Hi Guys,

It’s been a while since I’ve tinkered with PC’s, and now the opportunity has come up for a nice little project, and I’ve decided to go ahead with it.

This is the situation:

My father-in-law has a doctor’s practice. In his practice he currently has two secretaries, who each have their own PC. Both of these PC’s are hardwired to a Linksys router. This router is also fed with internet via an external Thomson 510 ADSL modem. My father-in-law himself uses a laptop which is wirelessly also connected to the linksys router.

He also has another practice in a different city, in which he works two days a week. In that pratice he works alone, his secretaries remain a the ‘main’ office.

He also sometimes works from home.

This is the current setup:

All my father-in-law really needs is his one access .mdb file. This file is used for everything: filing patients, making invoices, insurance companies, etc.

Currently, this file is located physically on one of the secretaries PC’s. (I’ll call it SEC1 PC from here on). The other secretary works on the same file, via the LAN. (SEC2 PC) She uses nothing that is locally installed.

My father-in-law then also connects his laptop to the network, and daily uses some synchronisation software to create his daily backup onto his laptop. This also enables him to use this database when he works in the other city. One other thing he syncs is his outlook appointments onto his PC (to put on his IPAQ).

No really a very complicated setup.

However, I would like to improve this setup.

For one, I would like to use a central server, where this .mdb and outlook stuff should be located. The way I see it, I’ve got two ways of doing this (not really knowing anything about Linux, or else –I agree- there would be a third option): I could run a small server with two disks in RAID 1 (for data integrity purposes), running windows 2003 server. I'd also like to use an extra backup of some sort (weekly or even daily, on an external HD which would be disconnected wjen not in use). I guess Windows 2003 has some backup software on board which could do this, no?

OR

I could use a NAS, like the Infrant ReadyNAS. But of couse, that would mean I would have to use a different, VPN server capable router (see below). This would add to the complication, and would not necessaritly be any cheaper, OR faster I think...

What do you guys think? Windows 2003 (my preferred setup), or go the NAS route?

The second thing I would like to implement, is a VPN tunnel to his second practice and his home address, so he could always secure and in real-time, access that .mdb file and his appointments both at his second practice and at home.

I’ve got several questions regarding this VPN, because that’s something I’ve never done before.

I would like to use D-Link DGL-4300 routers, on all of the three addresses. Why? Because I use this router myself, I know what it can do and I’ve experienced this router as very flexible and stable. It’s also got gigabit Ethernet ports which is nice (and would actually be used in this setup)

This router cannot be used as a VPN server (only VPN pass-through), but I don’t think this would be necessary, because the windows 2003 would take on that part, correct? In case I would use a NAS, I would need to use another router I suppose, one that does support VPN.

I see VPN basically consists out of two protocols PPTP and Ipsec. PPTP seems easier to implement, seems more flexible, but is also said to hold greater risks. Is this true? Which protocol would you use?

I would also need very simple ADSL model, to connect to the D-Link router. That Thomson modem is no good. It works for Internet, but yesterday I tried to install UltraVNC onto his office computers, but somehow this modem doesn’t allow this. Using UltraVNC viewer from those PC’s to another PC did work, but not the other way around. The router’s port’s were configured correctly. I even tried directly connecting the modem to the PC (remove the linkSys altogether), and though I did have internet access, VNC still didn’t work. This Thomson model is a very simple and basic model, in which little on nothing, apart from the account login and password can be configured. So my guess is this modem will have to go. Any thoughts on which modem I should replace it with?

So this is my project basically. Probably a walk in the park for most of you, but challenging enough for me to be fun.

I also more or less got carte blanch with regards to cost, so that’s not really an issue.

What do you guys think?