Necessary Server and Workstation specs for mobile small business

[berderder]

Hi everyone,

 

You may have seen my previous post about a a mobile veterinary clinic. He has one van he wants to VPN back to the home office server. The home office will have 1 server and 5 clients. Eventually, he will have about 5 vans that will also need to use VPN to communicate with the home server.

 

Whats system specs do you recommend for the home server, the home office clients, and van workstations? We're in the process of purchasing those. 

 

The server will will have a CRM, Quickbooks, a couple pieces of proprietary veterinarian software, and maybe 1 or 2 other things.

 

Thanks for any help you can give. I'm really focusing on system specs right now. RAM, processor, etc. We'll probably part pick and build through Dell.

[glitchmaster0001]

5 minutes ago, berderder said:

Hi everyone,

 

You may have seen my previous post about a a mobile veterinary clinic. He has one van he wants to VPN back to the home office server. The home office will have 1 server and 5 clients. Eventually, he will have about 5 vans that will also need to use VPN to communicate with the home server.

 

Whats system specs do you recommend for the home server, the home office clients, and van workstations? We're in the process of purchasing those. 

 

The server will will have a CRM, Quickbooks, a couple pieces of proprietary veterinarian software, and maybe 1 or 2 other things.

 

Thanks for any help you can give. I'm really focusing on system specs right now. RAM, processor, etc. We'll probably part pick and build through Dell.

get a little tower server with a e3 class quad core Xeon from either Dell, IBM, or Hewlett Packard Enterprise. 

http://marketplace.hpe.com/offers/servers?jumpid=ps_bdgewv4mi6_AID-510190133

 

http://www.dell.com/us/p/poweredge-t130/pd?s=bsd&oc=pe_t130_1022mc&ST=pla&dgc=ST&cid=298720&lid=5704669&acd=12309152537501410&ven1=PE_T130_1022MC:101950809789:901q5c14135:c&ven2=:&ven3=260203694997105633

 

 

[ARikozuM]

I just use a hot-swap 2TB SSD and a regular PC to coordinate everything for my mobile clinic. 

[berderder]

9 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

I just use a hot-swap 2TB SSD and a regular PC to coordinate everything for my mobile clinic. 

We'll need to get into Active Directory and Windows Server for him because of the VPN connection, so we'll need a server system 

[ARikozuM]

What vet software is he using? 

[berderder]

4 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

What vet software is he using? 

Impromed Infinity (CRM), Diagnostic Imaging Atlas, and an online pharmacy interface. Maybe something else he hasn't mentioned yet

[ARikozuM]

8 minutes ago, berderder said:

Impromed Infinity (CRM), Diagnostic Imaging Atlas, and an online pharmacy interface. Maybe something else he hasn't mentioned yet

I'll have no idea then. I'm using AviMark which connects to my home and hospital servers. I would contact the software company and have them walk you through it. 

 

@Electronics Wizardy may know how to set-up a VPN.

 

[berderder]

1 hour ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

 

 

http://www.dell.com/us/p/poweredge-t130/pd?s=bsd&oc=pe_t130_1022mc&ST=pla&dgc=ST&cid=298720&lid=5704669&acd=12309152537501410&ven1=PE_T130_1022MC:101950809789:901q5c14135:c&ven2=:&ven3=260203694997105633

 

 

It looks like the product in the above link starts at 8GB RAM. Don't you think more is required to handle 10 users? (5 stationary local clients accessing the server and 5 remote clients accessing the server through VPN)

[leadeater]

I would use a FortiWifi 30D/60D or the new 30E/60E with 4G support and setup a site-to-site VPN. These are a price premium product but still cheap for what they are and will be very reliable, easy to configure and provide both wired and wireless connections for the vans.

 

This is a similar setup which I've dealt with for mobile dentistry vans/trucks that travel to all the schools in my country. From my experience with supporting these when they come on site simple is an absolute must. The design needs to allow for if everything goes wrong just turn everything off then back on and it should come back up. I worked for a IT education service company which is why I ended up dealing with them so often and their setup was over complicated and unreliable.

 

Unless the CRM tool, Quickbooks etc integrate with Active Directory don't even bother going there, for such a small network you don't need to and can use things like remote desktop/app connections in to a central server which means there is little point in doing so.

 

The server side use Remote App and not full Remote Desktop Sessions, save on resources and isn't actually needed. Plus Remote Apps have a better user experience, looks and feels like a locally installed application. Plus side to this is that you can use much cheaper and lower spec clients which in turn have a lower insurance risk but you need an always on connection back to the server.

 

Single socket tower server with 16GB ram will be fine for this. If you really need to use Active Directory just enable Hyper-V and setup a 2GB VM for AD and the remaining ram used on another VM for everything else, don't use AD with anything else other than DNS/DHCP ever.

 

How much data storage you need? If it's small I'd go with a simple SSD RAID 1 configuration else upgrade to the H730 for the cache and much better RAID 5/6 performance. Also save yourself a ton of money and buy the server diskless and supply your own.

 

I would use the Dell T330 due to the ability to use dual PSU, something all servers should have in my book.

 

For the van clients use low spec laptops with large batteries since the application is actually running on the server.

 

Depending on budget however my advice could significantly change.

[berderder]

17 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I would use a FortiWifi 30D/60D or the new 30E/60E with 4G support and setup a site-to-site VPN. These are a price premium product but still cheap for what they are and will be very reliable, easy to configure and provide both wired and wireless connections for the vans.

 

This is a similar setup which I've dealt with for mobile dentistry vans/trucks that travel to all the schools in my country. From my experience with supporting these when they come on site simple is an absolute must. The design needs to allow for if everything goes wrong just turn everything off then back on and it should come back up. I worked for a IT education service company which is why I ended up dealing with them so often and their setup was over complicated and unreliable.

 

Unless the CRM tool, Quickbooks etc integrate with Active Directory don't even bother going there, for such a small network you don't need to and can use things like remote desktop/app connections in to a central server which means there is little point in doing so.

 

The server side use Remote App and not full Remote Desktop Sessions, save on resources and isn't actually needed. Plus Remote Apps have a better user experience, looks and feels like a locally installed application. Plus side to this is that you can use much cheaper and lower spec clients which in turn have a lower insurance risk but you need an always on connection back to the server.

 

Single socket tower server with 16GB ram will be fine for this. If you really need to use Active Directory just enable Hyper-V and setup a 2GB VM for AD and the remaining ram used on another VM for everything else, don't use AD with anything else other than DNS/DHCP ever.

 

How much data storage you need? If it's small I'd go with a simple SSD RAID 1 configuration else upgrade to the H730 for the cache and much better RAID 5/6 performance. Also save yourself a ton of money and buy the server diskless and supply your own.

 

I would use the Dell T330 due to the ability to use dual PSU, something all servers should have in my book.

 

For the van clients use low spec laptops with large batteries since the application is actually running on the server.

 

Depending on budget however my advice could significantly change.

Very informative. Thank you

[ARikozuM]

20 minutes ago, leadeater said:

masterfully snipped

Why can't you move to Florida? We could use a great IT guy.