From David Holiman's dlhnet.net - the source for all things "IT" in Benton, Arkansas.
DLHNet began back in 2000 or so, shortly before my high school graduation. I was a student in the high school's EAST lab (Environmental and Spatial Technologies),
a class basically designed to let students learn how to let computers help them do work and complete tasks. I was appointed an "admin" by the class facilitator,
meaning I helped take care of the workstations and server. This would be my first experience taking care of a network, in a team environment.
I also redesigned the Bryant EAST lab website that year, and the re-design was kept until well into the next school year, after I was long gone.
(no hard feelings!) I obtained a copy of NT4 Server and Workstation (Workstation was purchased at Staples for all of $30, on clearance!) and installed
Workstation on one and Server on another. I created a domain and continued teaching myself various administrative tasks such as user account management,
security policy, ACL settings on files/folders on an NTFS volume, etc. Soon I obtained Windows 2000 Pro and Server, and the upgrade to my little network
occurred.
In early 2003, I obtained a beta copy of the (then) new Windows Server 2003 (it was still Windows .NET Server then) and installed it, teaching myself the new
features with the new version. I was in college at the time, honing my administration skills by taking Microsoft courses in Windows 2000 Server, Active Directory,
Network Infrastructure, and Network Security. My learning continued, and along the way I became A+ certified in hardware and software maintenance.
In 2006, my time to keep my network running became limited, and I dismantled the bulk of the network, save for one laptop running Windows Vista, late that year. I would
keep to one machine until late 2008, when I had obtained enough spare machines to begin building what would become DLHNet. Thanks to the Arkansas State Surplus sale,
I had actual server hardware on which to install Windows Server by early- to mid-2009. I obtained the dlhnet.net domain in early 2009 and started the website which
continues, in parts, here today.
The domain controller is a Dell Studio laptop, circa late 2008. It has a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. It's running Windows Server 2008 R2.
The web server is a Dell Inspiron desktop machine, circa late 2010. It has an AMD Athlon X4 processor and 8GB of RAM. After a hard drive failure in September 2011,
it's now sporting a 120GB solid state drive and is running Windows Server 2008 R2, IIS 7.5, and Exchange 2010. It has a 2TB conventional hard drive which holds
all my music, video files, and documents. It also holds a full backup of the system drive, a lesson learned after the original system hard drive failed.
Two desktops and one MacBook Air make up the rest of the network. Internet service is provided by AT&T UVerse service: 24Mb download/3Mb upload.