NAS: The Ideal Network ‘Storage’ Solution for Small Businesses

This refers to one or more disks connected to the office network, making NAS a simple solution for data storage, as well as backups and a range of other things.

Written by: Igor Škevin
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Photo: Dražen Lapić

You have a company with five to ten employees, you have introduced broadband internet, and you need a way for your employees to constantly have access to certain documents in electronic form, but you consider the price of a server, the device on which you could set those documents, to be pure astronomy. – The solution in this case is called NAS (Network-attached storage) and represents a network ‘storage’, in fact, one or more disks connected to your office network – explains Tvrtko Ljubić, director of D-Link Adria, one of the strongest global companies producing equipment and solutions for computer networking. Namely, we started from the assumption that in the company you want to have available, for example, a table with sales results into which each of the employed salespeople can enter orders at any time. Likewise, employees may need a template for the company memorandum, and for such documents to be constantly available via the computer network, they are placed on the NAS, which is connected to the company’s router.
– There are more and more laptops in use and the need for data sharing is increasing, so NAS is a simple solution for data storage, as well as backups and a range of other things – says Ljubić, adding that the settings of D-Link’s NAS devices are performed using the Click’n’Connect program, which is supplied on a CD with their routers and all other devices, and the software interface is also translated into Croatian.

D-Link offers three series of NAS devices, numbered 313, 323, 343, where the number in the middle indicates the number of hard disks in the device. It is important that the disks can be configured in RAID (redundant array of independent disks), which allows for faster data storage, simultaneous storage on two or more disks at the same time, or both options, achieving high reliability of data storage.

Connection with business partners

Ljubić explains that a NAS with one disk is actually intended for home users, while those with multiple disks are for companies, not just IT ones, with up to five or seven employees. The NAS connects to the router, and all D-Link NAS devices connect via gigabit Ethernet. If the router to which the NAS is connected has an equally fast gigabit connection to the internet, it represents a configuration for more demanding users as it allows for high download speeds from the internet.
– The DNS-313 model does not have advanced features, but the DNS-323 and DNS-343 are serious machines intended for smaller, not necessarily IT companies or those with greater needs for internet use or sharing digitized data – explains Ljubić, noting that the devices are supplied without hard disks, so the user must purchase them themselves.

However, D-Link’s NAS devices can also be accessed from a location outside the office, allowing access to data stored in files that are too large to be kept on a notebook’s disk. The advantages of NAS devices are particularly evident if the settings need to be shared with business partners who access the data from outside the company. Each user can be assigned access rights to certain data or folders, explains Ljubić. Thus, it is possible to allow employees of their own company to view a certain type of data, the accountant to access other data, and partner companies can be given user accounts for, for example, access to certain instructions or catalogs, just as D-Link Adria does with its partners. At the same time, data on the NAS can be accessed via a web interface, which is displayed in standard web browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, while within the company’s network, the NAS can be accessed as a shared network drive to which the router assigns an IP address, so data on the NAS is accessed as if it were on the computer’s disk.
– Each NAS has an IP address written on it, and during the first use, it is necessary to configure the disk or disks in the device using the programs from the supplied CD, but later it is only necessary to log into its web interface – explains Ljubić, emphasizing that the NAS has an FTP server (File Transfer Protocol) so that company websites can be stored on it.

Additional possibilities

An additional possibility for networking computers within a smaller company that Ljubić points out is networking via electrical wiring. So-called powerline networking connects computers using electrical power, using adapters that plug into electrical outlets, such as D-Link’s DHP-300, and are usually purchased in pairs. Each adapter connects to a computer using a UTP cable, just as if you were connecting it with a wire to the router, but in this case, you do not have to stretch any wires, and the devices exchange data even faster than with conventional wireless methods, even faster than 100-megabit Ethernet that uses wires. The devices are configured using the supplied configuration program, and it is very important, as Ljubić emphasized, that all computers are on the same electrical phase to connect, but also that the adapters operate at the same speed.
– Our idea of networking a small office does not stop at just the router or switch, but in one device, we offer unified access to the internet, IP telephony, and data sharing, along with a firewall and VPN, voicemail, and a mini home central, all of which is easy to use and maintain, and we are also competitive in price – this is how Luka Markota from the Croatian representation of Cisco, the largest global corporation dealing with computer networking, explained his company’s vision for networking small businesses. An impressive announcement is accompanied by an impressive device – UC500 – but with no impressive physical dimensions.

Home Office

Unified Communications 500, as its full name is, has the ability to, as the jargon says, ‘eat small children’ because it enables the integration of voice communication and wireless data networking, as well as the concept of teleworking via VPN (Virtual Private Network). The point is that employees can take the office home with them, a concept that Cisco calls the Cisco virtual office, so they can work from home with the same technology as in the office, but with the security and protection offered by the encrypted ‘tunnel’ of the VPN.
– Cisco has prepared another revolutionary novelty for small businesses by adapting network monitoring and equipment management for them. Everything is designed for companies where there is either no person responsible for IT or it is just one person, but they do everything in that area. Thus, using the Cisco Configuration Assistant, the entire network of the company can be configured in just a few minutes, including home phone numbers, VPN tunnel opening procedures, and adding a new wireless access point. Everything is made accessible to people who are not skilled in networking, and this is a product that comes fully ready in the hands of the user, so they can perform the installation themselves. Even if they do not know or do not want to do that, more than a hundred of our partners in Croatia can do it for them – concluded Markota.