New Server for My Company

[Remy D. Marquis]

Hi   ,

 

I need to build a server for my company which is going to store data and host a website. I thought about making a workstation while that I would work on and add those functionality to it but it won't be practical at all since I need all my clients' sensitive information and will need to be accessed by others and at the same time the website has to be online 24/7 with no down time and if I'm using it there's a 100% chance it will be down for some amount of time

 

TL;DR I need 2 things

1- a server build that is efficient and will hold a website and a good amount of data .

2- a workstation build to do heavy multitasking workload plus rendering "most likely gaming too :P"

 

Any tips are welcome and appreciated.

 

EDIT:

I have one more pressing matter that needs to be addressed. To host a website, I will need a static IP which is really expensive to get where I am. This is a thing that I didn't try before so I'm already taking it with a bagful of salt but is it possible to make the website work as intended with 1 dedicated connection on static IP and also connected to a regular highs connection on NIC/ Teaming?

 

 

Thanks

[myselfolli]

100% uptime is hard (read: impossible) to achieve, especially with a self hosted server, since you'd need multiple physical machines, redundant internet connections (as in multiple cables, since one of them could be cut, bringing your website offline) and offsite redundancy and so on. You're probably better off renting a server in a datacenter or moving to the cloud (an AWS instance for example).

 

As for the data storage: What kind of data and what amount are we talking about? Photos? Videos? Word documents? How many other people need to access it? How will they access it? How are you planning to restrict access to sensitive files? Would a NAS be sufficient? If yes - do you want to build it yourself, or is a prebuilt system an option? What's the budget?

 

As for the workstation: I'd switch that to a different physical machine, since it sounds like it would be doing some infrequent but very heavy lifting, so you could turn the workstation off while it's not being used (to save on your electricity bills). What workloads exactly are we talking about here? What's the budget?

 

Just some general questions: What's your current network setup? What other machines are running in your network? How many people work with/for you? How many of those need access to the new machines?

 

A bit more information would go a long way here.

[Remy D. Marquis]

7 minutes ago, myselfolli said:

100% uptime is hard (read: impossible) to achieve, especially with a self hosted server, since you'd need multiple physical machines, redundant internet connections (as in multiple cables, since one of them could be cut, bringing your website offline) and offsite redundancy and so on. You're probably better off renting a server in a datacenter or moving to the cloud (an AWS instance for example).

that I understand and am prepared for so no worries there.

 

7 minutes ago, myselfolli said:

As for the data storage: What kind of data and what amount are we talking about? Photos? Videos? Word documents? How many other people need to access it? How will they access it? How are you planning to restrict access to sensitive files? Would a NAS be sufficient? If yes - do you want to build it yourself, or is a prebuilt system an option? What's the budget?

sorry about the confusion, I'll try to make it as clear as I can.

It is going to do these jobs:

1- host a website that:

   A- company website

   B- colects data for a service provided

2- NAS and  data storage, not less than 20TB, it is going to be documents mostly but will also serve as 3d and CAD renders storage.

3- it will be accessed by employees only

 

Also, I will be building the system from scratch, I know my way around servers and PCs

 

13 minutes ago, myselfolli said:

As for the workstation: I'd switch that to a different physical machine, since it sounds like it would be doing some infrequent but very heavy lifting, so you could turn the workstation off while it's not being used (to save on your electricity bills). What workloads exactly are we talking about here? What's the budget?

I agree, and the budget is pretty much open but I hope to get something that can serve its purpose for at least a few years before I "feel" the need to upgrade.

 

15 minutes ago, myselfolli said:

Just some general questions: What's your current network setup? What other machines are running in your network? How many people work with/for you? How many of those need access to the new machines?

 

There isn't one now but If possible I would install a 10GB network. The company will start with 5-10 employees and hopefully grows larger soon.

 

EDIT: sorry for the weird post, it was unintentional

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by Remy D. Marquis
false submission

[dalekphalm]

Have you considered the implications of Warranty/downtime?

 

What will your business do if the Motherboard fails? If it's a custom build, you've gotta take the system apart, ship the motherboard off to whatever vendor (ASUS, Supermicro, whatever), wait 2-3 weeks, have it shipped back. All the while, your server is down.

 

Are you prepared to wait that kind of downtime out? Are you prepared to act as the middle man for the dozen or so different vendors that will make up a scratch build?

 

If you purchased an OEM server, you'd get on-site support next day, with part in hand to get the system up and running within 24 hours.

