Enterprise like environment for small computer shop.

Posted on February 7, 2008 
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Alright… its just under a month since I started this blog, and up to know its been empty, not because I got lazy, but because I’m actually working on the quest full time.

So, I bought two new test computers to use as test server, which should help on testing out a lot of stuff on the server side. I will have access to at least one other server locally, and a new shared hosting plan with the company I’ve been for a few years. besides the 3 servers I still have my main desktop which runs Ubuntu since the 6.10 release, and another workstation in the office, not to mention the windows computers on that network. I will have some other people test stuff in the office environment, with a real intent to use most of the software solutions I find, so testing will be good as its not done just by installing and seeing some basic features.

On to the current stuff.

Let me point out the direction I want to go. I’m trying to get a really reliable, secure, easy to maintain, with the least amount of maintenance required and commercially viable network setup for a small computer shop that is growing. The shop now has 2 locations, the new one more of a sales office, which will be the main office, and the old location, which wasnt big enough for a store nor cool enough.

Here is the list of software tools that I like to have in the store.

LDAP

Groupware

ERP

POS

CRM

IM

VOIP PABX

New website CMS

Knowledge Base

Mail Server relay

Intranet Gateway

Firewall

Calendar server

Wireless network server

Windows Updates Sever (WSUS)

VPN Server

OK, I think thats it, all that just a small office with less than 10 people using all features.

Understanding how all this goes together is going to take me a while, but in due time all will come. I need LDAP to help on keeping things simple to the users, just one login for most of this stuff, based on their roles of course. Lets see now if I can explain how I want this to work, which is a setup I used to use on some places I worked at.

The Groupware will be mainly to keep everyone on the same page with company wide memos and easy access to calendar and tasks.

ERP will be used to its full extent, accounting, HR records, customers account tracking, logistics, products management, etc. etc.

The POS for this case needs to be something simple, without many options as it will run on regular PC’s, it needs to be fast too, as it will be used on the front counter for quick walk in sales, be that new customers or regular, charging and giving credit and to finalize the quote/order process.

The POS should be part of the CRM, which we will use it to create issue tickets to be worked on by bench techs, sales people when something goes wrong with the clients account, quoting parts and services, charges and credits management, promotions, service orders and contracts, and specially fallowing up with the clients. All sales and sales aspects would be part of the CRM, from marketing to the final sale and contract.

The IM would be used to internal communication along with email, and meant to keep employees from chatting all day long on external messenger services and from adding customers to their own external accounts.

VOIP PABX would be used to route calls internally, make outbound calls, record calls for screening, voice mail accessible from outside the office, as well as a VOIP solution when someone needs to work from home or a remote office. Since we have a second office we want to connect the two using VOIP and high speed internet, that way the second office would be just an phone extension and would be able to dial out as if it was dialing from the main office.

The company site CMS will be used only to display promotions and basic company info such as services, location, phone number etc etc. no online sales. a CMS should be able to handle that really easy.

Need a knowledge base internally for the techs and sales people, there will be one to the outside world hosted on the new shared hosting plan.

The internal Email server would only relay information to email server on the shared hosting plan, that way we have a copy locally and another online to access from anywhere. the email server will also be integrated with the other services, ERP and CRM, mainly to use the same customer contact information, but to connect with all the “Outlook” functionalities. I called it a relay not only because it will be using the hosted server, but because it will use the individual account to send the email as, for example, john sends an email from the office, john has an account on the local server and on the hosted server, the message is sent internally to the local server, and the server sends it to the hosted server telling it to use johns account on the hosted server, and saves a copy of what was sent on the server. As well as replication, John deletes an email on the email client, it gets deleted on the local server, which tells the hosted server to delete that same message too.

Also need an Intranet Gateway to the internet with FIREWALL to control everything that goes in and out of the network. This will also work with the VPN and DHCP server

A calendar server is required to, well.. host calendar stuff, not sure if its going to be separet from the email server or not.

The Wireless network server for the laptops around.

And finally the WSUS server, to speed up the windows updates process by avoiding the downloads for several machine from the internet everyday. its really nice to have a local “mirror”.

All this will have to work on windows and Linux desktops, mainly XP and Ubuntu.

Well, thats pretty much all I want, of course using the same user name for most apps. It may seems that this is too much, but thats the stuff I need working. It will take me a long time to get everything going, will test a lot of apps out there, so hang in there to see whats next.

Hello world! and open source nerds

Posted on January 9, 2008 
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Well lets see, where do I start…

Who knows where this will take us, perhaps google will guide us through links and searches but, in the end, we make the de decisions.

This blog will register the ups and downs of my quest through the open source world looking for the best software out there, no limits on what categories it may fall into. Sit back, fasten you’re seat belt, and enjoy the ride.

PS: Thanks to Tosh Hatch for all the companionship and webmaster help on this quest.