Like an empty room

It's that 'Project 2' time of year again, and we started it off by visiting the target for a brand-new network, the Purley cross centre. The room isn't as big as I was hoping for, and alot of the difficulty is gonna be figuring out a table layout which fits 5 or 6 people, but allows room for wheelchairs between.

The main room

I've done some research on the machines we could use, and it's immediately obvious that desktops are the way to go - they're cheaper, easier to upgrade, more robust, more powerful, and, well, harder to steal. Within that, there's two ways we could go: ready-to-go PCs, something like a Dell, or build-your-own.

Building PCs might sound ambitious, but buying parts for 5 or 6 entry-level computers isn't a difficult task, and gives us more control over the exact spec of the machines. It's also likely to be significantly cheaper. Something like a Dell would do fine, but will probably be more expensive, unless we can get some kind of bulk deal.

As for the network, I don't know a massive amount, but from what I gather we're gonna have a central, internet-connected server in an adjacent room (see pic below), where all the software will be installed, and which will hold all the user accounts. That'd then be wired to a switch in the main room, which will in turn wire up to all the PCs and a wireless access point, which will have WPA encryption to fulfil the security requirements (unless there's a better alternative...?). I think the server should have a total capacity of about a terabyte, simply because big HDDs are cheaper these days, and you can never have to much - basically, no need to upgrade for a long time.

Server room

Now I can get down to planning it all; that is, I would, if I had the measurements for the room. I helped out with the tape measure, so I have no idea why I don't have a copy... oh well. There's always Friday.