I am setting up the network for the computer institute I work for. We are discarding the old network and are going for a new network.

There will be 2 Computer Labs with 60 computers in each Lab. The staffroom will have 20 computers. The Accounts department will have 5 computers. All the departments are in the same building with just 2 floors. It will be a wired network. All computers should have access to the Internet. There will be a printer each in the 2 Labs, staffroom & accounts department which has to be shared with their respective network. The Lab computers will run MS Office, Adobe software etc. Likewise the the staffroom and accounts department computers will also have to run MS Office and probably Adobe software as well. We will be using Windows Server 2003 and are inclined to use IBM servers due to a partnership. Cost isn't a major issue and the management is willing to spend to set this up rightly in the first place.

My main question is whether we should go for a thin client network with everything running in the main servers. In that case how many servers should we have and what would be the ideal config of those servers.
If we go for workstation PCs for each user if cost isn't an issue then what are the benefits over thin client computers

Do we have to have a separate server for data?

What would be the ideal setup for the whole network?

Frank Thompson

Answer by Ron Nutter

Expert's answer n/a