New servers

[jonathon28]

We are in the process of upgrading our servers at my school to new HP ML350 G6 hardware. There is a few things I need clarifying with regards to network configuration.

 

• How can we keep current DC server up and running whilst configuring and installing new server? i.e. DNS, DHCP etc
  
• Should we virtualise? We are only a small school with roughly 150-200 workstations/laptops and 249 students.
  

 

Thanks in advance.

[sted]

yes you can have as many dcs as you want (i believe there may be a limit but i doubt you are going to hit it)

virtualise if you have the server lics why not in theory at least you can then have say 3 virtual servers 1 for files 1 dc and one print server(2nd dc for redundancy) that way if one vm fails you still have some network access and it means each vm has less on it making it in theory more reliable than one server with all the roles. Currently in 1 school that sounds even smaller (number of pcs wise) i have a g6 ml350 running as 2008r2 base, 2008r2 main dc/curric file dump, 2008r2 terminal server (though the trial lics have run out so its useless) and 2008r2 admin server (admin user data and sims) and dont think ive had any complaints or issues yet though if i was doing it again i might of been tempted to ditch the ts and hae a server for wsus / av instead and if i had more ram possibly another for a dc thats just a dc no file store etc or just say teacher data. Virtualization just gives you more options

[nicholab]

My person view is I would always install a hyper visor between a new server and OS as it give you options down the line. For a small school I would go with two servers with the same disk count. I would then install two openfiler VM in an HA configuration then provisioning that storage back to the other VM's.

[sted]

My person view is I would always install a hyper visor between a new server and OS as it give you options down the line. For a small school I would go with two servers with the same disk count. I would then install two openfiler VM in an HA configuration then provisioning that storage back to the other VM's.

 

one problem with a bare metal hypervisor is you will probably lose the hp software for managing raid arrays notifying you of duff disks etc. You also make it so that the server cant be used as a console which i find to be a right pain at times. Id rather have a full os but that wastes ram/cpu

[nicholab]

I believe some HP tools can be installed on an ESXi host.

 

https://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=HPVM06

Edited November 3, 2010 by nicholab