Randall J. Lopez 
1: Plan for the software program you may require.
The most vital attention for designing a small enterprise network is the software program the enterprise will use. Many businesses use vertical market software that has been developed for and customized to a selected industry’s needs. For instance: A retail enterprise may additionally need factor-of-sale software, or a doctor’s office can also want scientific exercise control software. If you want to use a specific software program package deal for your precise industry, you may need to devise your hardware and networking to satisfy the software’s necessities. The price of the structures required to guide any software package deal must always be considered whilst choosing the software program.
Some vertical market software packages will require a database server and might simplest paintings with a sure sort. If it makes paintings with unique database servers, you may need to decide which one will match your price range for hardware, software, and ongoing assist and preservation charges.
2: Plan for human beings.
You will want to realize what number of human beings need to apply which software. You will have to plot for person licenses, storage necessities, community cabling, and the gadgets every worker will require. You can even want to take into account your consumer necessities. Will they want to get entry to your website or wi-fi community? Software licensing may be in step with the server, per person, in keeping with the tool, for some concurrent customers, or any combination of those.
3: Plan for gadgets.
How many computers will you want to help with now and shortly? Will you assist with clever phones, pills, or wi-fi laptops? Will you want network printers, scanners, or fax? You will need to recollect all of these questions to devise network cabling; wireless get admission to points or routers and network switches.
4: Plan for far-flung get entry to and telecommuting.
If you plan on website hosting your website for your community or you’ve got personnel on the way to want to safely get right of entry to touchy assets on your community remotely, you may want to apply a commercial enterprise-class firewall and/or VPN access tool. Most small groups do not host their own websites but, it may be finished securely. It can be a perfect answer for integrating a customer service or commercial enterprise application portal website with different regionally saved facts. This is an area wherein you’ll, in reality, want the help of a skilled professional! You will want to layout for extra layers of safety, use a business magnificence firewall, and set up indicators and monitoring.
5: Avoid purchaser elegance hardware and software every time viable.
Companies regularly use equipment and software designed for purchasers. Still, they could have boundaries with a view to become costing you more than if you commenced with enterprise-class merchandise. Never use Home versions of Windows. They do now not offer the security of Windows Professional variations and can’t join Microsoft Network Domains. A true 16 or 24 port business elegance network transfer will offer extra overall performance and reliability than a hodgepodge of small home networking switches. Business elegance server hardware can be configured with vehicle-failover and warm pluggable disks, vital attention for the subsequent topic, #6.
6: Determine your requirements for structure availability.
Zero downtime will in no way exist for any gadget! The dream of many IT executives is 5 nines, or 99.999% systems availability. That handiest permits for 5.26 minutes of downtime in step with yr! As I stated, it’s for a dream. High availability is likewise highly-priced. However, there are numerous fee powerful ways you could construct fault tolerance into your network. To layout your systems for the availability you want, you’ll first want to weigh the value of downtime with the value of preventing it. You will want to plan for renovation time as nicely. Maintenance will most likely be executed at some stage in non-enterprise hours, and you must be able to the timetable for most of it. But expect the occasional want for unscheduled preservation.
It will likely no longer be feasible to take away each unmarried factor of failure in your community but, you may plan for improving all elements of your structures. Hardware is very reliable these days. However, it does fail. If you centralize all of your records storage onto one laptop and require personnel to store all commercial enterprise information there, an unmarried employee’s computer going down must no longer be a catastrophe, especially when you have a spare pc. If you’ve got 10 computing device computer systems, a completely configured spare could handiest reason your computing device expenses to grow via 10%. That’s less than the price of many prolonged warranties and maintenance agreements. PC warranties best cover the hardware. After the failed hardware is repaired, you’ll be answerable for re-installing all the software programs and convalescing the statistics. A spare PC is smart planning. I could also endorse you to create disk pictures for all of your PC workstations and regularly update them. An image may be restored to a brand new or repaired PC speedy if wished.
Most systems troubles are due to software program problems, viruses, and accidents. Regular software updates and virus safety are important for structure availability. Accidents will appear. Backup your statistics each day. Another good motive to centralize your statistics garage is that it’s going to permit you to centralize your information backup system as well. This will grow your backup reliability and decrease your expenses for shielding your business’ information.
7: Document record document!
Can you inform me think documenting is critical? It will save you cash, time, and possibly even your business! It may also increase your systems’ availability by decreasing preservation time and the time it takes to recover systems. Did you ever hear that you should not write passwords anywhere? I even have, and it is one of the dumbest matters I even have ever heard. You can’t repair, troubleshoot or function any machine without knowing or somehow improving the password. You can reset a few matters to the “factory default,” but “factory default” means no configuration and no facts! Document your passwords! Just do not save them at the fridge door in the employee living room.
Document all the configuration statistics you can and continually update it while machine and configuration modifications are made. The documentation ought to encompass IP addresses, laptop names, usernames, software program variations, configuration documents, display photographs of configurations, supplier preservation agreements, warranty statistics, guide telephone numbers, assist customer and PINs, software licensing files, and any issue else you can consider that you could probably need. I always inform my customers that I want to make it clean for them to fire me! Well, I sincerely don’t need it to be too clean; however, if they can call an expert who has never visible their structures and have to get entry to thorough documentation, they could get their structures again up walks in the shortest time feasible.
8: Use at the least one professional!
You want to locate someone aware of networking and enterprise software program that will help you plan and layout your network. A pro can assist in layout a gadget to meet your desires nowadays and be able to develop along with your enterprise. When I say, use at the least one professional, I mean that you could also need a consultant to help you configure your economic or precise enterprise software program and train your employees. They can be technology savvy. However, you will probably now not have the revel in planning, designing, installing, and configuring your community structures. Hiring skilled networking professionals to help you with your planning, network layout, and configuration will help you maintain your IT charges down and your systems up.
9: Business necessities usually come first!
Technology experts can get wrapped up in quite a few details while making plans and designing structures. It is as much as the business to ensure that the commercial enterprise’s wishes and requirements are taken into consideration at some point in the making plans manner. A pro-technology professional will set off, prod, and possibly even aggravate you to help them with ability making plans and boom estimates. They will need you to record your commercial enterprise procedures and necessities. There is that documentation phrase again! They will discuss agenda planning and assignment fame meetings and insist on reviewing plans with you. The technology helps the commercial enterprise effort. The enterprise always leads the era attempt!