 

In terms of the web server, literally any server can handle that (though it depends on the kind of traffic, really), so nothing special there. In terms of the data storage, 20TB is a lot, but you could go with a 6 or 8 or 12-bay Server Chassis. For the sake of argument, let's say a 12-bay chassis.

 

Leave half empty, populate 6. Populate the server with 6x 6TB or 8TB HDD's in RAID6. You'd get 24 or 32TB of available space, respectively (minus conversion from TB to TiB). And that leaves another 6 slots for expansion in the future.

 

I'd also make sure the Server itself is running 2x drives in RAID1 - whether they are HDD's or SSD's depends on the server workflow - typically HDD's will be 100% fine though, unless you're running IO sensitive stuff like a huge DB or something.

[Remy D. Marquis]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Have you considered the implications of Warranty/downtime?

 

What will your business do if the Motherboard fails? If it's a custom build, you've gotta take the system apart, ship the motherboard off to whatever vendor (ASUS, Supermicro, whatever), wait 2-3 weeks, have it shipped back. All the while, your server is down. 

 

Are you prepared to wait that kind of downtime out? Are you prepared to act as the middle man for the dozen or so different vendors that will make up a scratch build? 

 

If you purchased an OEM server, you'd get on-site support next day, with part in hand to get the system up and running within 24 hours.

Of course I have considered this which is why there would be both an onsite and an offsite backup servers. I didn't think I should mention this since it is a standard and common practice in this situation but thanks for bringing it up.

 

9 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

In terms of the web server, literally any server can handle that (though it depends on the kind of traffic, really), so nothing special there. In terms of the data storage, 20TB is a lot, but you could go with a 6 or 8 or 12-bay Server Chassis. For the sake of argument, let's say a 12-bay chassis.

 

Leave half empty, populate 6. Populate the server with 6x 6TB or 8TB HDD's in RAID6. You'd get 24 or 32TB of available space, respectively (minus conversion from TB to TiB). And that leaves another 6 slots for expansion in the future.

 

I'd also make sure the Server itself is running 2x drives in RAID1 - whether they are HDD's or SSD's depends on the server workflow - typically HDD's will be 100% fine though, unless you're running IO sensitive stuff like a huge DB or something.

20TB is not really a lot these days. It will be able to provide enough for my current use at least until a future upgrade is necessary. They aren't even that expensive to be honest.

 

I am considering a 12 bay server chassis "HDDs RAID 6" and only the boot system to be run on SSDs "not sure which RAID to put them on though"

 

Thank you

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

Of course I have considered this which is why there would be both an onsite and an offsite backup servers. I didn't think I should mention this since it is a standard and common practice in this situation but thanks for bringing it up.

It's always worth mentioning - those of us who work in Corporate IT see plenty of people trying to do scratch builds for a business. It often doesn't end well because they don't know what they are getting themselves into. They're in over their heads.

 

If you're comfortable with all the aspects of a scratch build? Then we good.

1 hour ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

20TB is not really a lot these days. It will be able to provide enough for my current use at least until a future upgrade is necessary. They aren't even that expensive to be honest.

True though I was simply going off of the only figure you gave: 20TB.

 

If you think you need more storage, then do 6x 10TB drives in RAID6 - that's 40TB of available storage.

 

The expense depends on what grade of drive you use. SATA NAS drives (WD Red or Ironwolf) are pretty affordable. SAS Nearline enterprise drives cost a lot more.

1 hour ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

I am considering a 12 bay server chassis "HDDs RAID 6" and only the boot system to be run on SSDs "not sure which RAID to put them on though"

 

Thank you

If you're gonna run the boot drives on SSD's, that's perfectly acceptable. Buy 2 and run in RAID1 - this is industry best practice.

[Remy D. Marquis]

I agree, thank you for your help.

 

I have one more pressing matter that needs to be addressed. To host a website, I will need a static IP which is really expensive to get where I am. This is a thing that I didn't try before so I'm already taking it with a bagful of salt but is it possible to make the website work as intended with 1 dedicated connection on static IP and also connected to a regular highs connection on NIC/ Teaming?

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Remy D. Marquis said:

I agree, thank you for your help.

 

I have one more pressing matter that needs to be addressed. To host a website, I will need a static IP which is really expensive to get where I am. This is a thing that I didn't try before so I'm already taking it with a bagful of salt but is it possible to make the website work as intended with 1 dedicated connection on static IP and also connected to a regular highs connection on NIC/ Teaming?

