Spec me an SCCM

[jaminben]

Hi,

We're on the verge of implementing SCCM 2012 and have been quite impressed with it in our little lab setup but now we need to purchase a server. Our first quote came in way over what we can afford (no surprise there) so we're wondering if we can just build it on a desktop with the following specs:

Intel® Core™ i5-3450 / 3.10GHz
16GB DDR3 @ 1333MHz
100GB OS Drive
500GB Data Drive

It would be dedicated to SCCM and would serve less than 800 clients. It wouldn't have raid but we were thinking of taking regular backup images.

Anyone got any thoughts? Good or Bad.

Thanks

[FN-GM]

SCCM is a sod to restore from a backup so i would go for raid if i was you.

[jaminben]

Can't afford raid so we're stuck with backup's.

[mrbios]

How big of a school are you? for what you're saying you can't afford it seems you only want to spend about £300 or so?

to be honest if a school can't afford a proper server it makes me wonder if it's big enough to really need SCCM?

[jaminben]

We have about 1300 students and just under 800 clients... We either move to SCCM with EPP and all the other benefits it brings or stay with Sophos.
I'd prefer to dump Sophos and move to SCCM.

Edit:

Unless someone can spec me a server for less than £600:

HP server configured as below:
HP Proliant DL120 G7 E3-1240
RAM: 2 x 8Gb
Storage Controller: HP Smart Array P212/256Mb
HDDs: 1 x 250Gb 3G SATA 7.2K, 2 x 500Gb 3G SATA 7.2K drives (RAID 1)

[teklogic]

You could look at a refurbished server if you are on a budget, you can get DL360's from Misco (or other suppliers) with warranties. We still run a few of these and they are good servers.

[mrbios]

If that's the case then surely you have some decent servers already in place? Are you virtualised?

I only ask because I hate the idea of spending X amount on a box that's going to be running 24/7 but only doing one task in this day n age. Each to their own i know, but just trying to see if you can be more energy efficient with the whole thing. If you have any servers that aren't far off needing to be replaced you could always propose virtualising your SCCM install on to a new box that would also replace another and take over their roles?

with 1600 users and 700 clients I only have 5 physical servers you see, it's amazing what can be squashed into a box, that includes exchange, sccm, SQL server, multiple DCs, file server etc (30 VMs in total spread over 4 hosts)

Just giving you ideas incase you hadn't thought of them, feel free to ignore me though if it's just not possible

[jaminben]

I do like the idea of virtualising but its not something we've done before (apart from within our lab enviroment)... we really only have two decent servers atm and their our DC's which we don't fancy messing about. Budget is very tight until the start of the new year (September) and our AV runs out soon which is why we've been looking into SCCM/EPP as we already have the license.

How do you find performance with 700 clients (roughly the same as us) and what spec is your VM running SCCM... if you don't mind me asking

[mrbios]

I do like the idea of virtualising but its not something we've done before (apart from within our lab enviroment)... we really only have two decent servers atm and their our DC's which we don't fancy messing about. Budget is very tight until the start of the new year (September) and our AV runs out soon which is why we've been looking into SCCM/EPP as we already have the license.

How do you find performance with 700 clients (roughly the same as us) and what spec is your VM running SCCM... if you don't mind me asking

My SCCM server has 4 cores and 8gb ram assigned, could maybe do with upping the ram a little bit but it's generally quite smooth, probably doesn't need 4 cores to be honest. I use it for WSUS and EPP primarily, I don't really use the OS deployment as we generally feel that WDS is so quick and simple that what SCCM offers us there isn't worth the time it takes to setup and administer, though i do have it setup to an extent. Also this link is so damn valuable: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Guides - Configuration Manager 2012 - www.windows-noob.com

DCs use barely any processing power or ram really, all they really like is a decent network connection. My 2008R2 DCs only have 1 core + 2gb ram assigned and they're lovely and smooth, when it was 2003 they were happy with just 1gb ram. Depending on the spec you could probably put them to good use as vm hosts What you could do is use a lower power box and do a P2V on the DCs to free up the better hardware, install vmware/hyper-v whichever you choose (Though VMware is better ) and move your DC VM on to the newly created virtual hosts once it's ready.

[jaminben]

Ok, thats great... I think we'll need to be doing some more thinking before we decide what to do. Windows-Noob is a great site and is what I used to setup our test SCCM which so far appears to be working well.

Thanks for taking the time to reply

P.S I prefer Hyper-V

[deano]

I have found that the main thing to make sure is right with tour sccm server is disk i/o.

There is a lot of data wrote to SQL, so its crucial this is right! RAM and disk space can always be added later

[free780]

Slight tangent. Do you have sql on a separate server or on the sccm server?

[deano]

I run mine from the same box

[tmcd35]

Just read through this thread, and I it struck me - this is what I'd do on this situation; Replace Sophos with EPP now and worry about SCCM later. You can run Endpoint Protection without installing the full SCCM package (search for Endpoint 2010 standalone) and it'll have much, much lower system requirements. Then wait for the new budget in September and seriously speak to the head/bursar about virtualisation. Get a two-three year plan in place to move to two or three virtual host servers and centralised storage. No need to replace your existing DC's immediatly, no need to jump into either SC or VM's with both feet day one. Take it slow and get a better working system long term.

[jaminben]

@free780
We were also going to run with SQL on the same box.

@tmcd35:
Thats a thought... I'll take a look at the standalone.