I need some guidance on a small dental office shared by two dentists who want to keep their "data" private. One dentist has a pc at the front desk with a cat5 cable and ends crimped on to connect peer to peer to a pc in his office. Thats his network..... The second dentist has a pc at the other side of the front desk, connected by a patch cable to a linksys wireless router,that connects wireless to a laptop, and thats his network....... Both want internet access, so they have ordered a dsl to share. Any ideas on set-up to share a dsl for minimal internet access by both, yet not be able to access each others networks/files. Oh by the way a set of braces is $4000 but they don't want to spend much money!

heres a thread where I posed the same question

I would think with HIPA the bes thing would be two broadband connections so there where two totally seprate networks

Cisco ASA5505

It can be setup with two VLAN's that will not see each other and each will have access to the internet. The ten user model is under $400.

Any router that can do VLAN can do this. Adtran, Cisco, etc. Also, be sure the network cards in the p.c.'s can do VLAN. Some of the built-in motherboard nic cards do not.

Zyxel USG100 router. It has several LAN ports that allow different subnets/vlans to be run for each tenant. If you need help programing, let us know.

I have used this switch several times

https://www.netgear.com/Products/Switches/SmartSwitches/FS726T.aspx

Easy browser setup, won't break the bank, but more ports than you need.

For the money you can't beat it.

Thanks everyone for your replies. After talking to the customer today, it looks as though we will use one network/lan for both doc's. They probably don't know how to access each others files anyway.

They may not know how to access each others files, but chances are they don't keep their patches up to date and don't understand how to configure their firewalls. If one dentist gets a virus it could very well affect the other dentist. I would advise them to keep them separate. Easy enough to do...just daisy chain two cheap routers together. The only thing you need to do, is set them to use different subnets for their respective LANs. (192.168.1.0 and 192.168.2.0 would work) Or, assuming your DSL provider will give two IPs, a small switch ahead of the two routers would be even better. Nothing needs to be changed on the router in this case. If they already have one router, $75 would buy another router and a small switch.

clinton has it right.

ictelco, i set up dentist offices all the time.

make sure both doctors know that it would be in their best interest to invest a little bit more money to keep their networks separate.

i also know exactly how cheap dentists can be. persistence is the key.

good luck

CB

Wonder what the HIPA requirements are? Sharing a connection may not be allowed.

Patient privacy is important so a firewall is a no brainer and I agree with the VLANs but not sure if that's still allowed by law.

Wow pricey solutions me I'd take a junk PC Pentium 2 and throw in 3 network cards, load up monowall, https://m0n0.ch/wall/ and create 1 - Wan and 2 - Lan interfaces and cable each Lan to separate switches. create routing tables to allow bow Lan's to access the Wan but not the other Lan.

I'd get a used Cisco 3640.

Use a junk PC for your router at home, but don't use it for a client. A dedicated router, whether it's a Dlink or Cisco, is going to be much more reliable. (provided you do some research and buy a reliable model) It will also take up less space, generate less noise and consume less power. You likely wont generate a lot of confidence when you walk into a client's office with an old junker PC that you intend to use for their connection to the outside world. If you crave some type of a home brew solution, you could load an open source firmware on a Linksys router and get the best of both worlds.

There's no room for home brew in a professional business environment unless the end user is fully aware. I, on the other hand, always recommend enterprise supported options to avoid problems down the road. Sometimes (most of the time?) it's just not worth the hassle.

You could use a good (server-grade) PC, but that costs more money.

Dlink and Cisco aren't even in the same chapter in the book on "reliable".

My point wasn't to compare the reliability of Dlink and Cisco gear, my point was that either of those options is more reliable than the old junk PC.

In the case of the Dlink, it isn't by much. You get exactly what you pay for with a Dlink. That's why they're cheap.

IMHO, a linux based solution does have a proven track record of reliabilty. If not, most web servers wouldn't function. Whether the proposed hardware is reliable, that may not be true.

What gets me is that there are those who think M$ and Cisco are unfailable. Just a quick question, who created unix and what kind of reliabilty were they going for? cellphone?

Cisco IOS has been around for about 20 years. They've had time to get it right.

Linux has been around almost but not quite that long too (it came out in 1993 as I recall). They've also had time to get that right, too.

The majority of webservers run Linux connected to Cisco routers.

AT&T, of course, created Unix.

Linux is very reliable as a router, assuming the hardware is good. There are ways to do it without needing a hard drive, which removes a failure point.