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Question : WAN options
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The company I work for is adding a second facility and I wanted to look at what type of WAN options are available for us. The main facility is the datacenter and has approx 50 users. The new facility will have approx 15 users and will connect back to the main location using RDP/Terminal Server. The new location is unable to get any type of cable or DSL service so my initial plan of a site to site VPN is out the window. We are now looking at T1s. The goal is to have high service level internet at both facilities and WAN connectivity between us.
Would I be able to purchase a T1 at both sites to the internet and run a VPN between the two to accomplish this or will I need the 2 T1s for internet as well as a point to point T1 to connect us? Are there any other alternatives? We are comfortable with something in the $1500 monthly range. The next question would be wqhat hardware is needed at each location. We currently have a PIX 515 behind the intenret connection at the main facility.
Thanks for the help!
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Answer : WAN options
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Comparison:
Main site:
network set up with 80-100 users,
3 domain controllers,
2 application servers,
1 database server,
1 backup DB server.
1 512K/512K internet gateway
1 512K/512k DSL connection
Site2:
Network with 15-20 users (approx 10 simultanious terminal services connections to the application servers)
1 domain controller
1 backup server (for offsite backups of the DB server)
1 128Kup/256Kdown internet gateway (connects to the internet and has a VPN tunnel into the DSL connection on the main site
Site3
Network with 2-3 users (no more than 2 simultanious TSCs)
1 128K/128K connection to the DSL connection on the main site with a VPN tunnel
Site4
Network with 2-3 users(same as site3)
1 128K/128K connection to the internet (vpn connection to DSL connection at main site)
With this setup, we have no problem.
Try to get yourself a high bandwitdh internet connection at site 1.
Also try to get a high bandwidth VPN connection at site 1 - Try to get a 1MBPS/1MBPS line point-to-point T1 is preferable, but if you have to go through the internet, firewall the crap out of it and dont let anything but VPN connections through.
Then just get what ever kind of internet access you can get at the far site.
Main site upload speed should be about 1/2 what the remote site downlaod speed is (not all of your download bandwidth will be from VPN - some users will browse the net, etc)
main site download speed should be about 90-100% of what the alternate site upload speed is (users at the alternate site should be doign very little upload traffic to the web)
Also implementing an additional domain controller at the alternate site and using DFS (domain file system) is a good idea. With a combination of DFS, propper implementation of *Sites* in active directory, and DHCP, the following will happen:
users will auto map to the printer(s) near them
users links will point to \\domainname\share\files
users drives will map to \\domainname\userfiles\files or \\domainname\corpshare\files
users links will resolve to \\closest_server\share\files
users files will automatically replicate across the WAN link and file locks will be the same as if they were using the same file server
users will have no appreciation for what you have done because they wont realize how slow it would be if they were not using DFS
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