Setting up Intranet in an office?

I have to set up an intranet for a small business. We have two offices that are connected by a leased line. I need to set up an intranet that the offices can use to share a database. This database has to be on a dedicated server computer that can be updated by either office. This database has to be accessible by both offices via the intranet. We currently have an intranet set up with a web application that is very inefficient. I want to upgrade to a dedicated server to do this. Is there a way to do this? I also need the database to be accessible to both offices, the database editable by both offices. Hardware and software tips are much appreciated Thank you guys!

2 offices connected via a leased line. Can the computers from different offices see each other currently? If so, no problem at all. Just transfer whatever web application to your own new, intranet web server (use whatever you want to use, but Apache on Linux - if you know how to maintain it - is most cost effective).

If they cannot see each other, then you'd need to configure NAT on your routers in both offices and assign appropriate IP addresses with the correct subnet masks so they can see each other. Once that is done, no problem.

In this setup, your application could reside in a web server (your new dedicated machine that sits within your network) and so could your database. Offices just need to reconfigure whatever application to point to the database on the new IP address.

Since you already have a leased line, I wouldn't go broadband especially if your bandwidth is considerably large enough (1-2Mb?). However if your offices tend to transfer huge music, video, or graphic files inter-office using the leased lines, then you should put a stop to it if its not work-related. If it is, consider forcing the users to use alternate forms for such transfer (inter-office email that uses an internet based mail server for example). Going broadband even with VPN, exposes your network to the public and it does bring up an entire new can of worms. You'd need to have the knowledge to manage that as well as knowledge on security and eventually as it grows, you end up with more and more things to monitor and control. Manual procedures will also have to be modified.. for example, what if a disgruntled employee who got fired cos he didn't turn up for work for a month decides to login remotely via VPN and sabotage your database? You'd need manual procedures to circumvent such things from happening and these are usually more difficult to implement due to the human factor.

linux is the os ud need

Ideally you could now dump the leased line, they are very expensive, you can link via the internet using broadband. The best database setup is to use a web server with mysql database, controlled by php. Linux is the best os for this from the point of view of efficiency, reliability and economy. It comes with the Apache web server, the most commonly used server, the php and mysql are also built in. obtain a fixed IP address at the main server end, your other office can use the web to access the database, also this makes it available to staff from home or any internet access at libraries, hotels and internet cafes. If you used a second server at the other office you can set up a vpn between the 2, all the machines at the second office can use this for a secure login to file data at the first office. Email can be centralized at 1 server, and both servers can also be used for firewalling and routing the internal networks. Both servers can be basic machines, you can use software raid on Linux for disk redundancy and performance. Backups can be automated through external drives.

you can use whatever you want. As long as your 2 offices are connected I don't really see what you problem is because they will go to the same address and same IP to access the site. I presume all the changes are made through gui?

I have setup something similar with 4 offices (all connected through vpn) and it still works ok. Changes can be made from anywhere because our content management is web based

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