Hi my company currently has 1 server, but they want to start up another office and they want me to build another server and get it to syncronize all the data with the our current sever every night.

The current server has windows 2003 small business server installed on it and has a broadband connection, which doesnt have a static ip address, i assume we would need to purchase 2 static ip address for both ends of the line.

I would want to use the broadband connection to transfer the data. I know basic information about servers i built and maintain the current one but i dont know how to add a second one.

Also what hardware/software would i need.

its not very high end the main office will have 15 pcs and the new office will only have 4 pcs i just

thannks for your help

Your best setup would be a VPN router to router setup. This way all data travels through secure tunnel. I would invest in a highend router so there will be no lag/bottleneck. Something like The Netgear FVS538 or one of the newer ones. This router has a Highend Xscale processor to handle the encryption process.

With this setup users will have access to pc on either side of the tunnel.

You will not need a static IP. You can use one of the Free DynDNS services and have a domain type name.

I cannot speak from experience on the Netgear, but the Linksys VPN routers don't like to work unless at least one side has a static IP. Plus static IPs make troubleshooting tremendously easier.

You haven't mentioned what type of applications you're going to be using or how much data you'll need to synchronize. Keep in mind that although you might have a fast 5-10 mbps broadband connection at each site, the upload speed is probably only going to be about 384 kbps, so you effectively have about 40 kB/s of bandwidth between the two sites, which is probably sufficient for e-mail but not a whole lot more.

Also, keep in mind that SBS was not exactly designed for scalability and places several restrictions on your domain layout. For instance, you can only have one SBS 2003 server in the domain and it must be the root of the forest. You cannot form trusts with other domains, so you would have to buy a non-SBS version of Windows Server to use at your new site.

Fred, My Fiber Optic service I have gives me 5/2mbps. YES 2 mbps uplink speed, it test out at 1.86mbps. I am using a DynDNS with NetBIOS through VPN...... Sweet So my link was very usable.

FIOS is perhaps the exception, although in a situation where you have to compete for bandwidth with other traffic from everyone else in both offices, I could see even 2mbps being "slow" for NetBIOS.

As far as something like FTP which isn't tremendously bandwidth or latency sensitive, you could probably do a lot more and be a lot happier than if you were using NetBIOS.

Still, 99.999% of businesses, especially small businesses, still have DSL or cable service maxing out around 384kbps. If the offices don't have the same ISP, then it will be even worse because the latency will be high.

Like I said, it's probably fine for e-mail and domain synchronization, but you can realistically only count on moving about a gig across a DSL connection overnight.

I guess we really need some more info as to the type of data that needs to be synched.