Answer to many of your questions can be found on this thread:
http://www.conitecserver.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=281909&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1If not you can search for many great discussions on this forum for Multi Player topics. There are many people working on vast projects, tutorials, white pages, documents, how-tos, etc. all about Multi Player.
Good Luck!