Question about how much server does our company need?

[DougP]

Not sure if this is the correct forum
Right now we have a Dell T-105. after doing research I find it is good for 5-10 users of light duty. we have grown to about 50+ users and 50+ machines including every wireless device out there. I-phone's, Androids, Tablets, Kindles and 15ea Win 7 laptops and we adding more frequently. some of the users including myself are using the computer all day. and I frequently have many many tabs open and using a Browser I have tabs open in there as well.
Being a K-8 Private school we need to be able to get to the internet and youtube to show students various videos. Being a school we print cases of paper per week. so the traffic to the printer must be horrendous? Right?
The students also do a lot if not all research on computers in a lab we have. We need something that can handle the throughput of heavy internet traffic. Now our Dell T-105 has VMWare virtual machines set up for Linux/Clark Connect (security software) and 2003 server standard. It also only has one physical hard drive for all of it. C: for the server and D: shared.

Need recommendations and anything else Please?

Is there a "configurator" or something which lets you pick options to tell how much server is needed. Formulas or something?
We being a non-profit can't afford to hire someone and I being the IT pro want to learn etc.

DougP

 

[cajuntank]

You never actually say if you are having problems or not with your existing setup, so I will treat as if you are starting to see some performance issues.

Couple things that you mention, but I don't want to assume.

Are you using the Windows 2003 server VM as a Active Directory domain controller/DNS server?
Are you sharing out your printers via the server or doing straight TCP/IP printing from the computers directly to the printer?
Are you offering drive space from your server to clients for their shared data or My Document storage?

I have played with the Clark software as well and can tell you, if some of your answers to the above questions are no, then you might be ok. Clark can be utilized on something as small as a Dell GX280 and as long as you have two Intel NICs in the machine, you could offload your Clark install to the GX280 (or whatever spec'd equivalent) to help with the load that might be occuring on your host server.

Adding another hard drive to the server to offload the file requests or swap file access from the OS drive to another drive could help out tremendously...and all we're talking about is adding another drive. (talking about proper server backup is a whole other topic, so make sure you have something in place to address this)

That being said, The 2003 server handling DNS requests and/or DHCP requests for 50+ machines..you should be more than fine. If the server is also a AD domain controller (an your only DC), then there might be some performance issues first thing in the morning when all 50 machines are logging in, but there are other variables involved that you don't mention...quad or dual core processor, amount of RAM memory set for the 2003 VM, network infrastructure speed (100Mb or 1Gb), etc...

Lastly, some manufacturers have sizing utilities for specific application processes like AD, Exchange, SQL, etc... that you can google search for (i.e. Dell server sizer). Just plug in the numbers and what you are doing and it will spit out a config for a machine based on your answers.

 

[58sniper]

Adding another hard drive to the server to offload the file requests or swap file access from the OS drive to another drive could help out tremendously

Don't add a single drive. Add an array. NEVER rely on a single drive for anything.

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[cajuntank]

You are, of course, correct Pat on that. Just trying to keep the logic of it simplified and failed to mention best practice.

 

[DougP]

I do know we are using DHCP not sure about DNS. we have dynamic IP's for most clients and static reservations for few.
Yes the server is the AD domain controller (and the only DC).
Each person has an H: (home drive) which shows up when we log in. we are mapping drives H: Sshared) P: and one or two others. we also have Windows 7 Home laptop clients which requires a NetUse Script to map the drives. Purchase of the home edition machines was before I was hired. Upgrading them has been a nightmare since they had no idea what "license" to buy. got the wrong one which requires a complete reformat. I have recommended only Win 7 pro from now on.

Yes the problem with this is mainly internet is dropping off 30-60 seconds then coming back on. when it off we do something else. it is not off for everyone at the same time. Once a week or so I have to shut off the FIOS router. Verizon cannot see our router from their side??? we have a 35/35 Verizon FIOS connection from ONT to router to gigabit port on server. All parts replaced by Verizon recently. Server has 2 gigabit cards one to router one to a 10-100 un-managed Netgear switches in RACK. then to other 3 other buildings thru 100 meg Ethernet to fiber converter boxes to even more switches in those buildings. Users at the far end of it all have the most problems. Also 4 wireless routers at tacked on to provide wireless.
I am trying to "network" map the entire complex.

I am not a fan of RAID I have seen one drive fail too quickly in too many companies since way back in the NT 4.0 days. Especially mirrored drives. Personally I think the interaction of the two drives setting next to each other is the culprit but I am no expert. Still I have experienced it first hand. drive failure in a matter of a few months. while other single drive machines this one included run for years. I do prefer two drives though, one for C: and one or more for Shared D: E: etc.
What about adding NAS for extra space instead of putting drives inside the server? the server drive is C: and D:. maybe copy the entire D: drive to NAS and not have a shared folder at all on the server?


DougP

 

[58sniper]

You'd be hard pressed to find a legitimate corporate server these days WITHOUT RAID for the primary OS and data partitions (with the exception of Exchange and JBOD). Using RAID generally eliminates downtime from failed drives. Business continuity and often survival depends on it. Failed drives are a fact of life. Not having fault tolerance in your storage solution can be a resume generating event.

I'm not a fan of NAS. I'd attach some direct attached storage and move all data to that.

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[cajuntank]

If your server is a AD controller, then it is also the DNS server. You need to make sure that it is pointing to itself for DNS resolution and it can correctly resolve to the Internet. Your stations need to be pointing to the 2003 server's IP address for their DNS resolution.

