New Servers

[darrenmcginnis]

Hi All

I am hoping to get some new server following a new appointment of a head teacher.

I am ok with specs for the DC's and member servers, I have looked at running a partially Virtual network but have decided to stick with physical servers.

What I am unsure about is the specs for 4 specialist servers:

1. Exchange Server for around 700 users
2. SIMS Server with Schools Cash Office
3. Terminal Server for 100 staff at the moment, with the possibility of rolling it out to students by purchasing more licenses.
4. Microsoft's replacement for ISA

Was thinking for point 4 a single dual core xeon processor with 16gb ram and a 250gb mirrored raid. This goes along the lines of the other member servers, but I am unsure as to the other 3.

I am planning 2 or 3 data servers linked to a 5tb SAN, but should I have a connection from the Exchange and SIMs servers to the SAN?

Any comments would be appreciated. I need the prices soo. As the new head is going to governors middle of September with a view to start the upgrade live running up to October half term and doing the major parts over half term

Thanks

Daz

[FN-GM]

Just out of curiosity why are you not going down the virtual route?

[sukh]

1. Do you want HA for Exch? I assume you plan on using 2010?
2. Do you want to split the roles up?
3. Really depends on your requirements and usage per mailbox.
3. Use the calc to help you - Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator - Exchange Team Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs & v17.2 of the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

Sukh

[Blue_Cookeh]

I'd say fair enough not wanting to virtualise a terminal server, but why not points 1, 2 and 4?

Realistically, are 100 staff members going to be using Terminal services at any one point in time?

[glennda]

By point 4 do you mean 16gb ram for Forefront TMG? if so thats way overkill ms say min is 2gb and i would go with 4/6 just to be sure.

My Advise for that would be get 2 beefy hosts and then run exchange/sims on them onto the san (make sure you get a decent one otherwise performance for sims/exchange will be awful).
I have 3 HP DL380 G5's with Dual Quad Xeon and 64gb ram in each - they are connected to an MSA2012 fiber channel san which hosts 3 exchange servers and the sims server and doesn't struggle with performance - but i've got enough ram in the sims server so that it can keep all (or nearly all) in the Ram so the queries are better. Its actually quicker then it was on a physical host.

Again I have TS on the San aswell but its mainly used in evening for remote access not during the day so can't comment on that.

These hosts never get about 50% cpu usage or ram usage.

[glennda]

I'd say fair enough not wanting to virtualise a terminal server, but why not points 1, 2 and 4?

Realistically, are 100 staff members going to be using Terminal services at any one point in time?

Personally for point 4 i would get a physical box - nothing powerful but i have ISA between the clients and the internet so the only physical way of getting out the network is through the ISA server

[Blue_Cookeh]

Personally for point 4 i would get a physical box - nothing powerful but i have ISA between the clients and the internet so the only physical way of getting out the network is through the ISA server

You can still have a physical path through ISA, you just need the appropriate amount of NICs on the virtual host and and for the hypervisor's networking to be setup correctly, this way it'd still act and be as secure as the physical box it was once on.

[glennda]

You can still have a physical path through ISA, you just need the appropriate amount of NICs on the virtual host and and for the hypervisor's networking to be setup correctly, this way it'd still act and be as secure as the physical box it was once on.

yeah thats true hadn't thought of it that way!

The other thing you could also look at an appliance firewall - something like a smoothwall or draytek I'm personally hoping to get the funding to get a smoothie in april

[darrenmcginnis]

Just out of curiosity why are you not going down the virtual route?

Never been a fan of it, was going to do most of the member servers as virtual, but would rather stick with physical. Can get a much better spec with physical for a few thousand pounds more

[darrenmcginnis]

I'd say fair enough not wanting to virtualise a terminal server, but why not points 1, 2 and 4?

Realistically, are 100 staff members going to be using Terminal services at any one point in time?

Never been a fan of virtualisation and no 100 staff members won't be using it at the same time. But could do with knowing what percentage to work at

[FN-GM]

Never been a fan of it, was going to do most of the member servers as virtual, but would rather stick with physical. Can get a much better spec with physical for a few thousand pounds more

We only have 5 physical servers now 3 of those are host machines. Gives us redundancy when hardware fails. When a host fails the other 2 take over automatically. We can spec the virtual machines machines up we run our terminal server farm on there.

[darrenmcginnis]

Thanks. Was thinking of 16gb as standard. But what about disk space and location?

By point 4 do you mean 16gb ram for Forefront TMG? if so thats way overkill ms say min is 2gb and i would go with 4/6 just to be sure.

My Advise for that would be get 2 beefy hosts and then run exchange/sims on them onto the san (make sure you get a decent one otherwise performance for sims/exchange will be awful).
I have 3 HP DL380 G5's with Dual Quad Xeon and 64gb ram in each - they are connected to an MSA2012 fiber channel san which hosts 3 exchange servers and the sims server and doesn't struggle with performance - but i've got enough ram in the sims server so that it can keep all (or nearly all) in the Ram so the queries are better. Its actually quicker then it was on a physical host.

Again I have TS on the San aswell but its mainly used in evening for remote access not during the day so can't comment on that.

These hosts never get about 50% cpu usage or ram usage.

[darrenmcginnis]

1. Yeah 2010 and what is HA?

2. In what way?

1. Do you want HA for Exch? I assume you plan on using 2010?
2. Do you want to split the roles

Sukh

[strawberry]

for terminal services it would probably be better to use a session broker and more than one session host , 100 concurrent users is a lot and you'll have much more reliability with more than one box.

[glennda]

1. Yeah 2010 and what is HA?

2. In what way?

High Availablity - you can cluster exchange servers Ensuring High Availability in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 - TechNet Magazine Article - December 2009

Split the roles as it Hub transport/Edge Server etc