You have been asked by Thrift Towne, a local charity retail organization, to install a network in its downtown office. It currently has four PCs running Windows XP Professional, with the following specifications:
- Pentium III, 500 MHz processor, 256 MB memory, 10 GB hard drive Pentium 4, 1 GHz processor, 512 MB memory, 40 GB hard drive Pentium 4, 3 GHz processor, 1 GB memory, 120 GB hard drive Pentium 4, 3 GHz processor, 2 GB memory, 250 GB hard drive Thrift Towne's owners are not very concerned about security, because the network will share only staff schedules and inventory information (customers remain anonymous and are not tracked) between its own PCs. Thrift Towne uses mostly volunteers to run its stores, and the volunteers are not technical experts, so they are hoping for a solution that doesn't require any complex maintenance. In addition, Thrift Towne doesn't have much money to spend on this project. In short, the owners have asked for a simple, inexpensive solution.
What kind of additional equipment would Thrift Towne have to purchase to make your solution work? What role (or roles) would you assign to each of the four workstations and any other equipment you recommend? What type of upgrades, if any, might the workstations require to make your solution work?