When you run into these Internet 30-60 second timeout issues, see how your resolution is from your server at both the 2003 VM and the Clark install. If there are no issues with Internet connectivity in regards to pinging and name resolution, then I would concentrate more on your infrastructure than your server. I say this as you don't complain about access to the server, but access from some machines to the Internet which is probably related to infrastructure weaknesses.

I would recommend, now knowing some additional information, and if you still intend to utilize the Clark software, that you offload that process onto a dedicated machine as I mentioned before that has two Intel NICs (I know Clark really liked Intel NICs when I played with it, but you might be ok now with Broadcom...check out and make sure). This in essence is your firewall appliance, thus the need for two NICs (one for public WAN side, one for private LAN side). The Clark software should be free since your a school and if you don't have a spare machine, you can buy a Dell Optiplex GX620 for as little as $150.00 as some places online.

I would seriously look at your switches and transceivers (take special note on these as I've seen transceivers do weird things with LAN traffic).

You are to the point in size where you really need to start ditching the wireless router devices. These were only really meant to go into environments where you had 1-5 users tops and them being also routers only complicates things. You can go with commercial grade Access Points that can handle 20-40 users each for $250.00-$400.00 each from several manufacturers.

From the server's standpoint, RAID should be your friend, although I will agree that I too have had some bad experiences with RAID on Dell servers (that's why I only use HP servers ), but normally hardware based array systems are best practice. I like your idea of the NAS, but be aware... this is a network based storage system and your network is suspect. Start investing in some good quality network hardware from now on and stay away from the SOHO products for people's houses.

 

[DougP]

cajuntank, Thank you so much I have been trying to figure this out for months.
Being a VBA Programmer I do have issues with Access databases if I have one open since it's on the server. Also Outlook pops up can't get email regularly thru the day since I use Outlook for email, and tons of Calendar reminders and contacts.

As far as the server being setup up. we went through it all and the person that set up VMware and the server set it up correctly. he is good at that. the Clark connect is older though. he wrote some scripts to do stuff, I have no idea and the newer version can't do something he has scripts for now. ( I'll find out what that is). Him and I have been over things again, and again since this started happening. We put in 24 new slim case Windows 7 Pro computers in the lab during the summer break. They replaced XP Pro machines so it was a one for one swap. They have new network names BTW. I also made sure every computer in the complex is running Microsoft Security Essentials where it was only spotty before.

In fact the first week of school teachers complained. You know it could be when they start the lab in the morning and just go around and flip them all on ~9am. THay are all shut off at night. I suggest we change. perhaps turning on 5 machines. log them in (all have the same login and password) but wait 5 minutes for the next 5, then repeat. The lab has another switch which just comes from some odd port in the main Rack bank. If every student computer has the exact same log in and password, could be 40 or more is that a problem?
I want to map the whole complex, so I know where every machine has to go to get back to the server. Is there software that can do that? know where a packet goes to get from Server A to Computer Z at the far end?

I suspect as you do the infrastructure is the problem. I spoke to the person who owns the company that donated it free to the school. he said we only use internet and email you don't need to upgrade. its fine. My guys are good. there is nothing wrong with the wiring. Have they done any testing "NO".
I have been trying without success to get someone in with a Fluke Ether-scope II who knows how to use it, do a survey. I got to use one for a week but don't know it and googling a crash course is not the way to learn it. Also seems the local rep for Fluke is a one person shop. who is too busy to even read email and answer it. I had to email Fluke to find out said person was out of town. 2 months later still no response?

If I was to examine the number of junctures to get to the farthest machine it is probably going thru 6-10 points. switches at both ends. converters at both ends if not 4 sets of fiber converters or maybe 6. then thru the wireless router for computer Z. That user has to shut off the wireless router every morning. we did disable DHCP in the 4 wireless routers. All routers have static IP's.

I think we violated the cardinial rule of too many "hop" points???? I know you can't just keep tacking on more switches and machines in a huge tree. Also we have a building with 4 more Win XPs on yet another home switch.
Verizon can't see the Internet router from outside to get it's MAC address. the guy above, reconfigured it to be on our network 10.10.... I suspect this is why I need to shut it off weekly.

My thoughts:
Gigabit switch from server to everything and eliminate the fiber converters and plug them into gigabit fiber ports on that gigabit switch. But I see now that means gigabit at all ends.
I need a plan of action and a long time frame to implement. do it in phases and buy equipment over time.

and since it could be infrastructure I guess this is the wrong forum. you know here to go? I did start a thread in Cisco. I want to learn Cisco, I have an A+ and an MCP for NT4.0 Server and Workstation so I should be able to learn it. I have been away from working in IT for several years until back here 12 months ago.

Thanks again.

DougP

 

[kmcferrin]

I am not a fan of RAID I have seen one drive fail too quickly in too many companies since way back in the NT 4.0 days. Especially mirrored drives. Personally I think the interaction of the two drives setting next to each other is the culprit but I am no expert. Still I have experienced it first hand. drive failure in a matter of a few months. while other single drive machines this one included run for years. I do prefer two drives though, one for C: and one or more for Shared D: E: etc.

I'm going to assume that the issue that you have seen is most likely with consumer-grade hard disks being used in RAID arrays. Most enterprise-class hard disks have extra features to enable better performance and reliability in RAID arrays. Conversely, many consumer-grade hard disks will not operate correctly in a RAID array for a prolonged period due to the lack of features. All of this is highly manufacturer dependent, but I can't think of a single case during the last 15+ years that I've seen a server deployed that didn't have RAID.

________________________________________
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[58sniper]

Not only that, but some warranties don't cover consumer grade drives in RAID configurations. Like the WD Caviar Black drives. NOT RAID supported.

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