AndyCan

Hi, so i have an I.T upgrade coming up and i'm struggling to fall in budget with what I have specced up so far. I am concerned though that i'm going a bit too gung ho on spec and that i could possible save a fair bit there. However I'd like some opinions on what level spec i should be aiming for when you consider my requirements. They are: We have 35 users. I'd like to have something in place to support 150 or have the ability to make quick upgrades to support this number. We have 200gb of data currently, so i would want a RAID storage solution to hold this. A backup solution to backup this data and servers on a daily, weekly and monthly rotation to a disk and then usb hard disk We have 3 servers A new 16 port managed gigabit switch. A physical server to run Hyper-V with 3? Virtual servers. Thinking: Server 1: DC, DHCP, DNS Server 2: File and Print Server 3: AntiVirus, WSUS, WDS A second physical server to run as a DC and to have a backup solution (DPM or Veeam?) running on it with storage attached to back up to. A UPC to run both servers from if needs be. Any server CALS i might need. The only applications typically used by users are a web browser and Microsoft Office. So very low level stuff. So i've had people telling me to use 2 x quad core xeons etc but if someone can help and just throw out rough suggestions of the level i should be looking at for my equipment, well that would be greatly appreciated!

I am thinking of moving my small business over to Office 365, we currently have 35 users. We have 2 different type of employees here, lets say type A and type B. Type A i would like to be working in a browser, using Outlook, Word and Excel from the browser but have the option to install these apps locally on their computers if needs be. This is fine, right, Office 365 can do this? I also want these users to be using a cloud based storage solution as opposed to on-site storage that i want Type B employees to use. Does Skydrive come with Office 365 and if not how much and how difficult would it be setup these users with a Skydrive account and can a skydrive account be mapped to a local drive letter? Does Skydrive come with an admin panel for me to easily create and delete users, setup shared folders etc and set permissions on it? My other question is, if i play for Office 365 on a yearly subscription basis, i assume when newer versions of Office are released, we get upgraded to these for no extra cost? I hope someone can answer these questions for me as i'm struggling on whether or not to stay in-house and local or move over to the cloud.

So RAID 5 or 6 for my VM host disks, what should i be looking at for my backup host, where all my daily, weekly and monthly backups will be stored?

ok brilliant thanks. all taken onboard! I assume my Backup program can factor in a USB backup and encryption in that case? and 1 last thing. What kind of RAID configuration do you think i should be running on these servers?

ok thanks, Xeons Vs Opterons, any clear benefits or just come down to price and preference? For my 2nd DC/Backup host - I need something to act as a DC and run a backup app, so i assume nothing too meaty, storage will be the key factor here. What would people suggest? Lots of local storage then for off site copy to USB hard drives or Cloud backup?

ok thanks for the help so far, given the size and demands i think 32GB sounds like that should be more than enough. Should i be looking at 2 quad core CPU's even if i've only got 3 VM's running to begin with as i imagine that is something i could add at a later date and get away with 1 to begin with? Oh and NICS, how many should i be looking for here do you think?

I need to implement a new VM infrastructure and unsure of what spec server to go for? I dont want to underspend and have problems, but i also don't want to over spend and find i've paid for something that we only needed a fraction of. My plan is for 1 host, running 3 VM's. A Domain Controller with DHCP and DNS roles. A File/Print server, serving 3 printers and approx 20 users' files (which is nothing extreme). An app server with Anti-virus for all 35 users, WSUS and WDS. There are currently 35 members of staff but i'd like to put something in place that could handle 150 or be easy enough to add to in order to accommodate this figure easily in the future. So for that can anyone suggest what i should be looking for? Would i be right in thinking i could actually get away with about 4GB RAM for each VM, so 12GB and 4GB for the host OS, so total of 16GB or would that be pushing it? Because im only intending on having 20 users storing their files locally, could i do away with the idea of going for a NAS and just use the internal hard drives on the server? I dont think we'd need more than about 1.5TB of space... currently. Any other downside to not using attached storage at all? I then want a standalone machine to act as second Domain Controller, just so people can log in if the main host goes down but then i also will want to run DPM or Veeam from this 2nd DC. So i think i'd have to buy something in for that too as the only other piece of hardware i have is a Dell PowerEdge 1650 which i think would struggle with any kind of backup software. With regard to licensing do i then also need to buy a client per device CAL for all 35 staff? if we hire more staff do i have to keep on purchasing individual CALS?? (this always confused me and never quite got my head around it! Any help to any of the questions will be greatly appreciated!

