IT bods, can you help?
 

My dear boss has asked me to set up an intranet for the office.

OK, I may be bright at times, but I know nurfink about intranet:puzzled:

We have a well maintained system here, fast on line etc, we all operate on W 2000, or the laptops on XP.
Our troubleshooting/maintenance is outsourced. But all minor probs are dealt with by muggins here on a day to day basis.

Now, can anyone start me off where to look, possibly a nudge in the right direction - in EASY words please?

Many thanks,

C:)

IIS

:puzzled:

pardon???

You'll need a server running IIS before you can do anything, it's only a service assuming you have Win2K or 2003 servers you should be OK.

check - all ok:)

have just started to look on google - bit confusing (or is it just my mind wandering as its almost lunch time? )

We already share lots of files etc, on 7 - 10 different drives - so what else is different then?

may seem obvious but go onto microsoft and do the same search.
Like Jon says, IIS. Y'can stick it on your home pc just as easily.

OK, must be a silly woman:rolleye: have looked there, and am now more confuzzled than ever...............

Lunch, chocky, will be back shortly:pig:

Gee, that's a bit of an ask!

IIS is a commonly targeted product for viruses and needs to be setup properly and updated regularly (as new vulnerabilities are discovered - Microsoft patches) to ensure it is secure. I wold be wary of using this unless you were familiar with the product and comfortable you can keep it secure.

I would give some thought to running something like Apache (WTF - From an MCSE!!) which is more secure out of the box (IMO).

To be honest Charlotte, this is going to take a bit of work and education to get going. There's two parts to this equation.

Infrastructure

The website (an intranet is an internal website, not exposed externally - wasn't sure if you are familiar with the term. apologies if I'm telling you to suck eggs) needs to be hosted somewhere. If you have a server in the office it can be as easy as installing Apache or adding the IIS service if you choose that path. You now have the Infrastructure in place to host your website.

Content

Now you need to build the website. The actual look and feel of the website itself. You can use all sorts of programs to help you do this. You may even have Frontpage installed on your PC now which will help. There are plenty of free programs to help you do this - try places like www.download.com or www.tucows.com and have a look around.

Once you have this content you need to move it into the folder structure on the server so that it can be displayed by your chosen web server (Apache, IIS). You will also need to setup your IIS headers etc.

This is an area which I'm not very strong in, I'm an infrastructure guy, but I think I've got the basics covered. There's lots of information on this Charlotte and it can be a bit daunting to get into it. Domski does this sort of thing in his spare time and is more knowledgable than me so I'd ask him to help you out.

Good luck, you'll be a nerd in no time :D

[Edited on 10-5-2005 by TP]

Thank you Tony:)

I do indeed have servers on site- its my 'hidey out' room;) - containing 4 servers:)

so, will try to follow what you say, without doing the full monty just yet - I just need to show the boss what we can do (ha, blind leading blind!:o ) give me minor probs such as staff locking themselves out, tuition needed for local applications etc.....

C:)

I haven't even mentioned 'Availability' or 'Service Levels' yet ;)

It gets scarier then :D

But you can do yourself some huge favours early on by 'managing his expectation' of what you are going to give your boss. Set it low, over achieve :D