Accpac with MS-SQL/Win and Samba/unix 1

[ramam1]

Hey folks,
I've got Accpac 5.5 installed and running in server/workstation mode. My DB is MS SQL 2005 running on Windows Server and the Accpac clients run the executables and macros off a samba share on the same Windows Server.
I want to move the executables and macros off of the windows server file share onto a unix file server that also has samba support. The DB will remain MS SQL 2005 running on the windows server.
Sounds good? Can I just copy the file shares over to the file server? Is this going to blow up?
thanks!

 

[ettienne]

You can copy it, Windows is oblivious of the fact whether the share is on a MS server or a Unix server.

 

[ramam1]

Thanks Ettienne.
Will the server care if the share is moved? That is I occasionally run Accpac on the server itself - anything I should change / reconfigure (in the registry perhaps)?

 

[ettienne]

The server does not care, just edit the registry and point the shared data entry to the Unix share.

 

[ramam1]

Super! Thanks again,
ram

 

[ramam1]

How far can I take this separation? I am wondering if it is possible to not use a Windows Server for anything but a DB in a server/workstation install. What I mean is:
1 Install SQL Server (2008) on a windows server box(2003 or 2008)
2 create shares \\ux1\accdata \\ux1\accpac55 and mount them on all workstations that will use Accpac
3 On a workstation run the accpac install and point at the shares. Do DB config etc from here
4 Run the workstation setup from each of the workstations(win32)

Will this work right? Will the workstation I ran setup from be different than the rest (ie will I have to care for it differently than the other workstations)?

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks!

 

[ramam1]

To clarify: in step 2... the shares
\\ux1\accdata
and
\\ux1\accpac55
are hosted on a unix file server \\ux1

 

[ettienne]

Soo many questions...
You only need one share on the server, but if you really want to be anal about it then you can use 2 shares.
All workstations are the same, except the workstation you install Accpac from will have the ability to uninstall the Accpac programs - so don't entrust this to the dimmest of users.

 

[ramam1]

Thanks. I guess I"ll do the 'master' install on the server itself.
I'm building a new server (Win Server 2008 64 + SQL Server 2008 '64). My plan is to
1* Move the shared directories to a unix fileserver
2* Massage existing machines to ensure they are happy with the new location
3 build the new server
4 create a pair of DBs on the new server
5 install accpac on the new server using the shared accpac\wssetup
6 run the dbconfig tool from the new server to configure the db on the new server
7* db dump from old DB
8* db load to new DB
9* massage the workstations to use the new DB location

*Steps with a star are off hours with no one logged in.

Any holes? Suggestions? Comments? Thoughts?
thanks again

Did I miss anything?

 

[Jay Converse]

Yeah, don't bother with a Linux share, there's no reason for it. You've got a Win Server for MSSQL, use that for the share, too.

 

[ettienne]

Agreed, why introduce Unix into the mix if you have a new Win2008 server. Keep it simple...

 

[ramam1]

Ok so the plan looks reasonable otherwise. Thanks much for taking the time!

FYI we use unix hosted fileshares so we can use DRBD to replicate our data across multiple hosts including locally (our HA fileserver strategy) and remotely (for DR as well as offsite backup). It's basically RAID mirroring across a network:

http://www.drbd.org/

cheers

 

[ettienne]

If your database is MS SQL then how does that help you? The stuff you have on the unix share is non critical and can be reintalled or recreated.

 

[ramam1]

For one we have a hot-standby DB server which would benefit from sharing the same shares especially when it comes to failover or offsite recovery - we will have less work to do to bring things back up.

It is also of some benefit to separating server function by role... the DB servers can be optimized for DB work while the file servers can be optimized for file serving.

I'm considering hosting the live DBFs to the HA file server as well. This might seem weird at first but the latency and wire speeds I think the disk array on the file-server will still be the bottleneck for both latency and throughput.

I am very interested to see other backup and DR schemes that are or maybe more suited to Accpac - this approach makes the most sense to me at the moment. I am happy to discuss here or privately if anyone is interested.