Introduction

I am starting this blog to chronicle my adventures into "Server-land". Although I have other blogs, this one will be geared towards a more specific audience - those who "have" to function as administrators for schools and small-business environments, but for whom this is not the primary function of their job.

I am a Computer Teacher at a K-8 Catholic school in California serving 325 students and approximately 20 staff members. I consider myself to be a beginner network admin who wishes to learn more and share in my journey so that others can benefit. I seek to find reliable technologies for maintaining an effective and safe computing environment while, at the same time, staying within a shoestring budget. I will explore both open-source and mainstream solutions to meet these goals.

My hope is that, by sharing my lessons learned along my journey, we all will benefit from what I have learned and contribute your knowledge to the cause. Schools, like all of us, are facing difficult financial times and must examine all options that can meet our needs while providing the most bang-for-the-buck. That is not to say that I will be looking to open-source technologies simply because they are free. Since my primary job is teaching computers, any solution must work well and be easy to maintain a minimal amount of time spent keeping it running.

In the next couple of months, we will be replacing our Windows 2000 server (file/print sharing, proxy, firewall and content filtering, ISA 2004) and moving all but the file/print sharing functions off to another server, probably a Linux server. The file/print sharing services will be tasked to the new Windows 2008 Server. I am less familiar with Linux but my budget can no longer sustain the $1800 price tag for the annual content filtering subscription. I am learning that there are open-source solutions for proxy/firewall/content that will do an equal or better job of providing these services.

Do you have any solutions that you are currently using? Thoughts? Ideas? Please share them for the community so that we all can benefit. Leave a comment below. Thanks!