What SERVER shall I Buy? (Hardware and Software both)

[harrisp20]

Apologise as I am very new to servers and you might find this as silly questions:

What server shall I buy for the following Task:

1) No one can copy the data using the external source like Pen drive or an external Hard drive
2) All data should be stored on Server hard drive and not allowed to save on local PC
3) At the end of the day I get the Report(Log) to know Who did what on the local PC's. like surf/emails/documents typed etc...
4) There are 9 user's in the company
5) Automatic Backup

I am new to servers and getting my base right. Please inform me what Hardware and OS shall I buy.

Thank You

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

To be honest, sounds like you would be better off with a hosted service?

Where are you based?



ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[harrisp20]

I am based in East London.

We want to deploy LAW software once the server is set-up. Everything is in-build in that software(including web browser and printing etc.)

So all the local pc's will have only that software and rest everything else will be restricted).

We use webmail so not worried about exchange server yet.

So wanted to know whether server 2008 or server 2011 which will be useful to me and will be cost effective.

Thanx

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

I would still look at a hosted solution.

http://www.xanadutech.com/office-in-a-box.htm

or

http://www.xanadutech.com/xtop.htm

shameless promotion of brothers company



ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[ShackDaddy]

I would go with Small Business Server 2011 Essentials running on something comparable to a Dell T310, with at least 8-12gb of RAM. That comes without Exchange (it assumes that you are hosting mail somewhere else). It also has reporting for how much space is being used for files for each user.

To lock out PEN and USB drives, you could use a group policy in any Windows environment. Same goes with storing all data on server and not on desktops: that's called Document Redirection, and it's a standard feature of the SBSE mentioned above. It also has automatic backup ready to go if you supply the external drives.

As far as the web surfing/work logging, you are going to have to go to a third-party vendor for that: the level of logging you are describing is far beyond anything a server package would provide. You will be needing to have a client-side application on each workstation to assist with that kind of data gathering.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com