Two buildings: Citrix or synchronized file servers?

[Andrew J. Brehm]

I have a problem with a strategic deployment decision and was wondering
whether anybody here was ever in the same situation and/or can provide
some information or opinion.

The situation is as follows.

My company have moved one department into another building in the same
general area as the main building. The buildings are currently connected
with a 20 Mbit/s connection but this will be scaled down to 2 Mbit/s
(for data and internal telephone).

The users in the building use mainly Microsoft Office, Citrix clients to
connect to a terminal server in the main building, the Web, and a
database client to connect to a database in the main building. They also
use Outlook to access a mail server in the main building.

There are about 40 users there tops.

The setup seems very slow at the moment (using 20 Mbit/s) but works. I'm
afraid it might not work as well with less than 2 Mbit/s.

We have come up with two plans so far.

1. Install a mail server (Exchange) in the new building and forward
mails to it or keep it synchronized with the main mail server (how?);
install a local file server in the new building and synchronize it with
one directory on the main file server every night.

This would bring down network traffic to emails sent and received (as
opposed to any mailbox access) and database access.

The alternative is:

2. Keep everything in the main building, install several terminal
servers (Citrix?), let 30 people work on terminals servers via the 2
Mbit/s link while the rest use laptops (they are not always in that
office).

This would reduce network traffic to the ICA or RDC connections, but I
am not sure whether this is really a reduction.

I have no idea whether 30-35 Citrix connections will work via a 2 Mbit/s
link.

So considering the two alternatives, what other alternatives are there
or which one makes more sense. Considering administration workload I
tend to prefer the second one, but can it work at all?

 

[Guest]

As far as the mail goes, definitely put an exchange server in the new
building. Make it part of the same organization and move those users' mail
boxes over to it. No need to worry about synching or forwarding, the two
servers will do everything automatically.
As for the database, does it need to be "real time" where changes must be
available to all users right away?

 

[Andrew J. Brehm]

As far as the mail goes, definitely put an exchange server in the new
building.

Will do. Unless the second option (thin client only) works.

Make it part of the same organization and move those users' mail boxes
over to it. No need to worry about synching or forwarding, the two
servers will do everything automatically.

The problem here would be that I didn't plan to backup anything in the
new building. I thought syncing all the servers in the new building with
the main building before the backups each time would solve that problem.

It seems I would have to worry about mailboxes in the new building now.

As for the database, does it need to be "real time" where changes must be
available to all users right away?

I can find out.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Ken B]

If the buildings are relatively close together, and you have the hardware to
support it, why not run fiber lines from one building to the other? All you
would need to connect the 2 buildings (much like what we do here at my
place) is a module in a switch to support fiber connections. We use gigabit
fiber, but I believe there is a form of it that's rated for 100mbit.

If you don't have the hardware already that'll support it, you could get 2
switches and fiber gigabit modules, then would only have to worry about
running fiber underground. Depending on how far apart the buildings are,
and what's gotta be crossed (asphalt, dirt/grass, concrete, etc.) you could
probably have that done for cheaper than it would cost to build an extra
server, licenses, and the un priceable user agony, and of course your own
agony for having to listen to them complain about how slow the network is.

My situation is a little different from your's... I have about 50 feet
between my buildings, and have fiber running underground from the phone
closet of one building underground, to a corner of the other building, then
up into the rafters, down to the closet in the other building, with HP
Procurve switches (sorry for the plug!) and fiber modules installed on each
side.

Less to manage with my set up, and we don't keep any servers in the other
building, save for a VERY low end DC just to eliminate a single point of
failure. If that DC went down, no big deal--it was a pentium 200. Fast in
its hay-day, but that's L O N G gone

HTH

Ken

 

[Frank]

We are running quite a lot of applications on citrix server farm(2
servers)over a 2M link, there are about 50 users, and the response is time
is quite ok.

application include, ms office, outlook, ca400, ie, etc..., so if bandwidth
is a concern you can consider using citrix.

Frank

 

[Andrew J. Brehm]

We are running quite a lot of applications on citrix server farm(2
servers)over a 2M link, there are about 50 users, and the response is time
is quite ok.

application include, ms office, outlook, ca400, ie, etc..., so if bandwidth
is a concern you can consider using citrix.

Thank you.