Networks and Communications

3. The Outside World

3.1 A business with more than one office will usually need to link them together.

• Offices in adjacent buildings can be linked by connecting the two network servers.
• Setting up a virtual private network (VPN) is the easiest way to link non-adjacent offices. Use a leased line to create your VPN if reliability is a priority or if you need to transfer large amounts of data. Setting up a VPN on a broadband Internet connection is cheaper, but reliability and data capacity can be slightly lower.

3.2 You may want your employees to be able to dial into your network while away from the office.

• Each remote user needs a computer with a modem that connects to the phone or to a broadband Internet connection.
• Each user needs special software to dial in. Windows 98/2000/XP is supplied with suitable remote-access software.
• The network server the user connects to needs software to manage several different connections.

3.3 Linking your network to the Internet allows you to exchange email and access the Web.

• Businesses where everybody accesses the Internet often need a dedicated server to manage the amount of traffic generated by Internet connections.
• Draw up guidelines to prevent employees accidentally violating copyright law or wasting time. See An email policy for your employees and An Internet policy for your employees.