Setup Lion Server for use in Small Office of Windows & Mac Clients

I've purchased a Mac Mini Server with Lion Server installed to be used in my small office of less than 10 people.
The primary goal of this server is to used for File Sharing, bother locally, and remotely.
In the process of setting up Lion Server I have come across a couple things that I am confused about.
The first is Open Directory.
It is my understanding that this is not a necessary setup for the number of users in my office, however I set it up anyway as it appeared to be something that would be useful in the future.
I have come across information that states Lion Server will not be accessible for Windows users connected via Open Directory. Thus my inclination is to disable the service, and set up my users as local users.
My question is, for local and remote File Sharing, is there any benefit to using Open Directory?
The second has to do with Remote Access.
I am familiar with the notion of a VPN, but I need some clarification as to my remote access options.
When I go to setup my Server's hostname, I am presented with three options. 1) Host name for local network, 2) Host name for private network, and 3) Host name for Internet.
I have a domain name for my company's website, so I set up a subdomain (server.mycompany.com), asked my ISP for a Static WAN IP, and pointed thesubdomain to said IP using my DNS. Thus this appears to be option number 3; to allow users to connect to my server from the local network, as well as the Internet.
My question is, how does this differ from a VPN both in setup, as well as method with which users will access the server? Is there a benefit to one over the other? I would Google this to find an answer, but I can't seem to find a name for what this setup is called.
I very much appreciate any help you can provide.
Thanks.

Well, I spoke too soon.  Lion Server is unstable, awkward and is far too limited to qualify as an Apple product. Even though there's quite a few enhancements, the omissions of technologies in the server 10.6 edition makes this "server" a no go for us.
Even after installing mysql, I still cannot run a Joomla website on Lion server as it should be done. The wiki's a nice thing to have, but isn't a "professional grade" solution.  There's too much iOS as well.
With that said, I think it's a shame that apple would put customers through so much frustration and disappointment by releasing such a lame product. In order for us to use Lion server, we would have to be able to run a second (totally separate) instance of Apache. It also appears that server settings are changing to the extent that services become inaccessible as the system is running.

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    Brad

    That manual page is not fully correct. There is written:
    Public UDP Port(s): <enter the appropriate UDP port value(s)>
    Public TCP Port(s): <enter the appropriate TCP port value(s)>
    Private IP Address: <enter the reserved IP address of the host device (from step 1)>
    Private UDP Port(s): <enter the same Public UDP Ports or your choice>
    Private TCP Port(s): <enter the same Public TCP Ports or your choice>
    But it should be:
    Public UDP Port(s): <enter unique UDP Ports of your choice>
    Public TCP Port(s): <enter unique TCP Ports of your choice>
    Private IP Address: <enter the reserved IP address of the host device (from step 1)>
    Private UDP Port(s): <enter the UDP Ports used by your device>
    Private TCP Port(s): <enter the TCP Ports used by your device>
    Make sure you use the same ports in the private settings as you have defined in your IP camera. Normally a camera will use port 80 by default, so use 80 here.
    The Public ports must all be unique. If you have not defined a port 80 here, you can also use 80. This will fail however when using multiple cameras. I for instance have 5 IP cameras and use the public ports 8451, 8452, 8453 etc.

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