NETWORKS

Every business is different.  Every networking solution we design is tailored to best suit that business. 
We understand fully that every networking solution can be mission critical to that organization's ongoing success.

Even a small to medium sized business should invest in a professional networked solution if they have staff, suppliers and customers who need to talk to each other electronically - 24/7/365

We have implemented many networking solutions for firms of all shapes and sizes from the very large (multiple servers, in multiple locations with 100+ workstations) to relatatively small businesses (5 stations with a central server and one shared printer).

Common Networking Model

Peer-to-Peer Network Architecture

Often referred to simply as peer-to-peer, or abbreviated P2P, a type of network in which each workstation has equivalent capabilities and responsibilities. This differs from client/server architectures, in which some computers are dedicated to serving the others. Peer-to-peer networks are generally simpler, but they usually do not offer the same performance under heavy loads.

Advantages of a peer-to-peer network

Less initial expense - No need for a dedicated server.

No need for a network administrator.

Network is fast/inexpensive to setup & maintain.

Each PC can make backup copies of its data to other PCs for security. 

Easiest type of network to build.

Client/Server network Architecture

We strongly recommend installing a Client-Server network architecture

Client / Server is a network architecture in which each computer or process on the network is either a client or a server. Servers are powerful computers dedicated to provide certain services from managing disk drives (file servers) to printers (print servers).  Clients are PCs or workstations on which users run applications.  Clients rely on servers for resources, such as files, devices and sometimes even processing power.

Advantages of a Client-Server network

Centralized - Resources and data security are controlled through the server.

Scalability - Any or all elements can be replaced individually as needs increase.

Flexibility - New technology can be easily integrated into the system.

Interoperability - All components (client/network/server) work together.

Accessibility - Server can be accessed remotely and across multiple platforms.

Security - Server can manage access lists and restrict certain areas and/or files.

Fundamental Network Capabilities

File Sharing
 

File sharing is the most common function provided by networks and consists of grouping all data files together on a server or servers.  When all data files in an organization are concentrated in one place, it is much easier for staff to share documents and other data.  It is also an excellent way for the entire office to keep files organised according to a consistent scheme.  Network operating systems such as Windows Server 2003 allow the administrator to grant or deny groups of users access to certain files.

Print Sharing
 

When printers are made available over the network, multiple users can print to the same printer.  This can reduce the number of printers your organization must purchase, maintain and supply.  Network printers are often faster and more capable than those connected directly to individual workstations and often have accessories such as envelope feeders or multiple paper trays.

E-Mail
 

E-mail has become an indispensable part of today's business world.  Internal or "group" email enables staff in your office to communicate with each other quickly and effectively.  Group email applications also provide capabilities for contact management, scheduling and task assignment.  With a client / server network, designated contact lists can be shared by the whole organization instead of duplicated on each person's own rolodex, along with group events that can be scheduled on shared calendars accessible by the entire staff or appropriate groups.

Equally important is a network's ability to provide a simple, organization-wide conduit for Internet email.  This allows your staff to send and receive email with recipients outside of your organization as easily as they do with fellow staff members.  And of course attaching documents to Internet email is dramatically faster, cheaper and easier than faxing them.

Fax Sharing
 

Through the use of a shared modem(s) connected directly to the network server, fax sharing permits users to fax documents directly from their computers without ever having to print them out on paper.  This reduces paper consumption and printer usage and is more convenient for staff.  Network faxing applications can also be integrated with email contact lists, and faxes can be sent to groups of recipients.  Specialized hardware is available for high-volume faxing to large groups. Incoming faxes can also be handled by the network and forwarded directly to users' computers via email, again eliminating the need to print a hard copy of every fax - and leaving the fax machine free for jobs that require it.

Remote Access
 

In our increasingly mobile world, staffs often requires access to their email, documents or other data from locations outside of the office.  "Remote Access" is a highly desirable network function that allows users to dial in to your organization's network via telephone and access all of the same network resources available when they're in the office.  Even the cost of long-distance telephone calls can be avoided through the use of Virtual Private Networking (VPN), which uses the Internet to provide remote access to your network.

