Print cluster recommendations 1

[XRJoe]

Word is I am going to be tasked to build a new print server cluster and manage it for our company. I was wondering what others might recommend for hardware or the cluster configuration.

Currently we have 2 servers making up the cluster and we have around 1300 printers. Citrix is also a big part of our envoronment also.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated. I have been reading about Windows 2003 R2 and the improvements in printer management. Anyone have any experience with this? Thanks!

 

[WhoKilledKenny]

I would check the HCL for cluster support on the Microsoft website and make sure the Hardware Vendor (for what servers you buy) also supports MS clustering.

Jesse Hamrick

http://www.powershellpro.com

 

[mrdenny]

Pretty much all HP and Dell servers are cluster ready. Personally I'm an HP man.

I'd go with HP DL 360's. Nice little 1U servers. They are dual chip, and come with up to quad cores. For a print server with that many printers dual cores should work fine. Then only have one slot, so you can only put in a single HBA, but if you get a Dual head HBA you'll still have two paths to the SAN.

If you want to stick with two HBAs then I'd bump up to a DL 380. It's a little bit bigger, but it's got more slots because of it.

Standard 72 Gig hard drives should be fine as you should be moving the print spooler to SAN storage so that if the machine dies with jobs in the queue nothing is lost. If loosing print jobs is an issue then get like 300 Gig hard drives for local storage. However I'd recommend putting the print queue on SAN storage to avoid loosing print jobs.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[XRJoe]

Thanks for the advice, we do generally use HP servers and I was looking at the DL360's and 380's as I have worked with them in the past. I really appreciate the input thanks!

Anyone have any experience with the printer management in Server 2003 R2?

 

[mrdenny]

No problem.

Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000)
MCTS (SQL 2005 / Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration / Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration)
MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005) / Database Developer (SQL 2005)

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

http://www.mrdenny.com

 

[58sniper]

I'm a Dell fan (I just want to be different than mrdenny), and PowerEdge 1950s would be the equivalent to the 360s, and I bet the 2900 would match the 380.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP