Spare Server Wasting Space

[G33kman]

Ok so I'm in charge of the computer system for a small company (7 computers and 2 servers) and I have been trying to figure out a use for the second server that we have. It's not new but the hardware is still decent and I would like to put it to use if I can. Here's the specs for the machines

 

Desktops:

Windows 10 Pro x64

Core i5 7600

16GB RAM

500GB SSD

 

Server 1 (DC):

Dell PowerEdge T320

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Intel Xeon E5 2420 @ 1.90GHz

16GB Triple Channel DDR3 @666MHz

1TB SCSI (Raid 1)

 

HP ProLiant ML350 G6 (SPARE):

Windows Server 2012 R2

Intel Xeon L5506 @ 2.13GHz

6GB Triple Channel DDR3 @ 394MHz

136GB SCSI (RAID 1)

232GB SCSI (RAID 1) - Empty Drive right now

 

So here's my question... The Dell Server is used as our DC as well as a storage server for network files and holds our QuickBooks (QB) Company file.

The HP server is kind of just sitting there. I loaded Server 2012 onto it so I could get used to the operating system but haven't really done anything else with it.

We are a small company and to be perfectly honest the employee's don't really do much other than work in QB, Some Microsoft Office use and Facebook use.

 

I'd really like to make use of this spare Server in some way. I was thinking about using it as a WSUS server since we're just outside of town and we are stuck with 5Mbit internet but not sure if that's a good solution for us. Anyone have any recommendations?

 

Thanks for your assistance!

Ryan

[GW2]

You should use it a secondary DC. In ADDS environments the worst thing that can happen is losing your AD, having a backup DC ensures that even if the primary goes down, users can at least still log in, group policies and logon scripts are also replicated, and it's the best way to backup a DC. WSUS would also be a great way to save bandwidth, you're definitely correct on that. I work for a company who manages IT for many smaller (and a few large) companies, and having a backup DC has saved our skin more than once, and made some failures transparent to users.

[G33kman]

Thanks for the input. I will definitely look into setting that up as a secondary DC. I guess we've never had a problem with our main DC so the thought never crossed my mind. Lol

[brwainer]

26 minutes ago, G33kman said:

Thanks for the input. I will definitely look into setting that up as a secondary DC. I guess we've never had a problem with our main DC so the thought never crossed my mind. Lol

You definitely want a backup DC before any issue happens, not after.

 

In addition to WSUS, or possibly instead of it, you could look into setting up an overall caching server. It might not accelerate everything, especially with so much being HTTPS nowadays, but it may still help. Since most of the open source caching tutorials and software run under linux or a similar OS, you could set up HyperV on the second server and then set up the caching server in a VM.

[G33kman]

I've never heard of doing this so I will definitely look into it! Thanks

[Nikolithebear]

You could make it as a backup for the other server in case the other server goes down   Such as scheduled backups to secondary drives for quickbook files, or maybe an in house local web server for....stuff?... 

[G33kman]

4 minutes ago, Nikolithebear said:

You could make it as a backup for the other server in case the other server goes down   Such as scheduled backups to secondary drives for quickbook files, or maybe an in house local web server for....stuff?... 

Lol stuff is always fun! Yeah we have an external backup that we use as well as a cloud based solution.