Shared Databases
 

Shared databases are an important subset of file sharing.  If your organization maintains an extensive database - for example, a membership, client, grants or financial accounting database - a network is the only effective way to make the database available to multiple users at the same time.  Sophisticated database server software ensures the integrity of the data while multiple users access it simultaneously.

Fault Tolerance
 

Establishing Fault Tolerance is the process of making sure that you have several lines of defence against accidental data loss.  An example of accidental data loss might be a hard drive failing, or someone deleting a file by mistake.
Usually, the first line of defence is having redundant hardware, especially hard drives, so that if one fails, another can take its place without losing data.  This is achieved through hard drive mirroring.

Tape backup should always be a secondary line of defence (never primary).

While today's backup systems are good, they are not fail-safe.  Additional measures include having your server attached to an uninterruptible power supply, so that power problems and blackouts do not unnecessarily harm your equipment.

Internet Access and Security

MIC Network Solutions strongly recommends the use of a firewall to any organization with any type of broadband Internet connection.

Servers, Firewalls, External ADSL Routers, Print Servers, Mirrored Hard Drives and Antivirus Solutions are all aspects of the 21st century office.

Network Design and Installation

An intelligently planned computer network empowers a small organization to run more smoothly and efficiently. It assists your staff in keeping their work organized by establishing consistent procedures for the creation, storage and production of documents and other data. Effective email, faxing and document sharing systems facilitate communication among your staff as well as between staff and their outside constituencies.

A good network centralizes your organization's key information resources and -- with a thorough backup system -- protects the products of your staff's long hours of work from disasters such as power outages or other contingencies. Having a well thought-out and properly implemented network is a lot like having an extra personal assistant for everyone in your organization. 

MIC specializes in custom-tailoring networks to meet the specific needs of each of our clients. Whether you're installing a new network from scratch or upgrading your organization's existing information technology, we will be happy to work with you to ensure that the result meets our definition of an intelligently planned computer network.

Wireless solution

Four reasons you need a wireless connection:

Getting your company networked - and keeping it connected
when you change and grow - can be a big job.

Wireless networking cuts it down to size, and can help any organisation become more flexible and productive.

Your staffs are more productive.

Wireless networking lets your people access your network resources from anywhere you provide wireless coverage, increasing productivity by as much as 25%*.

Some real-world examples:

1. Consultants at an industrial construction firm access job-site information during meetings, reducing group decision-making time by 50%.
        
Print company purchasing staff save time and increase accuracy by reconciling inventory in the warehouse with wireless equipped laptops, instead of taking notes and returning to their desks to transcribe data. 
 

2. It's easier to move people around.

Wireless networking makes it easy to change the shape of your organisation as you grow and regroup to meet new business needs. Changes that might have required time, money and the hassle of dealing with outside vendors become quick and easy -making your organisation more responsive and agile than it could ever be with a traditional hard-wired system.

3. It's easy to support whatever hardware your staff use.

As your staffs become more mobile, and the boundaries between the office and the outside world blur, workplace networks need to be more flexible than ever before.

Wireless networking has been designed from the outset to work easily with all sorts of portable and fixed devices.
From notebooks or desktop PCs to handheld and phones, a well-designed wireless network makes connecting easy, without the expense of tailored patches and interfaces.

4. Moving house made easy.

IT expenses can form a major part of the cost of changing offices. Moving your wired network, with its hundreds of metres of cable and connections, forms a big, labour-intensive part of that.

Not so with wireless networking. With no cabling, once your server and router are plugged in, you're in business. This makes for a far quicker move, reducing down time and allowing your business to hit the ground running the day you move into new premises.

Wireless LANs - Why Go Wireless

There are two basic types of wireless solutions:

Local Area Network (LAN)

Wide Area Network (WAN)

Wireless LANs

Traditional wired LANs use cable or wires to send data from one computer to another, or from computer to printer or other device.
Wireless LANs do the same thing, except using radio waves. You get the same benefits, without the wires as illustrated bellow.

High-Speed Internet Access (Broadband) is a Must

Multiple users can slow any network - wired or not. A reliable broadband Internet connection is critical for providing the best experience for all of your networked users.

