If you are a small businesses (10 -20) users, or home users who wants to run a server then this article is for you. Most people in that category don’t have the money to run a Windows server product, and if no one they know has Linux experience, then Linux is also out of reach for them. Many of these people will also not buy a Linux solution because they don’t want to be chained to a contract technician who charges for every little change like adding a user, a directory, or some other feature.
If you are in this category then I fully recommend that you check out ClarkConnect. Here is how the describe themselves on their website. “ClarkConnect is a powerful and affordable internet server and gateway solution….” They really are what the say. You can install the software on a machine with two network cards and use it as a gateway, VPN server, and firewall. Setup is also easy if you choose to use it as a Windows file sever, mail server, MySQL database, or web server. The best part for users with little experience is that 95% of customization is done via a web browser. If you’ve ever tinkered with the functionality of your router, then it’s pretty much a similar experience.
There are several reasons why I recommend this solution to small businesses and home users. First the setup is relatively easy. I say relatively because I still think you should have a technician help you plan your network and setup your server, but once that’s down it’s very easy for someone with little experience to manage. Oh yeah, that’s my second point: easy to manage. Thirdly I think it’s worthwhile because it really requires very little resources from the server. There’s no graphical user interface so CPU and RAM aren’t wasted running the OS. The fourth point maybe should have been first, it’s price. For $85 a year it’s hard to beat. There also a free community version with some limitations that you can use to try it out. Check out this table that compares the two versions.
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