Naive question

[SPP Admin]

Dear all,

Please excuse me if this is the wrong newsgroup - I'm looking for advice
about migrating our existing network to a more modern system. I have a
number of quick questions, which I hope you can help me with.

We currently use Novell netware 4.11 to network about 50 PCs (Running Win XP
Pro and Win98 ) and about 20 Macs, running OS9 and OSX.

We would like to move to a Windows based server environment.

(a) Will Win 200/3 server be able to let Macs connect and 'see' the
network?
(b) Is Win Server 2000/3 appropriate for this size network?
(c) Novell is a client based system. Does Win server work like this, or
will I need to upgrade some of our older PCs to cope with the new network?
(d) Any other thoughts you might have

Apologies for this naive question. If this is the wrong place, can you
direct me to the best place to ask these questions.

Many thanks

Martin

 

[Guest]

Dear all,

Please excuse me if this is the wrong newsgroup - I'm looking for advice
about migrating our existing network to a more modern system. I have a
number of quick questions, which I hope you can help me with.

We currently use Novell netware 4.11 to network about 50 PCs (Running Win XP
Pro and Win98 ) and about 20 Macs, running OS9 and OSX.

We would like to move to a Windows based server environment.

(a) Will Win 200/3 server be able to let Macs connect and 'see' the
network?
Yes

(b) Is Win Server 2000/3 appropriate for this size network?

Yes, use SBS2003 Prem

(c) Novell is a client based system. Does Win server work like this, or
will I need to upgrade some of our older PCs to cope with the new network?

I would suggest upgrading all of your 98 boxes to XP... 98 will work but you
will have a better time of it if all is XP

(d) Any other thoughts you might have

If you have hubs, upgraded them to switchs. Make sure your server is
protected by a UPS, you should consider having RAID5, if not at least RAID1
(Mirroring)

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Dear all,

Please excuse me if this is the wrong newsgroup - I'm looking for
advice about migrating our existing network to a more modern system.
I have a number of quick questions, which I hope you can help me with.

We currently use Novell netware 4.11 to network about 50 PCs (Running
Win XP Pro and Win98 ) and about 20 Macs, running OS9 and OSX.

We would like to move to a Windows based server environment.

(a) Will Win 200/3 server be able to let Macs connect and 'see' the
network?

Yes, but they should all be upgraded to run OSX so you don't need to
install/configure AppleTalk.

(b) Is Win Server 2000/3 appropriate for this size network?

Yes. With 50 users, you could probably get away with Small Business Server,
but if you plan to grow, use the regular Windows 2003 product - SBS has a
limit of 75 users.

(c) Novell is a client based system. Does Win server work like
this, or will I need to upgrade some of our older PCs to cope with
the new network?

Well, you mean client/server. So is a Windows domain. I suggest getting rid
of the Win9x clients as they cannot join a domain, have no security built
in, etc - get everyone on XP Pro.

(d) Any other thoughts you might have

Build a good server, using very good hardware - SCSI hardware RAID, lots of
memory, etc - hard to say what else as you haven't discussed the server's
role other than domain controller/file/print.

Apologies for this naive question.

It's not naive.

If this is the wrong place, can you
direct me to the best place to ask these questions.

I suggest m.p.windows.server.* for best results.

 

[Simon]

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Yes, but they should all be upgraded to run OSX so you don't need to
install/configure AppleTalk.

I think thats wrong. All you need is file and print services for macintosh
running on the server, no need to appletalk.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Yes, but they should all be upgraded to run OSX so you don't need to
install/configure AppleTalk.

I misspoke - was typing too fast. You are correct!