Getting a server. Hardware requirements? Linux or MS?

krishna

I work for a small charity. We are an information service, so information (and reliable IT) is key for us. We are currently using a peer to peer network running Win2kPro but this is not quite serving our needs. I've been given the go ahead to purchase a server (and replace my PC). My original thought was to get a server running Windows Server and exchange server. Then I wondered if we might be able to do better with Linux. As a charity we get some pretty good deals on Windows products, but thought I should look at other options.

So this is what we need to run.
5 PCs on network. Three are running Win2k. One is running XP Home and about to upgrade to XP Pro. The 5th will be a new PC, so based on advice here earlier seems to make sense to install XP Pro. All PCs are running Office 2000 Pro (mainly using Word, Excel, Access and we have some occasional use of Powerpoint.) We use Firefox as a browser and Thunderbird for email at the moment, but unless someone has another solution, looks like we will have to (reluctantly) return to Outlook as Thunderbird's spam filter is not keeping up with spammers, so planning to return to using Cloudmark which we used a few years ago and was excellent (tested it recently and it is still equally excellent).

We need to be able to share some of the mail boxes, and share address books.

I also need to be able to run Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Illustrator and Photoshop will be very basic use. Need illustrator for compatability with the designer, and for charities, the cheapest way to do that is to purchase CS2 for £295+VAT, so the rest come with it.

We have a number of Access databases that we need to share too.

And of course file sharing and printer sharing. Ideally scanner sharing.

And finally a decent backup solution. Planning to get a DAT drive. We were using Dantz Retrospect for backups and could continue to use that, though if we use exchange server seems like we need to buy an add-on.

If we are running all this MS software, will that rule out a linux server? If not, are there any advantages?

I'm more or less happy fiddling around with my PC at home (XP) and have begun to get used to win2k setups with peer to peer networking. And I have some ancient experience with novell netware. Should setting up the server be reasonably straight forward, or do I need to get an IT pro to do it? Server OS etc will need installing as we won't be purchasing that from the hardware supplier (Dell or otherwise)


Software costs are:
Windows server + exchange server with clients: £250
Retrospect exchange server addon: £380
Nod-32 antivirus incl for exchange server: £120
Other software we already have


Hardware
Was given a quote by another company for a Fujitsu-Siemens server. However, Dell seem to have much better deals so that is where I have looked so far.

I've been thinking about including a 2 disk RAID because I only work part time and the others in the office don't know much about IT. So I figured this would keep things going even if there were a problem, and then I could sort it out when next in. Does this make sense, or is it overkill?

Dell have a number of servers, including the PE840 and the SC440. Does it make a lot of difference which we go for?

Hardware costs:
Server
Hmm... allowing for a 2 disk RAID with 250GB disks, 2GB RAM, DAT drive
Dell Poweredge 840 £1350
or
Dell Poweredge SC440 £1180

Any advantage to the 840?

One desktop PC (to be used for office apps, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver)
Dell dimension C521 £630 (I've allowed for 2G RAM). Do I need to worry about the graphics card or will a basic one do?

Thanks for your time.

nielingren

ok


Windows server + exchange server with clients: £250 errr 250 which windows server is that we have win server 2003 that cost 1k


the other thing is you should use RAID 5 min of 3disk 3 disk at 250 in raid 5 500 usable then if you add 250 you get 750

wolfman

nielingren wrote:

Windows server + exchange server with clients: £250 errr 250 which windows server is that we have win server 2003 that cost 1k

Probably because they're charity based. But yeah does seem cheap.


Linux may be a tricky switch for a number of reasons, mainly because you're already quite tightly integrated with a windows environment.

You're email is in outlook, you use access for your databases, not to mention is it something you'll be able to maintain/setup. It's probably something you want to experiement around with first, before trying to fully implement it.

That aside I'd use FreeBSD instead of a Linux Distro.

There are free alternatives to Exchange, Outlook, Microsoft Office, etc... The tricky part is converting all your existing data across.