Hardware Details: Manufacturer: Dell Model: PowerEdge 1650 Hard Drive: 36G 15K SCSI Tested RAM: 1024 MB Processor Information: Intel Pentium III Number: Dual Clock Speed & Cache: (2) Intel Pentium III 1.4 GHz L2 Cache 512 KB SCSI Controller Info: Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra160/m PCI SCSI Card SCSI Firmware Revision: BIOS V2.7-0 Video Controller: ATI Rage XL PCI Network Card: 2 x Intel Pro 1000 XT Gigabit Ethernet Adapters

Ok so i should be keeping my backup software install on a separate machine to my VM's? that makes sense. I was under the impression DPM came with Server 2008, is this not the case as i've heard of Veeam but expected it to be expensive in comparison. If money is tight, what do you think the likelihood is of being able to run a DC and a backup solution on that old Dell do you think? I know i could run it as a DC to just sit there but i imagine i'd need something a bit more beefy to install backup software on?

I'm looking to implement the following setup. 1 physical host running Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V role so that i can run 4 Virtual Servers on it. 1) Domain Controller, DHCP, DNS 2) File Server, Print Server 3) Anti-Virus, WSUS, WDS 4) Spare for testing and development. I'm also going to run a standalone second domain controller on a very old Dell PowerEdge 1650. I'm going to use Hyper-V and hopefully DPM for my backup solution. So where do i run DPM from? Do i install it on the physical host which has the Hyper-V role installed, what is best practice usually for this? I'm thinking of having a NAS attached for local file storage and then to also store my backups as well as implementing a cheap cloud backup solution as we don't have a great deal of data and the powers at be are very keen to use 'The Cloud'. Are there any other things to consider when implementing a backup solution for this structure?

ok maybe 2 hosts, will VM's split over them but spec'd up enough to be able to cope with all VM's running on the same host? and should i still include a standalone DC do you think for precaution?

My linux knowledge is next to non-existent tho so im not sure if i'd be comfortable going that route

i guess i need to see what i can do with VMware ESXi as i doubt there will be the budget to go all out on VMware to be honest. Veeam i'll have a look into, only heard of it by name.

a second dc is more for if the VM host dies. i was under the impression it was best practice to keep a dc standalone simply to prevent tombstoning and keep some kind of functionablity alive if the hardware of the main server dies altogether like a motherboard failure

my initial idea was a host with a few vm's installed with roles split up like DC, Exchange, File, Print, Apps and a Backup Svr with a standalone DC. I think i want to give SBS a wide berth because i'd want to future proof more as the company is growing quickly. Desktops are fine, have plenty of decent desktops and laptops. It's more the virtualization i cant decide on. Hyper-V would mean i could use DPM which would all be free whereas VMWare ESXi is free but then i'd have to buy backup software to work with it?

