How many servers in your school?

[john]

@rayfleming: You've coloured me in the wrong colour!

 

You've spotted yourself like I can see me, gosh im standing out big there!

 

I want it re-drawning after summer with my new systems

[Gatt]

Oops forgot we have ~900 kids,, ~100 staff & ~350 PCs/Laptops

[sparkeh]

@rayfleming; Just in case you are interested you can change row 4 to virtualised = yes. Edited June 25, 2010 by sparkeh

[Cools]

Middle School (Year 7 to 9)

400+ Students 30+ staff

 

--- 3 servers

1 = DC

1 = Hyper V

+Click View

+ Print server

+ Sims

+ Proxy

+ NAS

+ FOG

-Does weekly Exports of Hyper V Servers Scripted.

-Sims Compressed Nightly dated backups Scripted.

 

1 = Hyper-v R2 server Back up for Hyper-V

[rayfleming]

I've updated the spreadsheet with all of your additions - I'll publish it onto SkyDrive, so that I can continue to update it live - and then I'll repost the link.

 

@Ric, can't believe I coloured you Red when you should have been Green. Unforgiveable. I'll be wearing the D cap all weekend.

[cpjitservices]

My Old school left 2 years ago we had 4 Servers, Secondary School with 600 Pupils, and 5 Computer Rooms with 40 PC's in each.

 

We had 2 PDC's and 1 BDC, and a Smartcache (yuk) which killed itself so we stuck Ubuntu on that and built our own proxy. The network was RM CC3. We used 3com Switches & Routers.

 

Was a good network and we only had about 2 days downtime a year. The PDC's where running 2003 and our BDC was 2000 Advanced Server.

 

We liked it and we built the servers ourselves.

[nickbro]

Secondary School ~750 Students, ~40 staff. 7 Servers

1 = RM CC3 PDC (Server 2003 R2)

1 = Vanilla Server 2003 R2 server running admin PDC

1 = Exchange Server (Server 2003 R2 and Ex2003)

1 = Student Mail Server + Small Store (Server 2008 x86) (Quite an old server now 2xIntel P3 in it)

1 = RM Smartcache Server

1 = Web/Remote Desktop Server (Server 2008 R2) [Runs Home Access Plus+, Moodle, Microsoft Remote Desktop, Library System, etc]

1 = County's Smoothwall Server

 

Currently planning a major server resort during the rollover next year (2011)

1 = RM CC4 PDC

1 = Vanilla Admin PDC (Old RM CC3 PDC)

1 = Hyper-V Server (Srv 2008 R2)

* Web Server (Srv 2008 R2)

* Remote Desktop Server (Srv 2008 R2)

* Exchange Server (Ex2010, Srv 2008 R2)

* Student Mail Server (hMailServer, Srv 2008 R2)

1 = Smartcache Server

1 = County's Smoothwall Server

 

If RM Allow, we may/may not have the RM CC4 PDC on the Hyper-V server.

[mrbios]

Secondary school with around 1100 pupils and around 175-200 staff

 

12 Physical boxes:

6 of those physical boxes are VMware Hosts - VM1 holds 6 VMs, VM2 6VMs, VM3 2VMs, VM4 5VMs, VM5 Newest server only currently holding 2

1 Exchange 2010 server

1 File server - only this weekend moved to 2008R2

2 Terminal servers - one for students, one for external access

1 box we call utilities - does various roles

1 WDS box which does WDS and a few other roles

 

Two Eonstors - 1 iSCSI with ~9TB space 1 Older box used for backups testing with around 1.8TB space

 

Only 3 boxes remaining on Server 2003R2 now, the rest are Server 2008R2, just the ISA proxy, utilities and 1 terminal server to go (though i don't think i'll ever both with utilities as it would take hours and i wouldn't get any benefit from it being 2008R2)

 

Soon to have a big switcharoo with all the VMs as the two most powerful servers are currently doing the least work will have to make a start on that next week, still waiting on a few licenses from vmware so i can add vm4 and vm5 into vcenter too.