It's definitely something worth considering. I'd look into how it would effect your current setup (in terms of users and data), and is it an environment you'd be able to maintain/setup.

krishna

MS gives very good deals to charities so the figure I quoted was correct. For Windows Server 2003 + Exchange server + 5 client licenses. Check http://www.pugh.co.uk/Products/microsoft/windowsserverstd-2003.htm

Re RAID: Why three disks?

Other software: Most of this presumably will still be running on individual PCs. Wasn't thinking of a linux on the desktops, just the server. Is that too complicated? Obviously we would need to look at an alternative to Exchange. We are currently using thunderbird on the PCs so there is going to be a conversion issue anyway, unless we find an alternative to outlook and an efficient spam filtering solution which I have yet to find.

And then of course there are the Access databases. I've had a go with Open Office Base and it works well. Importing data was a doddle, but I don't really fancy redeveloping all the front end stuff - forms, queries, reports, macros, etc. Is there any half way house on this? So that we can use Access for front end on PCs, but something else on the server?

Give the price we can get Win Server at, would there be many advantages to going with Linux/FreeBSD?

I have zero experience of Linux/FreeBSD. But then I have zero experience of Windows Server and Exchange Server, so thought it might be something worth considering. Take the point about experimenting first. Unfortunately I don't think we can delay the decision. Hmm... unless I just replace my PC for now and stick with p2p network for a bit longer. I was trying to do both at once to same a bit of money. Would a linux/FreeBSD environment be more complicated to set up than Windows Server?

Also for the uses I outlined in my original post, any particular specs to consider? Would 2G RAM be sensible for server and for my PC? Does it matter what graphics card I get/can I just go with the onboard card?
128MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 PCI Express graphics card
or Integrated NVIDIA® GeForce 6150 LE
Seem to be the ones that come up on the cheaper spec machines.

Not planning to use for games or 3D work, but there will be page layout, photos, etc.

MadCowMan

SBS 2003 + 5 CALS is about £250

What about using SQL2005 Express version ( its free and you can link your access back end tables to it if you want )

A decent sized RAID mirror ( with 2 disks ) is absolutely fine. Don't skimp on the raid controller though - a cheap controller offloads a lot of processing to the CPU which isn't ideal.

Try and catch the dell guys towards the end of the month - if you haggle you can get some reasonable freebies

Little_John

Dont go for a raid with only 2 disks your options are raid 0 or raid 1 raid 0 gives high performance but no redundancy raid 1 gives you mirroring so there is some cover for drive failure but it isnt worth the risk go for an extra disk and raid 5 striped with parity, the data is spread over the disks and improves performance and the parity will help in rebuilding of the data should a drive fail.
An aditional thing would be to go for a seperate raid contorller as to one built in to the motherboard if the controler goes your raid goes, you are more likley to be able to get the same controller than the motherboard there is a lot less work involved swapping a card than a motherboard. seperate raid contollers are more reliable. tht kind of screws the plans to go with the SC440 as does requireing more than 2 hard drives as the sc440 wont take them.

If you can get server and exchange with 5 user CALs for £250 I would go for it, it makes the whole thing easier, no messing about changeing software that the users are used to. If you had to pay the full whack £1k+ then it would be somthing to consider swapping over to linux.

I wouldnt bother changeing the OS on the workstations to XP, 2000 is fine the xp home will need upgradeing to 2000 or xp pro.

shareing documents etc is easy just share the folder, give permisions and map the folder as a drive with the logon script.

wolfman

MadCowMan wrote:

What about using SQL2005 Express version ( its free and you can link your access back end tables to it if you want )

Good mention.


Yeah I'd probably go for the Windows solution then. It'll offer an easy to use solution, and something you'll be partially familiar to having used windows on your pc's.

Also if you can afford it, Sharepoint 2007 is worth a look. Great not only as a wiki, but for document storage (and versioning), and content management. We're currently trialling it here, and from what I've used so far, it's very well thought out.

Although something like Confluence (not quite as powerful) and OpenOffice would be a money saving alternative, but most likely still very effective for a company like yours.

Also with regards to web development stuff. have a look at putting Subversion on your server. It's a free and very good source control system. Just handy if you're making web changes, as you can revert changes etc... if needed.