I was previously a network manager but have recently moved to a small business and overseeing a major network upgrade. I effectively have a clean slate to work with and wanted some advice from people who have gone down the virtualization route already. Just before i left i proposed a visualization design but that was a while ago, encorporating equipment that i obviously dont have now. The company i'm working for has 35 users at the moment and i want to spec something up that would accommodate about 100 with only small upgrades. All we want to do is have users log on, have shared drives, home drives. access to 5 printers in the office. Email access and then the systems we use are web based and hosted off site. We have a phone system in place which works as it is but could do with an upgrade at a later date. I'm thinking for something this simple i could get away with VMWare ESXi or Hyper-V, both are free right and the expensive addon's i probably wouldnt need? the most critical aspect of the business is internet access and phones, both are on seperate lines. So i'm looking for a visualization suggestion, can anyone throw some ideas out there of what i should be looking for specifically?

worth giving it a reboot you think or just leave it?

no thats how i read it too and in the GUI it says 53mb free. so i'm a bit confused as to what is using it all

memory though?

ok so i ran top, this is what i get: login as: root [email protected]'s password: Last login: Wed Mar 7 09:23:31 2012 from 192.168.1.156 Welcome to trixbox CE ------------------------------------------------- For access to the trixbox web GUI use this URL eth0: http://216.113.207.2 eth1: http://192.168.1.200 For help on trixbox commands you can use from this command shell type help-trixbox. [trixbox1.localdomain ~]# top top - 14:49:58 up 56 days, 5:23, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.19, 0.12 Mem: 2067184k total, 2012272k used, 54912k free, 60072k buffers Swap: 1052152k total, 184k used, 1051968k free, 1751276k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 32289 asterisk 15 0 55100 24m 8208 S 9 1.2 1677:59 asterisk 27972 asterisk 15 0 13356 9560 1920 S 0 0.5 1:01.43 op_server.pl 1 root 15 0 2060 624 532 S 0 0.0 0:00.78 init 2 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.61 migration/0 3 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/0 4 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/0 5 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.77 migration/1 6 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksoftirqd/1 7 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 watchdog/1 8 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.05 events/0 9 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 events/1 10 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper 11 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kthread 15 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:05.81 kblockd/0 16 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 kblockd/1 17 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 cqueue/0 18 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 cqueue/1 21 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd 23 root 16 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod 106 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:11.28 pdflush 107 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:38.46 pdflush 108 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:33.17 kswapd0 109 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0 110 root 14 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/1 264 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kpsmoused 297 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata/0 298 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata/1 299 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_aux 303 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_0 304 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 scsi_eh_1 307 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 7:09.87 md2_raid1 310 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 md1_raid1 313 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 md0_raid1 314 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 3:41.60 kjournald 341 root 19 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kauditd 375 root 18 -4 2144 612 388 S 0 0.0 0:00.11 udevd 1076 root 12 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kmpathd/0 1077 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kmpathd/1 1105 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kjournald 1779 root 18 0 1716 576 476 S 0 0.0 0:02.60 syslogd 1782 root 15 0 1668 404 336 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 klogd

have about 35 phones, about 10 are hard phones the rest softphones. ssh and run top? sheesh not done that for a while. That would be through something like putty yeah? i think i'd need more in depth instructions to do that because i cant remember off the top of my head, its been too long! i dont know the CPU, would have to open it up and check but it cant be that much worse than what you are using. so im not happy to hear im struggling along and yours is running like a charm

i think i heard someone tell me though that trixbox was no longer in development and not supported anywhere and that i should be looking at moving (might have been FreePBX) asap. And on the system page it tells me physical memory usage is at 97%. Fair enough i only have 2gb RAM in it which can be fixed but i wouldnt mind knowing what the cpu load is like but cant seem to find those stats. If i did move to FreePBX, would you know if its an easy transfer from trixbox??

im using something called trixbox which is some way connected to asterisk i think, i'm not really clear on it to be honest, only just getting to grips with it so im on the lookout for help guidance and how to upgrade as i have a feeling its dated and the hardware its on is struggling and running at capacity

thanks for your help!

ok yeah that makes more sense, so on the phone server, 2 nics, 1 to the main switch and 1 to the 2nd router and to set the gateway on the phone system as the 2nd router. That way all voice traffic will end up on the phone server and that will send it the right way? ok thanks for that.