What exactly can I do with a network server?

bagelpirate

I'm not really talking internet server; I'm putting in a server in my work's office, mainly to store files for easy access throughout the office. The computer is pretty good, so it can run a lot, is there anything else I could do with it to make it awesome?

Thanks for any advice

Thandor

Umm... are you looking at things that would be neat for the office? Do you have a static ip address? You could put exchange server and have everyone in the office have email... umm..... you could have an office IM client.

AtomBomb

I've had my first experiences with Microsoft Exchange over the last month and I've found it to be pretty neat. You can set up permissions and settings and have them propagate to all the computers that are on the network. Depending on the size of the organization (and how much updating you do) it might be useful to extract all the installers off of discs that you use to install programs and put those files on the server. I end up using that a lot. You can give everyone personal folders and have them save all their stuff in them. Then you can do one backup and have everyone's stuff in it.

Not really sexy stuff, but it can be pretty handy.

EclecticGroove

unless you have a lot of free time on your hands I'd stay away from the exchange setup, it's a full time job in and of itself. You also don't mention any other type of servers that exist there already, or what type of overall setup they have.

For a plain File server you can also set it up to be a print server if you do not have a print server already.

You can also install things like network based applications, a central AV server, and also a repository for applications as well as office file backups.

If it's a fair bit better than other machines you can do a terminal server and let other people use it.


Really there are lots of things you "could" do with it. But in general if it's holding lots of important files and backups, and should be available... just leave it as a file server and don't do much more than Print sharing and maybe storing common office applications.

amateurhour

exchange server (e-mail)

file database (you already have that, look into sql)

corporate virus scan hub

IM client

possibly a mainfraime, depending on the number of users and quality of machine (rac-f perhaps)

firewall for inernet access and dns controller

print server

there's a lot you can do with it, if you've got the time/money