IT network/domain stuff for small charity (plz help)

[Jack!]

I volunteer for a small charity doing some basic IT work. Our setup at the moment is very primitive. We have a small office, with about 10 desks, all have a PC, but there is no standard, all the PCs are different, they’re all of differing quality. The biggest problem we have at the moment is confidentiality with the new Data Protection rules coming in. We have an internet LAN network, with printing etc, but we don’t have a server; at the moment it’s like having 10 home/personal PCs in an office, they’re not networked to each other.

Is it possible to create a network/domain type setup without having a server? We don’t want to be spending the kind of money required to get a reliable setup that doesn’t frustrate all the users and has enough resiliency.

We want a situation where anyone can use any computer, so we did away with Windows user accounts, but this has created a breach, because we can’t force the PCs to forget all details when they’re shut down or logged out of, so for example OneDrive or Office accounts stay logged in, and when someone else uses the PC they can access all of another individual’s documents, which is a major breach.

Because we don’t have a server/network setup, we can’t just purge all the PCs each night, nor can we update or fix anything via the network, we have to run installs on each PC one by one.

I don’t want to go back to Windows user accounts because we had a situation before where every computer had multiple accounts from the same people, and obviously none of their documents were shared, so for example Person A had an account on 7 of the 10 PCs, but nothing was shared, so if they log on to any of the PCs they have a different account, with different folders etc.

We need the flexible option, because we have about 50 different volunteers who are using PCs at different times, with only about 5 staff being regular users.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to better this situation?

Thank you.

 

[The Psychedelic Socialist]

You'll need some central storage but a cheap NAS would probably do, but then you could enable roaming user profiles with the user profiles themselves stored on the NAS:

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...dows-7-without-server?forum=w7itpronetworking

This would mean you have to set up all 50 users on all 50 PCs separately but it would solve your confidentiality problem I'd have thought?

 

[Jack!]

You'll need some central storage but a cheap NAS would probably do, but then you could enable roaming user profiles with the user profiles themselves stored on the NAS:

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...dows-7-without-server?forum=w7itpronetworking

This would mean you have to set up all 50 users on all 50 PCs separately but it would solve your confidentiality problem I'd have thought?

How reliable is this going to be? Is a NAS going to be able to handle use by 10+ people at the same time? The last thing I want is all users telling me that accessing their documents etc is really slow. It's already been a struggle to get some people to use Office 365 because of how slow and cumbersome it can be.

 

[The Psychedelic Socialist]

How reliable is this going to be? Is a NAS going to be able to handle use by 10+ people at the same time? The last thing I want is all users telling me that accessing their documents etc is really slow. It's already been a struggle to get some people to use Office 365 because of how slow and cumbersome it can be.

It's over a decade since I actually physically used a roaming profile so I've no idea what the performance would be like I'm afraid.

 

[realnumber 1]

You don't need an expensive super powerful server as a domain controller. Just setup an "okay" PC with as a server.
Iirc charities can get decent discounts on MS licences.

 

[andybond]

As mentioned , a DC doesnt need to be powerful or with huge amounts of RAM. The expensive bit will be the licensing but again - edu / charity get huge discounts for this.

You can then do all the good stuff with policies to adhere to your GDPR , or internal data protection policies.

If you get stuck , drop me a message. Ill be happy to consult gratis

 

[ChrisR]

Depending on any budget you might have, check out the hp microservers that always seem to be on offer if you need to get a server.

 

[Jack!]

We have Azure AD as part of our 365 licenses, so I'm looking at going down that route?

 

[iain187]

Do you have users logging on as soon as the previous user logs off? If not maybe a scheduled reset task overnight to force the PC to log out of everything by the time the next user appears whilst you consider your options.

 

[sbridgey]

Why not get a cheap windows server licence, spin up a vm on one of the machines and get it running as a server and user machine at the same time?

 

[Gareth]

Depends on the spec of the machines, memory could be an issue. If you have the budget a MicroServer is a good shout, mine are heavily specced up but I run a pretty unbelievable amount of stuff on them (Domain, CA, File Server, CCTV, Proxy, Desktop VMs, iTunes Server, TV Streaming).

 

[msremmert]

What's your budget? There's a lot of options out there and you'd be surprised how basic a PC you'd need for basic server duties such as file services and active directory.

Even NAS(es?) these days can run a DC.
If you wanted to avoid the licensing, one option is a Synology NAS. I know they can function as an AD server, dns, dhcp, whatever you want.
I can't comment on their 2 bay varients, but I saw a 5 bay one running a small office once. Ran AD, squid proxy service, vpn concentrator, even functioned as a Ubiquiti WiFi controller. It was surprisingly good.
If you go the server route with centralised storage, smart money is on getting UPS too.

If you need a NAS larger than 2 bays though you would probably be able to build something cheaper yourself if you have parts lying around.