I would like to get some suggestions on how we could improve our network. We are moving towards virtualization when our brand new server arrives, and then we'll be able to consolidate a few of our servers. I want to see how we can make this more EFFICIENT, reliable, and just improve on our CURRENT setup. This is what we are currently working with:



One thing that I would consider doing is pushing down windows updates downstream to the clients, and I was thinking about roaming profiles, but we don't really have users moving around to different computers. We maintain images of our client computers instead, and they store their documents on a shared drive. What are some other way we might be able to make improvements?Hi Barnicle,

There is a lot going on now in the industry, as you know. Frankly, I don't think there are many IT pros that hang out here. I could be wrong.

If I were you, I would join a user group or forum on the Crisco web site. And on one of the forums that are part of the Microsoft Tech support.

Visualization is a big thing right now. But it is not the same thing as reliability. Some will try to sell it to you as more reliable. Well, in this industry few times has anything very new been very reliable. Be careful about making changes and not improvements. It is hard to know exactly which part of the system will fail. You might think it would be the servers. Until rodents in the crawl space eat up your nice new Ethernet cable because is was so tasty. That sounds funny. Right? But if it happens, it is no joke. Replacing the wires can take over a day. Not that wireless is a better solution. It is not.

Maybe there are some here who will share their ideas.
with regards to virtualization...are you talking "virtual desktops", 'virtual resources' or 'virtual platforms'. i've dealt a little with the last using VMware and Linux with Windows running on top of it. i've seen Windows running on top of Novell also. if the OS CRASHES you basically just restart the OS but it is still a crash.

in your diagram i see 2 firewalls are they dedicated firewall servers or multipurpose servers?? i don't see a DHCP, IIS, print, etc. do you have those?? do you actually have 2 ftp servers?? i can't read what the 3RD firewall icon has under it.

just a few prelim questions.
what OS's are you running on the servers and workstations??
how many workstations?? domain servers?? member servers??
how many PRINTERS?? do the print jobs get backed up??
how many users?? how many IT??
are you a parent domain, child domain, or is there just one domain??
are terego and pathaway other sites?? do you need to control them also??

are you looking for speed, availability, both??

are you running RAID systems?? if so, 0, 1, or 5 and on which partitions and servers.


"One thing that I would consider doing is pushing down windows updates downstream to the clients". i would suggest SUS (Software Update Services available from MS website) and Automatic Update. that would get all approved OS updates to your servers and clients. be sure to set 'install only approved updates'

is there a reason you want 'roaming profiles'?? it takes up bandwidth.

it would normally take an hour or more to find exactly what you want, what you have and then figure out how to do what's needed.