Setting up an IT infrastructure in a Company - Tips

We have a lot of young entrepreneurs, who have high ambitions to make it big in the IT industry, by starting a IT biz. On the other hand there are a lot of people dreaming about making big in IT field by being a good IT Infrastructure "Architect" or "System Designer" or even of being the best Infrastructure Manager. At the least there  will be people hoping to become the best Infrastructure Administrator in a good IT Biz house....

For all of the above mentioned positions, we may require at least a good amount of knowledge about the terms & jargon used in IT industry, a good & clear idea about the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), Different type of methodologies used in a SDLC model, a good knowledge about the different Network, Hardware and Software resources required in setting up a IT infrastructure etc... and a strong knowledge about IT security aspects, with their solution., and some analytic skills for understanding the how to make proper investments and to get the most cost benefits out of the investments made..

Here in this post I'd like to discuss some of the aspects which would help anyone who is aspiring for the above mentioned positions, so that you can survive & at least keep pace with the IT industry development speeds. This post I believe would also help you understand some basics so that you can understand advanced concepts by going through some reference material...

Basic things that are required in setting up an IT Infrastructure for a start-up companies...:

Setup a computer Network
This helps share resources like data, printer, internet connection etc among the users

Decide on type of network
Wired or wireless is one of the time consuming questions while setting up a network. More and more people are moving to wireless network as the cost for the same has come down and as it makes the office wire-free, you can move anywhere within the office with your computer/laptop or handheld device without any connectivity issues, its safe and secure with encryption in place.
Wired network has its own advantages as well like - cheap, reliable, fast to connect, and better consistent speeds etc..

Equipment required for setting up basic network
When a decision has been made as to what type of network is to be used, we can go ahead with the appropriate network devices for it. Like, if we plan to implement wireless network, we require wireless router which needs to be linked with the broadband connection. If we are going with wired network, we require a router for a wired network and a bunch of network cables, connectors, hubs etc...

Network Security
One of the most important steps in any network (once network is in place) is regarding the network security. We can do this using several different methods.. We need to change security settings in the router and the operating system, We can use wireless encryption protocol (WEP) for wireless networks,
We can use username and password for limiting users and give access only to authorized users. also we can do a full disk encryption on all computers, we can even use some hardware devices like fingerprint devices etc.. for protecting our network resources and data.
To protect from hackers, viruses and other malware, we may use some software as well to protect them apart from making sure that all the security settings on the browser are in place.
We can use additional software for protecting the servers using antivirus, anit-malware, and anti-spyware tools.
We need to spend a good amount of time to secure our network once it is built, as all the important data resides in them which need to be protected at all costs.

Other devices to make network more efficient
There are several devices that (if used properly) can help us boost our business growth and profits. If we have a network we can reduce the number of printer to just 1 or 2 for a floor (depending on the number of users on a floor). that would save costs. The same is applicable for scanners, plotters and other such devices that can be shared over network. There are storage devices such as NAS which can help us save money on storage which can also help users to share data from a common place in the network. we can use some cloud services for saving money on software licensing / infrastructure / platforms as well, if required. There are many different things we can do to make better efficient networks (depending on the type of business & its requirements).

Tools to improve productivity
We need to have a collection of tools (FOSS preferred) that can help us keep track of things at our business and there by improve productivity. We need to pay attention to some aspects like the following:
Monitoring
Backup
Email Management System
Application Status Dashboards