subject: Setting Up A Powerful Network [print this page] Setting Up A Powerful Network Setting Up A Powerful Network
Setting up a network is something that sounds complicated but can actually be fairly easy. It is also a good idea for a business of any size since it provides streamlined communication. If you are a businesses owner, a network can help all of your employees share the information that they have so that no one makes an uninformed decision. This will cut down on mistakes and save you a lot of money. A good network will also just make this communication very fast and simple, something that all of your employees will enjoy. In order to set up a network, there are three main pieces that you will need. These are servers, consoles, and a serial switch.
The servers come first because they are what will drive the network. These are large computers where all of the information is stored. They often look something like the standard boxes that come with desktop computers, though there are also rack-mount servers that are thin and take up less space. No matter which design you go with, you will want to get as many of these as you need for your business since having too few will slow things down. If your business is large and there will be a lot of people on the network at once, you will need far more serves than if your business just has a few employees.
A serial switch is what hooks these servers to the consoles that are used to access the network. The switch can be connected to the computer with an Ethernet cable and then to the serves with an array of other cables. Routing everything through this central box makes it very easy to set the whole system up and to rearrange the connections if you need to. It is important to mark the different cables in some fashion, however, so that you know which cables lead to which servers.
Finally, you will need at least one console that can access the servers through this switch. Sometimes the main console is set up in the server room so that the IT Team can get in to do their work; the rest of the computers will act as remote consoles that can reach the network from offices all throughout your building. These consoles make it possible for employees to look at the files on the network; they also make it possible for the employees to share their own files via this network.
With a server, a console, and a serial switch, you will have the main three parts that make up a basic network. How big and complicated you choose to make it is up to you, and will change depending on the size of the business.
