New Office Setup, Need some advice!

[mjinx27]

Hello everyone!

 

I've been stalking around these forums for a while without actually posting but here I am.

 

A friend has asked me for some help with a office he is going to be opening soon, he'll have around 30 computers and 1 physical server, having setup another office for him before (A very simple Windows Server 2012 Essentials server running 8 computers), he's asked me to help him out again.

 

Now from my research and understanding, essentials is out of the question as there will be too many computers on the domain, so we have opted for Server 2012 R2 Standard. However this is where I get a little lost. The server will be used mainly for file storage and as a shared drive, however we hope to set up remote access for users and deploy printers out from the server with some other general group policys set out.

 

From what I've found with one physical server I shouldn't have the domain controller and other roles installed on the same server? Therefore I was thinking of installing AD DC on a virtual server and the other roles on the physical server. Can someone confirm if I'm going in completely wrong direction or if I'm actually guessing this right!

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

[psydii]

A friend of mine has been doing this for years.

 

He now swears by Office 365 + inTune. For this sort of size, unless specific Group Policy restrictions are required, on-prem servers (and even our familiar bedrock of AD) are simply not required. Local accounts for the PCs with work syncing to OneDrive Pro / Sharepoint sites.

 

With Windows 10 apparently you will be able to sign directly into O365 accounts and in effect have a domain in the cloud. Replacing a machine can then be done by any user capable of plugging stuff in correctly (easy if you buy prosumer kit from Dell or HP - all the plugs are colour coded). All the admin can be done remotely via the web.

[mjinx27]

To be fair, we've already set up with Office 365 for all the users, however he has already purchased a physical server so making use of it is in our best interests I guess, also the internet quality of where the office is isn't great so relying on the cloud would probably not be feasible right now.

 

That Windows 10 integration sounds like a dream! Definitely something I'm going to look into, thanks for the info!

[MatthewL]

Is it the same company?

 

My view would be to have a VPN between site, DC/server each site on the some domain.

[psydii]

Rather than a DC, perhaps use it as a target for the new Veeam end point backup tool, and a print server?

 

(Enable de-dupe on the volume hosting the Veeam backup sets)

 

Leave DHCP and DNS to the router.

 

If bandwidth is genuinely a problem then maybe also the WSUS role would be a good fit.

 

 

 

To go back to the original question, and without trying to redefine the problem: the physical host should just have the hyper-v role, and everything else be guests within it.

(Though I think that often AD DNS and DHCP also run on the physical server, with secondary infrastructure servers running as gusts)

[mjinx27]

Is it the same company?

 

My view would be to have a VPN between site, DC/server each site on the some domain.

 

Nope different companies, so the servers do not need to linked to each other

[mjinx27]

Rather than a DC, perhaps use it as a target for the new Veeam end point backup tool, and a print server?

 

(Enable de-dupe on the volume hosting the Veeam backup sets)

 

Leave DHCP and DNS to the router.

 

If bandwidth is genuinely a problem then maybe also the WSUS role would be a good fit.

 

 

 

To go back to the original question, and without trying to redefine the problem: the physical host should just have the hyper-v role, and everything else be guests within it.

(Though I think that often AD DNS and DHCP also run on the physical server, with secondary infrastructure servers running as gusts)

 

So I would have the physical server simply running just the Hyper-V role, and the one virtual machine running as the domain controller, and another running the print management role, WSUS etc?

 

Also if DHCP/DNS is being handled by the router then there is no need to install DHCP/DNS on the Domain Controller right?

 

Thanks for all the help!

[psydii]

q1 - yes, but you might want to have it running the DC DHCP AND DNS roles too, in order to ease bootstrapping the environment after a power failure.

 

Q2 if you are having a domain, then DHCP DNS should be handled by the windows infrastructure, and those facilities on the router should be disabled.