Microsoft Windows Server management services in Newcastle for small and medium size businesses

Do you have multiple staff members in separate offices who need to share calendars, databases, documents and other business information? If you're like many small or new businesses your file server might be a folder on someones computer and your email is all remotely hosted with your website. In a lot of businesses this works perfectly well. However there may come a time where you want to be more organised, have centralised file management, remote workers in other offices, a company intranet with wikis, blogs, calendars and virtual meeting rooms.

There are some demo videos on how sharepoint can be used in a business on the microsoft website, here. If you want to get a feel for the basics then I'd recommend viewing the first one in the series which is a good overview.

That should help open your vision a little as to what is possible. The general idea being:

1. instead of a relying on email relaying and folders on everyones computers you have a central location for important documentation and information
2. you create a single destination for company news and event notices
3. with tools like wikis, blogs and page creation you have a very capable intranet that allows a variety of information to be published
4. permissions and groups can be setup to provide varying levels of access to staff
5. archives and versioning of documents for later retrieval

There is a lot of marketing guff published that makes sharepoint seem like some magical computer system that will solve every problem you have but it won't. What it will do is make it finding information more logical and staff more accountable while providing a group computing environment for publishing, storing and collating.

Brief case study of Windows Server technologies for an organisation

We've been using Microsoft server systems for our internal requirements for some years now and in 2008 we started providing managed services and service level agreements to one of our larger clients. We were providing break-fix support on a sporadic basis and the company admini staff wanted greater certainty and less problems as well as a planned upgrade path and stable computers. They have around 50 users in various locations of NSW. There are 2 key offices, one in Newcastle, the other on the Central Coast and a varying number of remote users who are full time remote or work from home.

The key elements of the network are a central server solution, vpn link between the main and outlying office over Cisco routers on DSL connections and remote access services for individual users outside this. Sharepoint services are used for the company intranet. Although the majority of the staff are not extensively trained in the use of Microsoft systems or products they have been able to adapt to the new environment and I have seen that as they become more familiar they use it in more powerful and sophisticated ways.

If you have a need for a multi-office network and server setup or perhaps you need a central mail server, file server and company intranet to operate within one physical office for multiple staff members then I would be happy to discuss your requirements and see if we can help organise your businesses information technology better. Part of the services we offer include ongoing maintenance agreements and fixed monthly fees for our technical support which helps you manage your IT spending and have some certainty about reliability and availabilty of technicians.

Email jeremy@newcastleinfotech.com.au to make an appointment or call 02 4950 1140.

Newcastle Infotech is a dynamic team of dedicated individuals, each with a uniquely useful skill set and a great, positive, enthusiastic attitude towards work and life. We will always do our best to give you value for money, creativity, timely delivery, quality assistance and good advice.

If you have any questions please email: info@newcastleinfo.com.au