Typically, a Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) had less than 10 nodes for a small group of people working in the same location. It may be an Ethernet network or a mix of Ethernet and wireless LAN. A SOHO network uses ADSL, Cable or T1/E1 to access Internet through an ISP. The following figure shows a typical SOHO network.
How to Set Up and Configure a Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) Network
It is inexpensive and easy to interconnect existing computers to form a small Local Area Network (LAN). If you are using Windows OS (95/98/2000/2003/XP), no additional software is required to enjoy basic network functions such as shared use of directories, drives, or printers and the hardware costs are minimal. In addition, a network can substantially simplify and lower cost of Internet access for a group of people.
A Typical SOHO Network Environment
We only describe an Ethernet LAN without the wireless LAN in this article. The WLAN network will be discussed in separate article. A few PC-like computers running Windows (XP/2000) are connected via NICs to an Ethernet using 10/100 twisted pair cable and an 8 port hub. PCs are configured to use TCP/IP protocol and to use file and printer sharing so all employees can use all the printers and can use a common file areas or drives on the PCs. A stand-alone router is used to connect to the Internet via Cable modem using an Internet access provider and single user account. The SOHO company has a web site at www.sohonet.com hosted by an ISP. Each employee has an email address such as tom@sohonet.com, Fred@sohonet.com, etc. The web site provider furnishes POP email mail boxes for each employee. Alternately, the web site provider can supply aliases to route mail from "tom@sohonet.com" to an access provider mailbox such as "bill@microsoft.net". Email clients such as Microsoft Outlook on the employee computers access the POP mailboxes to receive mail and send mail via an access provider SMTP server.
Configuring and connecting networking hardware
Currently Ethernet is the choice of technology for a LAN, which has 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) and 10 Mbps. Every computer has a Network Interface Card (NIC) which are installed into an EISA card slot or a PCI slot and can also be found to fit a laptop PCMCIA slot. You need to select the right cables for the NICs.
In a SOHO LAN, you need a Hub or a switch to connect all computers, printers and other components together. In addition, you also need a routing gateway or modern to access Internet through your Internet Service Provider. The typical choices of the Internet access for SOHO network are ADSL, Cable Modem, T1/E1, etc.
If wireless LAN is used, you also need to have a wireless access point (AP), which is used to communicate with Laptops that installed with a wireless NIC.
To insure the network security, a firewall maybe installed between the access gateway and the LAN. Very often a "router" is used to connect between your LAN and the Internet via the access gateway. The router will queue and process all incoming and outgoing traffic to the Internet. Now, many DSL/Cable modems are integrated with router plus the firewall in one box.
Setting up network software
Ethernet transmits data by means of packets and automatically adjusts to addition of computers to a net. NICs all have a unique address built in at the factory to facilitate this. After you physically install your NIC you will need to install the driver for the NIC using Windows 95/98 installation procedures and diskette supplied by your NIC manufacturer. Usually, diagnostic software and software to set up the NIC regarding which connector to use (if it has more than one) is also supplied.
Once you install the driver you will go to the Windows control panel and select Networks which is organized as clients, adapters, protocols, services, and file and print sharing. Make sure that client for Microsoft networks, your adapter, Microsoft IPX/SPX compatible protocol, and Microsoft file and printer sharing for Microsoft networks service are installed. The details of “How to configure a PC with Windows XP in a SOHO network to share a printer” will be discussed in a separate article.
When the network is completed you can specify specific drives or directories to be shared with other computers on your LAN under "sharing" which will appear under the pull-down "file" menu. You can share individual directories or entire drives for read-only access or access with a password. You can also specify printers to be shared. When directories, drives, or devices are shared you will see a hand symbol attached to the icon for that item.
Groupware
Although you can share files so that any computer on the LAN can open the same file on the same drive there is a complication in that if more than one computer tries to open and change the same file simultaneously and the changes from one person will be lost. Many applications such as Microsoft Word will not open a file that is already open on someone else’s computer. Applications specifically designed for collaboration ("groupware" or "work group applications") avoid this problem.
Email is one of the groupware applications since you can accomplish many group functions such as adding to or modifying other people’s text, setting up meetings, etc. using email, especially if you have a more sophisticated email client system.
Networks of computers all of which are used as workstations are commonly known as "peer" networks. A server network requires an additional dedicated server machine, usually running expensive "server" software and therefore may be less attractive in a SOHO context. When investigating groupware applications make sure to understand if a server and specific server software is required or if the application can run on a peer network.
Connecting your local network to the Internet
If anyone on SOHO network wants to have access to the Internet, you need to set up an account with an ISP. An access gateway, such as an ADSL, Cable modem or T1/E1 gateway, is required to connect to the ISP. The TCP protocol in all the computers is set so that the address of the connectivity computer is set as the gateway. All the computers are set to use the Domain Name Server address (DNS) specified by the ISP.