Is this network config too much?

[ithelp]

most ppl are shocked when we tell them how many servers we run. what do you's think?

 

school likes to operate the latest software hence the reason why we have 2 versions of sharepoint.

 

we would like to virtualise the lot but there's no money.

 

1000 pupils, 150 staff.

 

3 x dcs

1 x exchange

1 x blackberry

1 x WDS/RIS

1 x SQL

1 x Sharepoint 07

1 x Sharepoint 2010

1 x WMS, streaming media

2 x File Servers

1 x Backup

1 x ISA Server

1 x HYPER V Virtual Host (below are all virtuals)

1 x forefront AV

1 x Windows Update Server

1 x Printer (for over 50 printers)

1 x Terminal Server

[Domino]

If it works for you then no.

 

Go with what you need, and what works for your setup - there isn't hardfast rules.

 

for instance, see attached, only three of the number listed there are templates, the rest are VMs ;-)

[webman]

About average? Compare to others in this thread: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/networks/58231-how-many-servers-your-school.html

[andydis]

so you have 15 physical servers? depending on their spec do you really need a dedicated server per role?

for example why not put backup and SQL on the same box or printing on the file server?

 

Are they all 1u servers? , or do you have 2-3 Cabs? :-)

[Soulfish]

Well we run somewhere in the region of 20-30 VMs at the moment and are likely to add another 5-10 over the summer. As others have said if it works for you then it's not too much.

[browolf]

I'm a great fan of separating out individual tasks to individual machines.

[kmount]

IMHO Stick as you are, role segregation is a good idea as we all know 's drivers end up breaking servers!

[DannyBroadhurst]

Were I work we have 27 Servers. From SQL, to NX Servers and Domino Servers. These server about 400 People over 2 Sites in the UK and US. We are currently getting that down to 7 Physical Servers but still 27 Servers Virtualised.

[john]

and Domino Servers.

Yay Domino has a server hehe (and yes before someone points it out I know about Lotus Domino )

 

We have about 14 physical at present and a couple of VMs, this will change over summer to 3 or 4 physical and about 15 Virtual instead. This will reduce our energy consumption massively as well as the cooling needs.

[teejay]

We had 17 physical which weren't enough, after a virtualisation project last summer we've gone to 1 NAS serving the file shares, 1 backup server, 1 SQL server and rest virtualised onto 2 physical servers with a SAN, running 18 virtual servers between them. Saved us about £20k as most of our server needed replacing. We could do with one more server to run VM's for some new projects, but other than that we're good for a good couple of years now.

It's really surprising how many servers a school needs now, lots of the stuff we run just doesn't like sharing with other apps on the same server.