If you have a single static IP, you can use that. You're just port forwarding to the server (or hosting it in the DMZ).

 

However, if this is gonna be a high traffic server, I really don't know how well that'd work in the long run.

[Remy D. Marquis]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

If you have a single static IP, you can use that. You're just port forwarding to the server (or hosting it in the DMZ).

 

However, if this is gonna be a high traffic server, I really don't know how well that'd work in the long run.

It seems I misspoke again, I'll just explain the situation more and hopefully I'll make my idea clearer

 

I can get a 1mbps upload and download DIA connection with static IP for around 400$/month  which is not ideal for traffic at all

and I can get a 300mbps download and 80mbps upload normal dynamic IP connection for around 100$/month as regular work internet connection

 

I am thinking of using NIC on the server to get the static IP and connect to the website and hoping it can use the regular connection's internet speed.

 

Is this possible or am I shooting blanks?

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

It seems I misspoke again, I'll just explain the situation more and hopefully I'll make my idea clearer

 

I can get a 1mbps upload and download DIA connection with static IP for around 400$/month  which is not ideal for traffic at all

and I can get a 300mbps download and 80mbps upload normal dynamic IP connection for around 100$/month as regular work internet connection

 

I am thinking of using NIC on the server to get the static IP and connect to the website and hoping it can use the regular connection's internet speed.

 

Is this possible or am I shooting blanks?

You're not really going to be able to what you want here.

 

You'll have to pick one or the other. 1 Mbps for anything but a server with static text is going to be useless.

 

You'd be better off using a Dynamic DNS service. This type of system uses an agent (either installed on one of your computers/servers, or some routers have built in agents) to periodically check what the Dynamic IP Address is (looking for a change), and will forward the new IP to an online DNS server, which is then associated with a Domain Name (either a free one, or one you own).

 

There are many companies that offer this service. Some are free, some are paid.

[Remy D. Marquis]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You're not really going to be able to what you want here.

 

You'll have to pick one or the other. 1 Mbps for anything but a server with static text is going to be useless.

 

You'd be better off using a Dynamic DNS service. This type of system uses an agent (either installed on one of your computers/servers, or some routers have built in agents) to periodically check what the Dynamic IP Address is (looking for a change), and will forward the new IP to an online DNS server, which is then associated with a Domain Name (either a free one, or one you own).

 

There are many companies that offer this service. Some are free, some are paid.

I have tried some of them in the past but never worked for me. I believe the ISPs here put some restrictions on those just to get more money *sigh*

 

I will experiment with that anyway and see what I come up with. but if it doesn't work I'll be stuck with having to pay thousands just to get a decent connection.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

I have tried some of them in the past but never worked for me. I believe the ISPs here put some restrictions on those just to get more money *sigh*

 

I will experiment with that anyway and see what I come up with. but if it doesn't work I'll be stuck with having to pay thousands just to get a decent connection.

I'd check with your ISP to see if you can get an IPv6 address instead? They might be inclined to give you a static one.

 

Personally, not a big fan of IPv6, but in this situation it might help.

[Remy D. Marquis]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

I'd check with your ISP to see if you can get an IPv6 address instead? They might be inclined to give you a static one.

 

Personally, not a big fan of IPv6, but in this situation it might help.

Will do, thanks for the suggestion

[Pixel5]

what kind of server OS are you familiar with and do you have experience setting up servers and the services you need to get everything going or are you looking for an easy off the shelf solution?

[Rusted]

4 hours ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

It is going to do these jobs:

1- host a website that:

   A- company website

   B- colects data for a service provided

2- NAS and  data storage, not less than 20TB, it is going to be documents mostly but will also serve as 3d and CAD renders storage.

3- it will be accessed by employees only

I personally wouldn't put all that on single server that has public IP. I think it's better to have public and local servers on different machines for security. Also using firewall to separate devices for different networks might be necessary. 

I do run my own nextcloud server and it took more time to setup a firewall than setting up the server. There is constant port scanning, telnet, ssh, etc. connection attempts even with dynamic IP. So even if you plan to have "employees only" server, anything connected to a public IP is PUBLIC and will get it's share of hacking attempts. So running a server is also constant firewall management, looking logs and adjusting rules.

 

If all that you list is for employees only, there is the option of running all that in local network and use VPN for connecting to local network. But if the website is meant for public access, it might be better to run in on different machine or in some hosting service.

 

Running multiple different servers on one machine makes getting high up-time more difficult as different services get updates and may need to be restarted. 

