Start Ups often don’t have an IT-Specialist at hand. So they start with an infrastructure often containing a single computer. Than an assistant is employed and needs access to the company files. Often in such situations Dropbox or a Shared Folder (on a workstation) is used. After that the company grows and another employee joins in. So another computer is bought and added to the network (often referred to as Peer-to-Peer architecture). It is complicated to make backups, complicated to control access to files, missing redundancy and more imported for most small Start Ups it is complicated to find the files, “Is the contract on your, her or my computer?”.
Not speaking from other problems like audit-proof mail archive, antivirus, backup, remote access, data integrity, data privacy and centralized management.

Why should Start Ups use the same techniques than Enterprises?

Often people think it would be expensive or not worth the effort to use the same techniques. But this is not the case if the project is carefully planed. What most people don’t consider is that even Enterprises don’t want to waste money and time. Further more they already got through all the trouble from failed concepts and had to find a way to counteract them. But more important they often did a post mortem and root cause analysis to identify what went wrong and how it could have been avoided or counteracted. So everyone can benefit from the mistakes of others (if they share the knowledge).

So what?

Currently I’m working for an ISP and I’m administering many separated managed windows infrastructures for our customers. These zones include ActiveDirectory, Terminal, Exchange Server and some customer specific applications. Many customers already have a grown infrastructure that needs to be migrated. I’m writing this in order to minimize the problems we encounter in transit. This Website should become a “How To” for setting up a whole new company infrastructure following real world and Microsoft best practice guidelines. But also common certification requirements are considered. Also I want to provide an all in one mostly windows only network design.

Is it free?

Yes, but obviously you would have to buy necessary licenses.
Also you’re asked to give feedback and share the knowledge about problems and limitations you’re encountering when following this guideline.