MadCowMan

SBS2003 comes with a nicely preconfigured Sharepoint Services Site ( known as Companyweb ) -its really quite handy.

With 5 Users , performance isn't as important as reliability - in the even of drive failure , a mirror just keeps on working , where as a Stripe with Parity ( RAID 5) starts to get its undies in a twist.

If you have acess to a hot swap array , its also quite easy to make a disk backup of your mirror set by breaking /swapping a drive out / recreating it.

For a small business ( bear in mind this isn't an enterprise deployment , I'd design it a little differently if it was ) a simple mirror is the way forward. ( with a good set of backups - I note the original poster has specified a copy of retrospect, which will do the job.

Are you plannig on backing up to removable USB drive or tape ?

krishna

Wow there's a lot of help here! Thanks guys!

MadCowMan wrote:

SBS 2003 + 5 CALS is about £250

What would be the advantage of that? They don't offer any charity discount on SBS so it would be costing me the same. Is there anything I get with SBS that I wouldnt get with WinServer+exch server, that we might need?

LittleJohn wrote:

If you can get server and exchange with 5 user CALs for £250 I would go for it, it makes the whole thing easier, no messing about changeing software that the users are used to. If you had to pay the full whack £1k+ then it would be somthing to consider swapping over to linux.

I think you are right. We'll stick with Windows.

MadCowMan wrote:

What about using SQL2005 Express version ( its free and you can link your access back end tables to it if you want )

So then we can still run Access on the PCs linked to data tables in SQL2005 Express? If we stick with Windows Server do we need to worry about this? Do we need a database server as well, or will a combination of Windows Server plus Access suffice?

MadCowMan wrote:

A decent sized RAID mirror ( with 2 disks ) is absolutely fine. Don't skimp on the raid controller though - a cheap controller offloads a lot of processing to the CPU which isn't ideal.

LittleJohn wrote:

Dont go for a raid with only 2 disks your options are raid 0 or raid 1 raid 0 gives high performance but no redundancy raid 1 gives you mirroring so there is some cover for drive failure but it isnt worth the risk go for an extra disk and raid 5 striped with parity, the data is spread over the disks and improves performance and the parity will help in rebuilding of the data should a drive fail.
An aditional thing would be to go for a seperate raid contorller as to one built in to the motherboard if the controler goes your raid goes, you are more likley to be able to get the same controller than the motherboard there is a lot less work involved swapping a card than a motherboard. seperate raid contollers are more reliable.

These are the RAID controller options
SAS 5/i Integrated Controller Card for SATA and SAS Hard Drives [add £70.00] (on the SC440)
or SAS5iR controller [add £70.00] on the PE840 (is that the same thing?)
PERC5E RAID controller (256MB cache) [add £370.00]
PERC5i RAID controller (256MB cache) [add £360.00]

Do those mean anything?

Hmm If we have to go for one of the PERC5 controllers and three hard disks then I guess that scuppers that idea. It'll push us beyond budget.

MadCow you said two HDs would be fine? Wanting the RAID for mirroring, not too concerned about performance. There are only five users, after all.

Might have to leave the RAID for a future upgrade.

Also these seem to be the options for processors in the servers.
Pentium® D processor 915 at 2.8GHz, 2x2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB
Intel® Pentium® D processor 925 at 3.0GHz, 2x2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB [add £30.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 3040 Processor at 1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB [add £30.00]
Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 3050 Processor at 2.13GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB [add £90.00]

madcowman wrote:

SBS2003 comes with a nicely preconfigured Sharepoint Services Site ( known as Companyweb ) -its really quite handy.

So SBS would be an advantage over WinServer I guess.

madcowman wrote:

With 5 Users, performance isn't as important as reliability

I agree entirely

madcowman wrote:

- in the even of drive failure , a mirror just keeps on working , where as a Stripe with Parity ( RAID 5) starts to get its undies in a twist.

So do I need a RAID to mirror? Or just two disks?

madcowman wrote:

If you have acess to a hot swap array , its also quite easy to make a disk backup of your mirror set by breaking /swapping a drive out / recreating it.