Secure your Wireless Networks

What to do
It's not a foregone conclusion that your wireless network will be used by criminals, but it is important that you do your best to protect it. Here are some ways you can secure your 802.11:

Change your name
 

Start by changing the default name of your network, the Service Set ID (SSID). For example, cisco is the default SSID for Cisco's Aironet Access Point, so you want to make sure you're not one of the thousands of cisco networks in the world today. Don't use personal info such as your street address in your ID, either. That's too revealing to strangers. Try random numbers instead.

Turn off SSID
 

If your unit allows for it, turn off SSID broadcasting altogether. This prevents strangers

from passively scanning the area and receiving your network's broadcasts.

Protect your intranet
 

Be sure to place your access points (APs) outside your firewall. If you place your APs inside the firewall and someone breaks into your WLAN, he/she has access to your

intranet, too.

Block unknown devices
 

Restrict your wireless network to known Media Access Connection (MAC) addresses, which are unique identifiers for every hardware device. If you don't know the addresses of the devices on your network, make an audit today. Then you can block rogue devices trying to connect to your net without your permission.

Enable WEP
 

Although WEP by itself will not by itself make your network secure, it's a good first step.

Wireless WANs

These networks provide outside-the-office mobile solutions - a premium service for ultimate mobility.
They work on the same networks as cellular phones,so you can stay connected almost anywhere as illustrated bellow.

Imagine checking your e-mail and the Internet on the road, without cables, and without looking for a place to plug in your notebook.

You could stay in touch with colleagues and clients no matter where you are. Access your most important home office files and network resources from the front seat of your car, or from your living room couch. That's what wireless WANs can do.

A wireless wide area network, or WAN, uses long-range connections to provide access over a much larger area than wireless LANs, which usually cover just one building or campus. They work on the same networks as cellular phones. Essentially, anywhere you can get a cell phone signal, you can access a wireless WAN.

We highly recommend the use of Telecom's T3Gs Network for WANs.

WLANs and WWANS

When planning a wireless network for any environment, it is important to analyze your existing network infrastructure, know what products are compatible and to plan for future improvements.

Questions to consider when choosing a wireless plan:

Bandwidth
Will users need to share large files, fast?

Numbers
How many employees will use the network?
How many may need to be mobile in the future?

Setting
Single office, multiple classrooms, or large corporate campus
with several buildings?
 

Security

For office and mobile workers?
 

Existing setup
Will you start from scratch or update a current wired network?

 

Compatibility
Choose a network that will work now and grow with your business?

MAINTENANCE

Network Support

The most valuable and important parts of a network solution are the people who support it. We are keenly aware that without the proper care and attention, the best-designed networks can fail in their fundamental mission: to serve the user.

We have 5 years of experience in implementing and ensuring the smooth running of networks for a wide array of organisations - without draining their budgets!

We have trained qualified and certified professionals available to service your network. More importantly all MIC engineers are chosen primarily for their ability to communicate with you in understandable terms, to listen to you in order for us to implement the right solution using the right technology the right way - the first time.

We provide a quick response time and fast, reliable, friendly service.

And we are proud to back up those words with a solid set of references from our existing network support customers.

MIC understands that there is no "one size fits all" method of providing computer network support to every organization. Support needs change based on size, complexity, user skill, financial and geographic considerations.

For this reason, MIC offers two different support plans that are able to be customized further to best suit your specific needs.

Network Support Options

MIC Solutions Remote Network Monitoring / Administration

MIC Solutions offer hourly and flat fee monthly Network Support Plans.

With both our Hourly and Monthly plans we will remotely monitor your servers with our remote access capabilities. Because we do not have to travel to your workplace our remote access capabilities speed up our response and solution time potentially saving your organisation thousands of dollars in downtime.

We believe that the best way to avert network problems is to be proactive about monitoring network servers - constantly checking resources to ensure constant operability of the network

Network servers need constant care and attention for peak operation. In this hustle and bustle of day-to-day business life, even the very best network managers can let preventative maintenance fall to the bottom of the priority list when faced with demanding users and new projects.

