How would you progress the system from here

[karldenton]

Hi all,

 

For those that don't know I switched jobs to a primary school, that also owns and runs several nurseries and out of school clubs around the surrounding villages.

 

I've inherited a very bad setup.

 

13 servers in total all ranging from Intel Xeon processors, to HP intel p4 desktops.

 

List of servers are as follows - 16 of the damn things in total:

 

Primary - domain controller

Secondary - domain controller

Bromcom - pupil management software

Directaccess - directaccess and vpn server

Drives - all network shared drives

Firewall - firewall proxy server with Microsoft threat management gateway p

Intranet - Hosting sharepoint intranet

Lync - Lync server

Lynctmg - Lynch threat management gateway reverse proxy

Lyncedge - Lync edge server

Mail - exchange mail server

POE - point of entry server - VPN, IIS, exchange, intranet

Store - profile and my documents store

Systemcenter - system center

webapps - Door lock software

websql - sharepoint helpdesk software

 

 

The school is quite tight in terms of Monday. We've had a few issues of servers dieing due to age and when we've looked even the drives server isn't set up as RAID !!!!

 

Was wondering where people would take it from here. Its an ideal opportunity for me to get a decent system up and running that people rely on everyday.

 

I was thinking 2 servers to host virtual machines - domain controller on either, 1 virtual file server. Rest of software could nearly be split across them both

 

Thanks

[featured_spectre]

I would move the following to VMs if possible.

 

Lync, Lynctmg, LyncEdge to VM1

Mail to VM2 (With lots of RAM dedicated to it)

DirectAccess, WebSQL, Intranet, POE and Firewall to VM3

BromCom to VM4

System Centre to VM5

Drives and Store to VM6

Primary and Secondary to merge (if possible).

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I'd do as you said and get a couple of decent 1U servers - my HP SE316M1 G6 springs to mind at the perfect option ;-)

[karldenton]

Thanks. Would you have 2 physical boxes as hosts given we don't have money to buy a massive decent one

[jamesbmarshall]

Or get rid of the on-premises mail requirement completely and move to a cloud service like Office 365, which is still Exchange but without the need for a chunky on-prem server, and all the storage and backup associated with it!

[karldenton]

Good plan, I'd move bromcom into cloud too as that's available. How much is a rough cost for exchange in the cloud? For around 150 mailboxes

[Oaktech]

Totally have 2 servers - or more if ICT direct can stretch your budget. You need some sort of hardware failover possibility.

 

We currently run a o365 setup, for 90 mailboxes it's free.

 

If you are (aren't we all) strapped for cash, losing on premises mail and on premises MIS cuts down your hardware and support overhead hugely.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Totally have 2 servers - or more if ICT direct can stretch your budget. You need some sort of hardware failover possibility.

 

We currently run a o365 setup, for 90 mailboxes it's free.

 

If you are (aren't we all) strapped for cash, losing on premises mail and on premises MIS cuts down your hardware and support overhead hugely.

 

Oh we can stretch is alright

@karldenton Give me a shout if you'd like to talk options

[3s-gtech]

I'd virtualise first, then look at options for moving email offsite if it suits. Will be best to start with fresh servers, rather than trying to virtualise on your existing (unless any of them are particularly good). ICT Direct will see you right on a tight budget. Plenty of tools around to P2V those services easily.

[karldenton]

Thanks Dave, I have used you before in a previous employment so you would have been first point of call

[tmcd35]

I'd look at the Dell VRTX with 2 server blades and a couple of terabytes of storage. Couple of copies of Windows Server 2012R2 DataCenter and then virtualise the whole lot into 16 VM's, including the DC's.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Thanks Dave, I have used you before in a previous employment so you would have been first point of call

 

I knew the name was familiar

[jamesbmarshall]

How much is a rough cost for exchange in the cloud? For around 150 mailboxes

 

Office 365 Education offers 50GB mailboxes (and lots of other stuff) for students and teachers for free.

[san_narula]

You haven't mentioned how many users the system is supporting and how much storage is needed.

 

Depending upon the condition of the servers and the backup being done you might want to virtualise the existing ones first if you suspect some of them might fail causing you more trouble and at the same time keep working on the upgrade. This is what I did but your circumstances may be different.