| Small businesses are often looking to grow by | | | | Terminal Services or Terminal Server. What this |
| expanding into different territories. Along with that | | | | lets you do is to have the branch office work |
| comes the consideration of opening up a branch | | | | directly on your head office server without having |
| office, amongst other options. If you're | | | | the need for very expensive high speed data |
| considering opening up a branch office think about | | | | connections between the branch and head office. |
| how you're going to manage the IT side of things. | | | | This will save you a fortune. It will also allow you |
| It could get expensive, however if it's done with | | | | to avoid buying a server for the branch office. |
| some planning, then it should be fairly inexpensive. | | | | Lastly it'll mean that you can control file and |
| Usually a small business branch office will start up | | | | network security in one place and reduce IT |
| with only a handful of staff as the business grows | | | | support complexity and costs. Not all software |
| organically. If that's the case then this is really | | | | such as business systems will run on Remote |
| pretty straightforward. However you'll need to | | | | Desktop, you're going to have to check this, but |
| look at the head offices computer infrastructure | | | | the good ones should. |
| first. | | | | The next piece of the puzzle is the connection |
| For a business to consider opening a branch | | | | between the offices. Be careful not to be sold an |
| office, they'll want to be reasonably well | | | | expensive solution by your telco. Unless you have |
| established in their head office, so that they can | | | | special needs for a very high speed or especially |
| sustain the costs of setting up the new office. | | | | secure connection. For the small business there |
| That being the case they should already have | | | | are two commonly used methods, the first is the |
| decent IT infrastructure. If they don't they should | | | | Virtual Private Network or VPN, which your IT |
| be in a financial position where they can afford to | | | | consultant will setup over the top of your regular |
| implement this key business component before | | | | internet connections. The second is the Private |
| opening up the branch office. | | | | Network, which your ISP will want to sell you, |
| Admittedly no two cases are identical, so I'm | | | | which is a more secure managed service, but |
| generalising. | | | | might cost a little more and might give your IT |
| A great place to start is to make sure that the | | | | consultant less control. Either way, the faster the |
| head office has a good server in place. It needs | | | | internet connection the better, but most standard |
| to be reliable and have the capacity to cope with | | | | business broadband connections should be |
| the extra remote staff. Microsoft Windows Small | | | | adequate. |
| Business Server (SBS) software installed on a | | | | Lastly, with a connection between your offices, |
| good quality server is ideal for this. The reasons | | | | you should be able to set up free phone calls |
| for this are that an SBS is good is that it gives | | | | between the offices. That's a huge cost saving |
| you email management, shared calendar | | | | for long distance calls. |
| management, file sharing management, a single | | | | So, assuming that you've already got a good |
| place to store and backup data and it gives you | | | | server, it shouldn't be too expensive to setup the |
| something called Remote Desktop. | | | | IT for your new branch office. |
| Remote Desktop was formerly known as | | | | |