Not sure I understand this

madcowman wrote:

For a small business a simple mirror is the way forward. ( with a good set of backups - I note the original poster has specified a copy of retrospect, which will do the job.

Are you plannig on backing up to removable USB drive or tape ?

DAT tapes for backup. We've been using a Travan on our p2p network, but it's so unreliable and the tapes so darn expensive.

Onwards from that. How much processing power will we need on the server? Will the processor make much difference on a small network?

Try and catch the dell guys towards the end of the month - if you haggle you can get some reasonable freebies

Do the have quotas to meet each month?
How do you haggle?
What freebies might I get or what kind of deal should I be asking for?

wolfman wrote:

Also if you can afford it, Sharepoint 2007 is worth a look. Great not only as a wiki, but for document storage (and versioning), and content management. We're currently trialling it here, and from what I've used so far, it's very well thought out.

Would that require upgrading to MS Office? We are using Office 2000 Pro. Might need to leave that for another time. We do have a number of very active trustees who could probably benefit from access to our network, would something like Sharepoint help with this?

Yikes! Just looked at the cost of Sharepoint and Confluence. I think those will have to wait! Probably overkill too. I'll consider adding Subversion later on since this seems to be free? Got to get to grips with WinServer first.

Also do we need an additional firewall? If so what?

John_Gray

You are getting some good advice above, but our next server for about 20 staff is likely to cost us at least £5K for hardware and software, particularly when you factor in the cost of adequate backup mechanisms. We are running out of space on DDS4 tapes, and may have to make the move to DLT (or similar). Our backup scheme uses 12 x monthly tapes, 5 x weekly tapes, and 4 x daily tapes, and the cost of the drives and the tapes will be an large (and often unrecognised) amount. A program like BackupExec can set you back (groan!) over £500, which is why we use the Microsoft Backup program built into Windows Server 2003 front-ended by an excellent Australian program called BackupAssist.

Yes, you MUST (in very large letters) have a hardware firewall, but these are comparatively cheap.

If you get Exchange, remember to double the amount of memory you thought you needed (our 1 GB is barely adequate). Also consider Exchange server antispam solutions, and managed and centralised antivirus solutions for the server and the PCs.

John

PS Have a look at Tech Soup and the fairly messy-to-understand Microsoft "software donation" scheme from the Charity Technology Exchange (e.g. Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition English R2 (Includes Software Assurance and 5 Client Access Licences)
Admin fee: £37 + VAT)

GreenNotM

Hi Krishna

You have a lot to go through - but it is not clear where your current email server is hosted ?
Are you looking at taking your email server in-house ?
Could the current email server be made more spam proof ?


Access databases can be viewed as flat files - where the server consideration is concerned - the DB application is run on the client, so the .mdb files etc can be stored anywhere accessable.

Are you considering moving to web interface for your data applications ?
Do you want the data just available in the office or for the trustees to view off-site ? (No need for client software with a web-app, just a browser)

LAMP may be a solution - Linux Apache MySQL PHP .... + Samba (Windows File and Print) + email apps... but it does have a learning curve.
Perhaps use the old pc to try LAMP software out.

As for the hardware - look at the warranty - on-site ( a must )- next/same day - and as long as possible - 3 years.
Do not bargain away the warranty on a server.
Never use software RAID. Use Hardware RAID with redundancy (1 or 5 ) and a hot-swap capability - what has been said is wrong - the failing disk just comes out, the new one goes in and the controller rebuilds the disk - that is why it is called hot-swap. The same for hot-swap PSU's.
24/7 uptime of the server. Esp with a UPS added.
If you do not want 24/7 uptime look at a SATA RAID 1 controller and DVD back up - how much data do you have ? And in 2 years ?
You pay a littte premium for a "name" server as it will come with Server Management software - use it - it will tell you of problems developing and you will get the part sent, followed by an engineer to fit it.

You never said how the P2P network was an issue. If you do get the W2K3 server, build it as an application/standalone server.
If you have to spend the budget - exam your network infrastructure, maybe time for a new switch or cabling ?