To address this problem, MIC offers two types of remote network maintenance plans. When combined these provide a complete set of proactive network maintenance services:

Hourly Support

MIC Hourly Support Plan is our most economical option for businesses and organizations with small networks or infrequent service needs. This plan, charged by the hour, offers the flexibility of service by request or on a scheduled basis.

Consulting, installation and troubleshooting services are provided on an as-needed basis per your request. Scheduled support visits are also available on this plan - a good idea for virus updates and checking backups.

Flexibility: Our engineers are available at your request or on a schedule of your choice. You only pay for the time you use, unlike the time block plans promoted by other firms.

Volume Discount: Billing for this service is done on a time and materials basis at an hourly rate. Discounts are given for large blocks of time. Prices on application.

Please contact us for Hourly Support Plans>>

Monthly Support

MIC Monthly Support Plan is our most popular option. It is designed for small to medium size enterprises requiring piece of mind and a cost effective network support. You pay a set monthly fee which gives you unlimited hours of support instead of being charged on a per incident basis with our Hourly plan.

Please contact us for Monthly Support Plans>>

Further benefits of MIC Solutions Networking Maintenance Plans

Security Monitoring - MIC maintains a team of security specialists who will add your servers to their "watch list". Our specialists will constantly look and test for vulnerabilities with your servers and remove them.

Our team belongs to several worldwide security groups to ensure that we are among the first to learn of new potential threats and proactively protect our clients against them. Because ensuring a network's security is a constant, ongoing process, we often recommend this service to in-house network administrators as well as clients for whom we provide all IT support.

Network Monitoring - This service is an invaluable way to ensure that backups are running correctly, virus signature files are updated, hard drives have adequate space as well as a long list of other non-security-related system checks.

By keeping a constant "eye" on your servers, we can detect and address small problems before they cause major system problems. By avoiding a single system crash, this service quickly pays for itself! All of this and more come with both our Hourly and Monthly Networking Plans.

FAQs

Please look below for the answers to many common networking questions. We have spent lots of time and effort compiling this list, but we are aware that we may not have answered everything. If your question remains unanswered, please contact us for advice.

What technologies does MIC work with? 

How does MIC design and install networks?

What type of payment options does MIC offer?

 

What technologies does MIC work with? 

MIC specializes in building networks based on Microsoft® Windows 2000/2003 server technology and an array of products from vendors such as Microsoft®,  Veritas®,  Symantec® to build the most effective solution. For hardware, MIC heavily relies on established and reliable vendors of top quality servers, workstations, switches, routers and firewalls from Intel®,  IBM®, 3COM®,  Allied Telesyn® and WatchGuard®.

How does MIC design and install networks?

We typically begin by meeting with you to discuss your needs. At that time, we also usually walk through your office to take stock of your existing technology (e.g., computers, printers, software applications, Internet connection), examine network wiring or evaluate wiring needs, and identify good locations for network devices, including the network server(s). Prior to this meeting, you should consider what functions you want your network to accomplish, which of the major features (described in "Network Concepts") you want to employ, and what your time-frame and approximate budget will be for the network project. The more information you can give us, the better. With this in hand, we can design you a network that meets your functional needs, is within your budget, and allows for future growth and expansion.

Within a few days, we will present a proposal that details a core network and options for you to examine. Ideally, we will then meet with you again to explain why we've chosen the various technologies and solicit your feedback. Based on our discussions, the network proposal will be collaboratively refined until it constitutes a comprehensive plan with which we are both comfortable.

Once we've agreed to go forward with our plan, MIC will work with you to develop a mutually agreeable deployment schedule that minimizes the disruption to your organization's day-to-day work.  We prepare servers and workstations at our offices before installing them at your site.  When our network engineers or technicians do work in your office, they make every effort to minimize any inconvenience to your staff.

Once your network (or upgrade) is up and running, we will maintain a presence in your office for a few days to make sure everything runs smoothly and to work out any last minute modifications or details. After that we remain available to do network maintenance or modifications at your request. We hope you will be sufficiently impressed by our performance to consider a service plan under which MIC's expert staff can monitor and maintain your network to ensure that it continues to run smoothly.

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