Network file storage and sharing solution - advice needed

[deanerk]

Okay, without getting into too much detail, the company I work for has 4 branch offices that have old Novell 4.x boxes that we want to get rid of. Everyone is on XP Pro, but they're still using the Novell box for network storage. Each user has a home drive storage area on it and there is also a group shared drive map for sharing of files at the branch. Most of the shared files are Office 2000 files. The Novell box is backed up to tape on a regular schedule. What we want to do is cut costs by getting rid of Novell client licenses and be able to back up the users' data and allow sharing from a location here at the corporate office.

In brainstorming, we've come up with 2 possible solutions. We can use a Citrix application portal as their only access to Office applications, thus insuring that all their work is saved and backed up here at corporate. This presents several possible issues. We haven't looked at licensing issues, printing issues, or opening email attachments created with Office applications to name just a few. (We use Lotus Notes) I doubt bandwidth usage would be much of a problem, but needs to be looked at too. There would probably need to be some attention to training for a couple hundred users also.

The second option would be to install a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device at the branch. This could be remotely managed from corporate by IT. The users could use their local Office 2000 applications and save and share to the device via home and group drives as they are doing now. This NAS device could then be backed up here at corporate on a regular schedule.

Just wanted to get opinions, experiences, advice, or suggestions of other solutions from you all. We're looking for creative solutions to consider. Anyone doing anything similar in their line of work? Can anyone suggest another forum to pose these questions to?

 

[Segnosaur]

I have to admit, I've never set up network storage in a business setting...

But, have you looked into Linux and SAMBA? Both open source (and free, if you are able to maintain them yourself.) Instal Linux on a machine, run SAMBA, and your windows computers will see the Linux machine as another remote disk.

 

[deanerk]

Well, from my limited understanding of NAS devices, it sounds to me like that's pretty much what you're describing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most NAS devices operate on a Unix or Linux based OS? This is one we briefly looked at: Linksys EFG120 . It just has the usual Linksys web interface for configuration. Pretty neat little device for the money. Any other ideas? I'm just a desktop support guy, but I have to sell an idea to our server and network guys that will be easy and cost effective for all of us.

 

[Uh_Clem]

Remember, your Novell box is (probably) handling all your login, file, and print security.

NAS is usually just a dumb hard drive plugged into the network. You still need something to manage your security. That Linksys box will do limited account management but you'll have to create matching accounts on your XP boxes. Unless you want wide open read/write for everyone on the network the NAS is going to be a headache. They were all the rage here at my facility 2 years ago and admins have since dumped most of them.

Provided your IT folks can support it, I'd go with the Linux/Samba solution like Segnosaur suggested. You can do almost any administration remotely and you get almost all the same features a Windows NT server will give you.

 

[Segnosaur]

Well, from my limited understanding of NAS devices, it sounds to me like that's pretty much what you're describing. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most NAS devices operate on a Unix or Linux based OS? This is one we briefly looked at: Linksys EFG120 . It just has the usual Linksys web interface for configuration. Pretty neat little device for the money. Any other ideas? I'm just a desktop support guy, but I have to sell an idea to our server and network guys that will be easy and cost effective for all of us.

Not sure about NAS devices (I'm a programmer, so I don't get involved with hardware that often). However, CD burners are fairly cheap and DVD burners are coming down in price.... you may be able to use them to do backups.

 

[voidx]

If its cost effective then Segnosaurs suggestion is probably best. The client costs for Netware or not likely to be much different for equivalent NT/2000 server client licenses. But do consider Uh_clems suggestion. Netware is likely doing all your login, directory security, and print queues. And since your using 4.x it will be difficult to migrate that over to something else for any large savings, except perhaps with Segnosaurs suggestion. It is beneficial though, getting the Netware client and its concurrent IPX protocol off Win 2000/xp/9.x machines is generally a performance boost, and less of a headache. However, Netware does do a pretty efficient job as a file server and print server. You'll be hard pressed to find something that replaces all of that for less.

(For the record I'm also in the process of phasing out my Netware 5 server as most of our applications are on WinNT/2000 server anyway, but its a pain. One Netware server can act as file server, login server, print server and backup server all in one and still have processing power to boot. Its not as feasible to do this under an NT/2000 scenario)

 

[deanerk]

Remember, your Novell box is (probably) handling all your login, file, and print security.

All users are on XP Pro and have or will have ADS accounts set up. All printing has been changed to IP printing. The Novell boxes have to go and soon. The question is what to replace them with. I like the Linux/Samba idea too and I might look into it a little more, but I doubt it will fly here. Our server guys aren't going to want to get rid of Novell, just to replace it with Linux, especially considering they're all Windows certified up the wazoo and none claims to be a Linux expert or even advocate. Can either of you direct me to a resource that would give me a high level description of how a Linux/Samba box could be used effectively as a simple and secure network file storage system? I'm a casual Linux user (at home) and would love to see more of it in our business environment, but don't see it happening in the near future. But, convince me and I'll convince them, or try anyway...

 

[Uh_Clem]

Ah, so there's an AD up and running already. I hate to say it but if you're in a M$ shop your IT folks are going to cringe at samba. Where I work we had lots of problems with the samba boxes in relation to our AD. There was nothing really wrong with samba but the user authentication between them would go nuts occasionally and lock out accounts when drives were being mapped during right after login.

I've only ever set up very small, closed (no gateway) lans with a samba box as the domain controller. They did nearly every thing an NT domain controller did and they worked great. We did this mainly because we had users that need both linux and windows access but we didn't want to maintain two separate access accounts for each user.

But integrating them with AD in a production environment is a good deal beyond my scope.

Some info:

http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/toc.html