Check my Sims server spec and quotes if you can provide them!

[siuko]

Hi All,

 

Just looking at specing a new server to run Sims on.

 

I am planning on running Windows 2008 64 Bit + Full SQL 2008 on it. It will only be running sims and wont need to do any other work.

 

I am looking at the spec below from Dell.

 

Base:PowerEdge T310 Tower Chassis for Up to 4x 3.5" Hot Plug HDDs with LCD Diagnostics

Processor:Intel&® Xeon&® X3460, 2.8Ghz, 8MB Cache, Turbo, HT

Memory:12GB Memory, DDR3, 1333MHz (6x2GB Dual Ranked RDIMMs)

Raid Connectivity:C23 Hot-Swap - RAID 1/RAID 1 for SAS6/iR/PERC6i/H200/H700, 2 Primary + 2 Add. SAS/SATA Hot Plug HDDs

1st RAID or SCSI Controller Card:SAS 6/iR Internal Controller for Hot Plug HD Configuration

1st Hard Drive [MQ]:146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive (Hot Plug) x 2

2nd Hard Drive [MQ]:146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Additional Hard Drive (Hot Plug) x 2

Power Supply:Redundant Power Supply (2 PSU) 400W

Optical Devices:16X DVD+/-RW Drive with SATA Cable for Win2K8 R2

 

Do people think this will be sufficient?

(The school has 1200 students and about 80-90 simultaneous sims users)

 

Any obvious changes people would make?

 

Also if any suppliers are about can any quote me for such a spec?

 

Ta!

[AIT]

Thats ample spec to run sims - if even a little over kill..

[gybe78]

RAID1? Personally I'd opt for RAID5.

[AIT]

2 separate raid 1, would be far better than one large raid 5. long as system and logs on one and sql on another.

[gybe78]

but with only 4 drive bays he'd have no room for hot spares.

[danrhodes]

RAID1? Personally I'd opt for RAID5.

 

Raid5 can struggle when SQL Logs are concerned, that why its better to go with RAID 1 in this case I'd say. Or even better RAID 1+0 if you can budget for it.

 

If you want to go down the RAID 5 route then put the SQL Data on your RAID 5 and your logs on a seperate RAID 1 volume and also your OS on a seperate RAID 1 volume.

Edited April 27, 2010 by danrhodes

[glennda]

I know this sounds stupid but I didn't think capita supported 64bit servers yet? Just means they might not be overly keen to help if it goes wrong.

 

Toby

[speckytecky]

Out of interest what sort of price is the kit you have specd?

 

What will you be doing for backup?

[siuko]

Dell website has it at £2300.... awaiting supplier quotes at the moment

 

We backup to LTO2 tape every few days and the sims database is scheduled to backup to a harddrive each night

[Hecate]

I know this sounds stupid but I didn't think capita supported 64bit servers yet? Just means they might not be overly keen to help if it goes wrong.

 

Toby

 

Capita do support 64 bit but not server 2008 R2 yet

[Haptic]

working on a quote for you now fella

[siuko]

Capita do support 64 bit but not server 2008 R2 yet

 

Is it recommended not to go with Server 2008 R2 then? What is recommended for 64 Bit OS?

[Hecate]

Check on support net or with your local SIMS support but I've been told standard 64 bit server 2008 (and 64 bit 2003) are supported but there is as yet no support for R2. That doesn't necessarily mean it won't work

[glennda]

Capita do support 64 bit but not server 2008 R2 yet

 

ahh - that sounds more sensible!

[zag]

That's overkill for Sims really.

 

I run 150 concurrent users no problems on a server with 4gb ram and a dual core cpu.

[Pete10141748]

Check on support net or with your local SIMS support but I've been told standard 64 bit server 2008 (and 64 bit 2003) are supported but there is as yet no support for R2. That doesn't necessarily mean it won't work

 

That is right, I was told the same thing on a SIMS Technical Awareness course a few weeks ago

I was also told that there's no reason why SIMS *won't* work on Windows 7, but it wasn't yet supported (not sure if that's changed now though)

[matt40k]

That is right, I was told the same thing on a SIMS Technical Awareness course a few weeks ago

I was also told that there's no reason why SIMS *won't* work on Windows 7, but it wasn't yet supported (not sure if that's changed now though)

 

Windows 7 is supported from the Spring Release by Capita.

[featured_spectre]

Just a thought, why not have RAID 10? Gives the benefit of additional redundancy and fast HDD rebuilds should you need it!

[danrhodes]

Just a thought, why not have RAID 10? Gives the benefit of additional redundancy and fast HDD rebuilds should you need it!

 

Yep, its a good idea it was suggested earlier. RAID 10 would be ideal if it can be budgeted for.

[glennda]

Windows 7 is supported from the Spring Release by Capita.

 

the spring release that got recalled? or have they fixed the issues with that yet?

[zag]

they released a "re-release"

[matt40k]

the spring release that got recalled? or have they fixed the issues with that yet?

 

It got recalled because it was replacing the quickletter template with the default one. It's no resolved and has been released. It wasn't an issue if you had moved the template to the My Docs folder.

[Sarconia]

Will you be running anything other than SIMS on that server? It does seem like overkill to me... still, if you do buy it, you won't have to worry about upgrading your SIMS server for a very, very long time.

[siuko]

Yep it will only be running Sims (well initially unless it is using very little resources we might add other things on).

 

It was going to be an admin DC and sims server (the one that it was going to replace does these jobs) but due to having to switch to Server 2003/2008 (we run Windows 2000 at the moment! ) and the fact that we go through BSF for Sept 2012 it is easier to just add a new server for Sims.

[mrbios]

£2300?

 

Had a quote for a HP DL360 only last week with an 2xE5630 processor and 16GB of ram for around £3200k with 4 x 500GB HDDs and redundent power, why not get something similar, make it a VM host and virtualise anything that isn't currently virtualised, depending on what backup solution you use you can do full machine backups as well as data backups that way, makes much better use of the hardware for not much extra cost (well depends what sort of cost you consider £1k to be)

Edited May 4, 2010 by mrbios