| Background
An IT Training Company based in the West
Midlands. This company won a contract
with a College of Further Education to provide
training for the European Computer Driving
Licence (ECDL). At the time the company
only had 10 PC's running on a peer-to-peer
network with no connection to the Internet.
In order to provide the ECDL curriculum,
the company had to meet the following criteria;
the ability to train 40 students at any
one time in a classroom environment, share
learning material, provide students with
identical training software, provide accurate
auditing procedures, allow both staff and
students to access the internet and the
ability to share resources such as printers.
Solution
NS-IT installed cabling and data ports
throughout the building and a patch panel
to link all the data ports to the central
server. NS-IT then installed a Windows 2000
network (recently upgraded to 2003) which
consisted of 1 server installed with Microsoft
Small Business Server (SBS), 50 Desktop
PC's and 3 printers. Each desktop PC was
installed with Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
(recently upgraded to Windows XP Professional).
NS-IT then sourced an Internet Service Provider
that would provide access to the Internet
at the speed and budget requested by the
company
Benefits
By installing a network connected to the
Internet a whole host of benefits was felt
by both staff and students. These include:
- Access to the Internet from any desktop
PC on the network through a single connection
- Internal and external mail - the mail
server (part of SBS) provided internal
email for students and staff and external
email for staff
- Staff and students can print to any
printer on the network from any desktop
PC
- All files can be stored on a central
server rather than on each individual
desktop PC. This means they are accessible
to all desktop PC's and the backup only
needs to backup from one location (rather
than each desktop PC)
- Restrictions can be set on both folders
and files so only certain users can access
them - this allows sensitive data to be
stored centrally but securely
- Profiles can be created so they follow
the user to any desktop PC he or she may
log onto. This allows both staff and students
to have their personal files and settings
on any desktop computer on the network
- Training materials and resources are
located in one location rather than on
each desktop PC
- Restrictions to desktop PC's can be
made centrally, so for example, certain
desktop PC's do not have permission to
access the Internet
If you would like to speak to the Managing
Director of this company please contact
us. |