If a update brakes one server and it need to be taken offline for fixing, it will affect all other servers on that one machine.

 

Just my two cents.

[Acedia]

+1 for "Do not build your own business server". Get an HP ProLiant or Dell PowerEdge or SuperMicro Whatshisface.

3 hours ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

I have one more pressing matter that needs to be addressed. To host a website, I will need a static IP which is really expensive to get where I am. This is a thing that I didn't try before so I'm already taking it with a bagful of salt but is it possible to make the website work as intended with 1 dedicated connection on static IP and also connected to a regular highs connection on NIC/ Teaming?

Routing is usually not done on the server side. Do you have a decent router? In that case get both internet connections connected to that.

You'd have to set up split access routing otherwise, which is Advanced under Linux and I believe not even implemented on Windows.

[Remy D. Marquis]

1 hour ago, Pixel5 said:

what kind of server OS are you familiar with and do you have experience setting up servers and the services you need to get everything going or are you looking for an easy off the shelf solution?

I'm familiar with Windows Server and Unix but for my uses I believe I will be using Windows Server 2019.

23 minutes ago, Rusted said:

I personally wouldn't put all that on single server that has public IP. I think it's better to have public and local servers on different machines for security. Also using firewall to separate devices for different networks might be necessary. 

I thought about that too but the website takes data from the clients and saves them on the server. I will take this into consideration and maybe make a tiny server for the website that automatically sends data to a separate private data center. Also, a firewall is a must and I agree completely with your point of view, thanks.

 

27 minutes ago, Acedia said:

+1 for "Do not build your own business server". Get an HP ProLiant or Dell PowerEdge or SuperMicro Whatshisface.

but why? in here I'm better off building a quantum super computer than buying an OEM server. They are waaaay too expensive and the support here is next to none and I'm really sick and tired of those OEM jerks in here.

32 minutes ago, Acedia said:

Routing is usually not done on the server side. Do you have a decent router? In that case get both internet connections connected to that. 

You'd have to set up split access routing otherwise, which is Advanced under Linux and I believe not even implemented on Windows.

I'm planning on getting a decent router and still "window shopping" right now. As for split access routing, I never used that and will take a deeper look at it. Thanks

[Acedia]

1 hour ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

but why? in here I'm better off building a quantum super computer than buying an OEM server. They are waaaay too expensive and the support here is next to none and I'm really sick and tired of those OEM jerks in here.

Because you don't have the knowledge nor expertise to do it, proofen by the need to ask on a forum. You are doing this for a business not your home.

What if something breaks, are you going to fix it? Let's say tomorrow one of our customers server all die, we make one call and have a certified tech on site repairing or replacing any faulty components and are up and running NBD.

[jake9000]

Just gonna throw my hat on the big points. I consult for midsize businesses. 

 

Networking: The figure you gave for a static IP is ridiculous. You can look at doing dynamic dns for your hostname but if you need an actual static IP address (makes a lot of things easier) consider hosting a basic web server remotely. Without more info on your data collection service I can't comment on that, but a basic informational site and low-compute services can live in a digital ocean droplet or amazon lightsail for essentially pocket change. You can have your data collectors communicate with a highly available gigabit-networked small server which then backhauls to your crappy local connection, whatever its address is today. 

You can also consider co-locating the entire server and keep your on-prem stuff minimal. You basically rent a spot in a datacenter and only pay for the rackspace + bandwidth.  Make sure you get a motherboard with out-of-band management (dell IDRAC, HP iLO, etc) if you go that route. 

 

That said, yes you can pay your ISP for two circuits and split them out. Just bind your web server to the correct NIC. 

 

Storage: If you have 2 drives, RAID1. If you have 4 or more, RAID10. Do not split your arrays. The datastore should be partitioned away from the OS. This is a general rule of thumb and other raids are valid in specific, limited scenarios. Put your OS in a hypervisor even if it's just hyper-v or the free version of ESXI and only allot it the amount of storage it immediately needs. This makes growth a lot easier to manage and you can checkpoint your OS before major changes. You'll thank me later. 

 

Costs: I'm a big believer in "buy once cry once." The capital expense of the system is not generally that important to a business. Yes, the msrp of the hardware is pretty bad and even worse for the support, but businesses are all about investments. If you spend $10k on infra and use it to generate $20k in revenue, you've doubled your money.  Buy good stuff that is proven, you won't regret it. 

