On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 06:37:08 -0700, "Craig Harrison" <Craig
I have a client who is a real estate appraiser and she has NT 4 with 6
workstations running 98, Me, 2000, and XP_ home. They are not going to grow
to more than two or three more workstations in the next 3 years. The
appraisal application does not require such a Server OS like Server 2003 to
distribute the files and that's all the NT server does now. I wanted to
migrate all of the files over to a dedicated XP pro server to do this. I have
two questions, with this environment, is this a workable solution and is
there a white paper that helps me with this. Thanks, Craig
Craig,
An XP Pro server will handle up to 10 simultaneous connections, and your
described LAN will be pushing the limit there. Is the current setup a domain or
workgroup? Remember XP will not provide a domain.
If the current NT server is a workgroup, and if that's all you plan to need, I'd
say that XP Pro will provide a comparable server. That said, I know from
experience that when you get over 5 computers or so, you're getting to the point
where setting up a domain makes more sense.
If the staff is very stable, with very little changing of personnel, sharing of
computers, or securing data from each other, then a workgroup solution is
workable. Remember for a workgroup, you have to setup authentication on both
each client (computer accessing shared data) and each server (computer providing
shared data). And if you wish to password protect data, you have to keep
passwords synchronised on at least 2 computers for each account.
In a workgroup where no data is shared (maybe just a mutual Internet
connection), or where everybody is equally trusted (so no need to secure any
secret data), you should have no problems.
Anytime you have data that is intended for access by only a small part of the
workgroup, though, you have to setup authentication and authorisation on each
client and each server. If securing data is necessary on any LAN where the
staff might share each others computers for any reasons, or where you have
changing staff, setting up and maintaining accounts on multiple computers will
quickly become a monumental task.
If you ever have one person leave employment, and have to run around changing
userids and / or passwords, you will know what I'm suggesting.
My serious suggestion? Bite the bullet now, and get Server 2003 for 10 or 15
licenses. It will make life easier for your client in the long run.
