual action plays in the overall task, and how much you are loading the system/ the amount of time you have to wait for things to happen.

Saying that are involved really doesn't help much, unless you can estimate the volumes of data, acceptable delays, etc.

Conventionally, the slowest speed that is considered broadband is 500 kilobits per second, or roughly twice what you say you have got.

lazlow is quite correct that the traffic to the head office will, almost inevitably be higher, what with it being a head office. In addition, however, you need to consider the 'A' in ADSL: assymetric! The upload speeds are usually lower than the download ones (how much depends on locality) and uploads from the head office are likely to be a particular issue, unless you are prepared to spend more on the head office link.

What you are trying to 'architect' here is the kind of thing that once would have been done by a systems analyst - if you do not have the competencies that a systems analyst would have brought to the task, you will probably do this badly. Given your inability to grasp the issues, and supply appropriate information I think my best advice would be that you should get professional help; someone who gets paid for teasing out these issues. Just because Linux is free doesn't mean there are no costs in completing some arbitrary software project... (& I wish you all good luck).

Ok my dear friend

here is what Iam thinking of some solutions for you,

Sun Secure Global Desktop (SSGD) is excellent for you, Previously known as Tarantella after taken by sun now this SSGD offers great connection speed within its propritary protocol. SSGD bandwidth adjusts according to your needs.

The SSGD should be installed on the Linux Server and the connectivities will be configured in that irrespective of what softwares you are using i.e whether you are using Windows VB applications or office documents any thing doesnot matter.

Next solution is Go for the LAMP(Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP) concept or any webbased solutions this is again totally Lowers the Total Cost of the Owner ship(TCO). And improve your broadband connection upto 2mbps and one backup line always. Next thing is always try to implement lower bandwidth applications like Webbased applications, text , less images. To store the file contents and to generate the reports.

Lower Total Cost of the Ownership. TCO this is very important always one time investment is the best idea but not the propritary things which needs year by year updates and payments think of these always. For example Windows, MSOffice , Antivirus.

If the Webbase applications are ruling your office then those can be platform independent. By which you can get rid of all the problems and single investment only. Some times you no need to concentrate on Software only Hardware maintenance is necessary.

Any thing more ......suggest our Sunil

thank u teluguswan

Your reply appears to be very close to my question.

Means when I increase the connectivity speed upto 2Mbps
and prefer to run web based program using LAMP, it would be
satisfactory. I am familier with LAMP and only barrier is the broadband speed.
however for this purpose, shall I use a dedicated router in all offices(costly) or can this be done by using linux machine as router?
Now my requirement is small web pages developed in php using mysql database server and apache data volume is small suppose 30 records of a single table and a query retrieves maximum records with five fields

?

2Mbps up,down, or both? The up is going to be the limiting factor.

both yes

Always you should think about the failover Condition, if the server fails immediately your applications connections should shift to backup server which is going on.

Give me some idea about the work which your office is dealing with. For example most of the times The Companies work totally goes on their Emails i.e sending the information to and from using outlook express or you can say mail servers.

And for the same they use only the MS-Office and Autocad and blah blah (applications)

So depending upon your work we can suggest you some excellent options as i previously mentioned SSGD (Sun Secure Global Desktop) is the software by which you can use the existing applications and by their proprietary protocol the applications bandwidth itself makes changes instantly according to modem or cable. You will least bother about bandwidth by considering this application.

Next thing is You can centralize the data in the office for a duration and upload the same to the central server at one point i.e by scheduling you can synchronize that.

Why are you thinking about the Internet Connection you can also go for the Dedicated ISDN lines these days where your office can utilize the dedicated bandwidth speed. (BSNL, Reliance many more to serve these lines)

So think of that

teluguswan

1. As a Local mail Server
2. Centralised office administration software (web based)-Processing employee(around 100 numbers) related informations such as salary computation, other Insurance, Provident fund etc ; Not much processing - pay roll

3. Web based program for maintaining project details

All sub offices have broadband connectivity and I think no extra cost/work is there for providing network connectivity. But for leased lines it requires routers and a major overhead is there in providing network connectivity (14 offices hence 14+1 routers)

Now there is a plan for implementing web based administration software in the Main office. By providing the connectivity, I think the same functionality can be used in all offices.
"Next thing is You can centralize the data in the office for a duration and upload the same to the central server at one point i.e by scheduling you can synchronize that."
I thins this point is useful to me and I requests further information. I am also thinking about UUCP networking also

Here is the excellent solution you can go for

The BSNL, Reliance Telephone providers are providing dedicated lines to the various places. i.e you can think of the VPN connection between the Offices of all your places. This is the excellent solution for having the dedicated connection as you said everything is local intranet work. So, this option will be excellent for you.

Please call those people and discuss with them (VPN) also check the website of BSNL , Reliance for your information.

Better to call the representative they will be happy to give the information always