 

EDIT: 1 manager, 1 senior tech (me), 1 tech

 

VM1:

-PDC - Server 2008R2

-ISA Server - Server 2003R2

-Student proxy server - Linux

-GW1 - Linux

-MX1 - Linux

-Webapps - Server 2003R2 - Redundent and will be removed soon

 

VM2:

-BDC - Server 2008R2

-MX2 - Linux

-Printsrv - Server 2008R2

-Teacher proxy server - Linux

-Unfiltered connection proxy - Linux

 

VM3:

-Fblock DC - Server 2008R2

-Printsrv1 - Server 2003R2 - redundent and will be removed soon

 

VM4:

-5 DCs that really really need to be moved around ASAP as i don't like having them all in one place - All server 2008R2

 

VM5:

-Admin server - 2008R2 SQL/SIMS etc

-Webapps2 - 2008R2 web server

 

TBlockVM:

-3DCs for one building - Server 2008R2

 

VM3 and VM5 are our 2 most powerful boxes, VM5 is very new hence not having anything on it, VM3 i had to move everything off recently in order to sort something out with it's local disks, hopefully i'll get an even distribution of power accross all the servers soon, VM5s got 24GB of ram and only 8 of that is currently in use so certainly room there

Edited July 25, 2010 by mrbios

[mattstevenson2005]

secondary school

850 students, soon rising to over 1000 when new sixth form opens next year

300-350 workstations, soon rising to 400-500 with new sixth form and other projects

 

flat network

around 40-50 procurve switches

 

3x DC's

2x File servers

1x TMG/ISA server

1x TS Gateway server

2x TS application servers

1x phone server PBX

3x web servers (virtual hyper-v)

2x SIMS servers

1x SQL server (sharepoint 2010 databases)

1x hyper-v host server

2x sharepoint farm servers

1x security server (WSUS/sophos etc...)

1x backup/ghosting/voicemail server

1x apple xserve server

2x sophos web filter servers

1x sophos email filter servers

1x cctv server

1x avantis cd server

1x exchange server

1x exam software server (virtual)

1x development server (virtual)

 

Total = 30 servers (so far, will be adding around another 4-6 servers to support our sixth form centre)

 

my setup is that I have two server rooms with almost everything duplicated in both to provide a full disaster recovery system, each server room is in different separate buildings on different sides of the school site. For storage we have two fully replicated SAN's (one in each server room) data is replicated using the fujitsu duplex data manager system and the two SAN's appear to the clustered file servers as one SAN so if one SAN or file server fails users dont see any problems as the others take over automatically. The SAN network infrastructure is very robust everything has two links to everything else to provide a very robust storage system to the users.

[soapyfish]

4 Domain C's / File Servers

1 VLE

1 SIMS

1 Terminal Server

1 SAN

1 BACKUP SERVER

1 OpenBSD Firewall

1 Debian Proxy

1 Nagios /MRTG Server

 

1000 pupils 120 staff

[themanfromict]

Special Secondary with ~50 pupils and 100 staff

50+ desktops/laptops/touch screens

1 file server

[Dave_O]

Objectively I'm not sure of the purpose or the value of the information being collected here. "...still always surprised at how many servers there are in some " isn't this a function of the complexity, resilience and number of IT services the school is delivering? This along with the level of contracted out IT services, be they local authority or third party, will affect the overall server count.

 

Controversially I would also assert that organisations with an excessive (by any measure) number of servers have been driven not by a strong alignment of IT with the needs of the school, but by IT management more interested in their own ends and a mistaken belief that hardware resilience is more important than delivering the service itself.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Dave_O

[glennda]

We have over 1500 students and nearly 1000 pc's and loads of servers - i would count them up but i always forget some - 22+ but many are vm's probly 14 physical boxes 1 fibre channel san with 2 msa 60's with 12tb each for backup space

[neilault]

Secondary School with Sixth Form. Totaling around 200 staff and 1400 students based over two laser linked sites.

 

Physical:

4 x Windows 2008 R2 with Hyper-V Host Servers

7 x VMware ESXi 4.1 Host Servers

2 x VMware ESX 3.5 Host Servers

1 x Frog VLE

1 x Securus NG

1 x Bloxx TVT-1250

1 x Terminal Server (for Thin Clients)

1 x Backup Server

1 x Media File Server

2 x Test Development Servers

 

Virtual:

2 x Domain Controllers

1 x Read Only Domain Controllers

2 x Web Servers

1 x MIS Server

1 x Exchange 2010 Server

3 x File Servers (Clustered)

3 x Print Servers (Clustered)

1 x Sophos Antivirus Server

1 x VMware vCenter Server

1 x Microsoft Virtual Machine Manger 2008 Server

1 x Library Server

1 x Network App Server

1 x SQL Server

1 x Microsoft TMG 2010 Server

1 x Symantec Ghost Imaging Server

2 x Terminal Servers (Student and Staff remote access)

 

Storage:

