How Would You Make a Distributed Office System?

Necrotica writes "I work for a financial company which went through a server consolidation project approximately six years ago, thanks to a wonderful suggestion by our outsourcing partner. Although originally hailed as an excellent cost cutting measure, management has finally realized that martyring the network performance of 1000+ employees in 100 remote field offices wasn't such a great idea afterall. We're now looking at various solutions to help optimize WAN performance. Dedicated servers for each field office is out of the question, due to the price gouging of our outsourcing partner. Wide area file services (WAFS) look like a good solution, but they don't address other problems, such as authenticating over a WAN, print queues, etc. 'Branch office in a box' appliances look ideal, but they don't implement WAFS. So what have your companies done to move the data and network services closer to the users, while keeping costs down to a minimum?"

erm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, in other words, how do i put servers in branch offices without putting servers in branch offices?

If you solve that one let me know...it's been bothering me a while too...

Pixie dust

[c0d3h4x0r]

Think happy thoughts, and sprinkle some pixie dust over your IT infrastructure, and all your problems will be solved.

But whatever, you do, don't fire your incompetent outsourcing partner or actually invest in beefing up your IT resources. Both of those paths are DOOMED, DOOOOOOMED, I say!

Re:So, here's your answer:

[OnlineAlias]

I'm an executive in IT with almost 20 years in. I have learned, without a doubt, that in IT what one pays is usually quite unrelated to what one gets.

Re:Another two words

[scottv67]

You are soooo full-of-shit. Your "vis a vis" and "C-level project managers" buzzword fountain reveals that you don't know jack. You are a Grade A poseur. If you are going to pretend to be someone important, here's a vital tip: Spell-check your posts and review your use of punctuation. You say that you and your D&D-playing friend charge "well over $100/hr" but yet you put an apostrophe in "Point's of Presence". I would have to guess in real life that you are in your early 20s and you've taken one or two networking classes at the local vocational school. You probably know how to configure a Linksys WRT54G but can't go much beyond that. I am surprised that your post did not include a list of "certs" that you hold (including A+).

I'm sorry that my post is not more positive. But your post was so full of bullshit that I had to call you on it.

Re:No Good Solution

[davidsyes]

One good stragety is to add oil to the pipes. You know, to increase teh horsespowers, you have to add more viciouscosity to pump the datas through the tubes.

Your Senator...

All this is too complicated

[markov_chain]

Just have everyone telecommute to the central office. Problem solved!