Re: Pros/Cons of Single/Dual NIC Card Topology?



Leythos:

We are using a Netgear Prosafe VPN Router/Firewall FVS318. it only has 8
ports so it will not support 10 users. If I do not "need" the Netgear
hardware, I was planning on using ISA since it is a part of SBS premium, as I
didnt want to add an extra layer of complexity to things.

Part of this line of thought is because we have one of our departments that
is too far away for us to hard-wire in, so I was planning on having them
access via remote access.

Regards
Jeff

"Leythos" wrote:

In article <A2A0EA7E-DE07-4429-84AD-108CDAD3FCB9@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
A couple of questions from a server install newbie:

1. I am readying a server for install that has SBS 2003R2 Premium with 10
users. Are there any pros/cons/gotchas over placing the server between the
WAN connection (Internet Connection Device) running directly to the server (2
NICs required), or having the WAN connection going into a switch/hub and
having the server connected to it (1 NIC required)?

2. This server is replacing a peer-to-peer network, and I would like to use
the router we are using now which has a hardware firewall to be placed
between our DSL modem and the server. In doing this I was planning on
purchasing a switch to distribute the network...basically using our old
router/firewall just for its firewall capability. Is this good practice?
We are a small company and the cost of the dedicated hardware firewalls is
prohibitive.

A 1 NIC solution is the easiest and most versatile solution provided you
get a firewall and not just a NAT router. At the very least you need a
barrier device between the server and the internet - and unless you get
Premium and install ISA, you're just as well off with a single NIC and
router.

What router are you using that has a firewall? Most say they have a
firewall and if you dig deep enough, it's just NAT and some special
blocking rules, but it's not a firewall and may not handle a significant
load without performance hits.

You can provide a Dedicated Firewall for as little as $400 and devices I
consider to be very low end firewalls for about $300.

So the setup would be:

INTERNET DEVICE (ISP Router)
||
FIREWALL
||
SWITCH
||||||||||||
Server, Workstations, Printers, Etc..

If you ever setup remote workers or remote access, both RWW and VPN are
simple to setup and control in this solution.

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