1 x HP MSA SAN (with 2 extra arrays, currently 26 mxied SATA and SAS hard drives with around 17TB of storage)

2 x Seagate BlackArmor NAS 440 4TB Drives (used for offsite replication between the two sites)

25 x Western Digital 3TB USB3 Drives (used for incremental, weekly and monthly backups)

 

As for the rest of the network:

70 x HP Network Printers

65 x HP ProCurve Switches

700 x Staff & Student PCs

200 x Staff Laptops

 

Wireless:

1 x Cisco Wireless LAN Controller

8 x Cisco Access Points

1 x Nortel Wireless LAN Controler

6 x Nortel Access Points

6 x Netgear Stand Alone Access Points

 

Bit of a nightmare to look after at times, we have a team of 3 and an apprentice.

[Dave_O]

I rest my case, however I would be interested in the annual cost of maintaining this environment.

 

Dave O

[achedgy]

Look after a number of primary school's ranging from 100-400 nor. They range from 1-3 physical servers, the schools with one will have 2 as a minimum within the next 18 months for redundancy.

[neilault]

I can understand your argument in a way but I don't think it's the case here. We were a Media Specialist and Trust School with the BBC as one of our trust members. With this we set up a our own ex BBC TV studio and also we have two onsite Radio Stations broadcasting 24/7 locally on 87.7FM as well as over the Internet. With this in mind the media storage needs are excessive and demanding on the network infrastructure.

 

Also being based on two seperate sites that are seperated by a main road and linked via a 1.2GB laser system we had need to base some servers on that site to reduce the traffic over the laser link hence the duplication in some of the clustered resources.

 

And one final thing as we are investigating the possibility of moving away from our local grid (SWGfL) we have had to provide our own filtering servers and proxies before we could proceed.

 

As for costs I imagine it is quite excessive, the electric bill is very high. We have implemented automatic server shutdown and startup for servers only needed during the school day as well as IT room shutdowns after school hours. Things were worse before I started her 4 years ago as we had over 40 non virtualised servers so we are reducing!

[beaches511]

one school over 3 sites each about 3 miles apart running a vpn over standard home broadband lines with around 500 pupils and 150 staff covering everything from nursery to 6th form

 

1 dc

2 citrix servers

1 sims server

1 virtual server running on the dc

 

[edutech4schools]

This really does not make sense to me

Secondary school with about 750 students on roll We have about 15 physical boxes acting as servers at the moment and three NAS boxes.

 

I look after a number of primary schools one of these has 600 students and they all have 1 server. On this 1 server they have sims / printers / files, everything. I am in the process of adding a 2nd server as a bdc but can't understand why anyone would need 15 servers for that amount of pupils.

 

Anyway to answer the original post

 

3 schools have about 200 pupils and 1 server

1 school has 600 pupils and 1 server

[glennda]

This really does not make sense to me

 

 

I look after a number of primary schools one of these has 600 students and they all have 1 server. On this 1 server they have sims / printers / files, everything. I am in the process of adding a 2nd server as a bdc but can't understand why anyone would need 15 servers for that amount of pupils.

 

Anyway to answer the original post

 

3 schools have about 200 pupils and 1 server

1 school has 600 pupils and 1 server

 

All well and being having 600 pupils and 1 server but how many clients do you have? what is the current load? do you use sims lesson monitor. We currently have 12 ICT suites across 4 buildings (on same site) but when they are all used at once thats near enough 400 computers + all teachers in a classroom logging in at the beginning of lessons. We have to load balance very carefully as we can have around 500/550 people logging in at once.

 

if we had one server it would fall over every hour!

 

EDIT: from my Login Tracker I've had near enough 80,000 logins to my system during the last month (of school time excluding easter) so from around 30th march.

Edited May 19, 2011 by glennda

[Dave_O]

Can't tell you what hardware we have as it exists in another reality. We engaged the Asgard to do our IT about a year ago (you think you've problems with your MSP!!) but the supports contract's been terrible since their homeworld was destroyed.

 

Seriously I think some objective assessment of risk needs to be undertaken.

 

Dave O

[Butuz]

Wow neilault! That's one heck of an infrastructure. Still there's PLENTY of scope for further virtualisation / consolidation IMHO.

 

Butuz

[neilault]

I agree, a lot more work to do.

 

Just in the middle of deciding if we go down the Hyper-V route rather than ESXi. We have been playing around with a couple of production Hyper-V servers and it is a very comptent product with a lot of advance features like the full VMware offereings, but it is such a nightmare to configure!