[Remy D. Marquis]

10 hours ago, Acedia said:

Because you don't have the knowledge nor expertise to do it, proofen by the need to ask on a forum. You are doing this for a business not your home.

What if something breaks, are you going to fix it? Let's say tomorrow one of our customers server all die, we make one call and have a certified tech on site repairing or replacing any faulty components and are up and running NBD.

So asking for suggestions means that I don't have expertise,,,, hmmmmm. I have the degrees that say otherwise and actual years of work experience in the field which is why I'm even bothering thinking about building my own for my company. I was asking specifically for suggestions for a server build and a workstation build because server grade hardware keeps changing from day to day and I don't want to do all the research work, hence, HELP. Also, having "expertise" in something does not mean I know everything about everything. Please, if you have something helpful say it otherwise please just let the rest of the experienced members contribute instead.

6 hours ago, jake9000 said:

Networking: The figure you gave for a static IP is ridiculous. You can look at doing dynamic dns for your hostname but if you need an actual static IP address (makes a lot of things easier) consider hosting a basic web server remotely. Without more info on your data collection service I can't comment on that, but a basic informational site and low-compute services can live in a digital ocean droplet or amazon lightsail for essentially pocket change. You can have your data collectors communicate with a highly available gigabit-networked small server which then backhauls to your crappy local connection, whatever its address is today. 

You can also consider co-locating the entire server and keep your on-prem stuff minimal. You basically rent a spot in a datacenter and only pay for the rackspace + bandwidth.  Make sure you get a motherboard with out-of-band management (dell IDRAC, HP iLO, etc) if you go that route. 

yes I am planning on renting in a datacenter for the backup offsite server and I might even host the website offsite if it is more cost effective and just backup the data onsite to work on. So far, DDNS is the only other option to provide stable connection and I'm in contact with some providers already and we'll see how that goes if NIC does not work.

 

6 hours ago, jake9000 said:

Storage: If you have 2 drives, RAID1. If you have 4 or more, RAID10. Do not split your arrays. The datastore should be partitioned away from the OS. This is a general rule of thumb and other raids are valid in specific, limited scenarios. Put your OS in a hypervisor even if it's just hyper-v or the free version of ESXI and only allot it the amount of storage it immediately needs. This makes growth a lot easier to manage and you can checkpoint your OS before major changes. You'll thank me later. 

yeah I'm putting the OS on a different array, no worries there but I believe I will benefit from RAID6 more than 10 for my case scenario. As for ESXI, I don't believe I will be needing that right now but like you just said it will be easier for growth later on and I'll thank you now instead of later so, thank you

 

6 hours ago, jake9000 said:

Costs: I'm a big believer in "buy once cry once." The capital expense of the system is not generally that important to a business. Yes, the msrp of the hardware is pretty bad and even worse for the support, but businesses are all about investments. If you spend $10k on infra and use it to generate $20k in revenue, you've doubled your money.  Buy good stuff that is proven, you won't regret it. 

My thoughts exactly. And it especially these days, the hardware available is great to make a server that is good enough to handle all the tasks thrown at it at a reasonable-esh price and will do well for the next few years without the need for any upgrades.

[Acedia]

9 hours ago, Remy D. Marquis said:

So asking for suggestions means that I don't have expertise,,,, hmmmmm. I have the degrees that say otherwise and actual years of work experience in the field which is why I'm even bothering thinking about building my own for my company. I was asking specifically for suggestions for a server build and a workstation build because server grade hardware keeps changing from day to day and I don't want to do all the research work, hence, HELP. Also, having "expertise" in something does not mean I know everything about everything. Please, if you have something helpful say it otherwise please just let the rest of the experienced members contribute instead.

Yeah, I also work as an system administrator von an MSP and have yet to see a self build server in a datacentre.

[Remy D. Marquis]

21 minutes ago, Acedia said:

Yeah, I also work as an system administrator von an MSP and have yet to see a self build server in a datacentre.

I don't know if you actually read the whole thread or just jumping to conclusions on your own but I'll try to dumb it down a lot and explain as clearly as possible.

 

The data server will only be receiving data from the website and stores them and will only be accessed by employees locally. Any cheap computer from this era can handle this job. I am only looking for suggestions regarding a server build which is cost effective and power efficient. The whole team that is going to use it is 5-10 people too.

 

Also, AGAIN, OEM services where I live are bad as hell and to buy one I'll have to pay an arm and a leg for an outdated model that doesn't even benefit me in the least.