Servers for small-medium size company

[Jrhumphrey89]

38 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

I'm unsure how your company has worked at all without any IT knowledge in the first place. Your current environment seems way more complex than it needs to be. 

You could, in spirit of Office365 and Cloud, look into Azure AD instead. From what I've heard, it's pretty neat.

^This.

 

What this conversation has become now is infrastructure choice. You need to decide if you want to

A. Buy hardware\software upfront and mitigate long term cost

B. Migrate to a monthly pay cloud based environment with Azure\amazon, office365\google docs 

C. A hybrid of onsite servers with subscription based services  

 

They each have their pros and cons. I think this is where you need to start.

 

[Jrhumphrey89]

53 minutes ago, JuztBe said:

@Jrhumphrey89 @NelizMastr @kirashi

Wondering how well person would do without windows server knowledge setting up AD. Wouldn't that lead to more problems than solutions?

There are plenty of resources out there for learning how to do this. When I first started I just created a vm on my desktop computer and setup a windows server and AD and started learning with youtube videos. 

[dalekphalm]

On 11/20/2017 at 8:53 AM, JuztBe said:

Hello,

How would you guys imagine server infrastructure should look like in small-medium size company?

Curently we are running ~10 old machines(pentium 4, celerons etc) with freebsd.  POP3 for mail, samba for sharing and storing files, gateways, dns, dhcp servers. Backups are being made of most important servers only, most of the servers don't have any RAID config.

 

Don't know much about servers, but from my perspective it looks like it's hanging on a hair. 

I would replace every server with just two servers.

 

Install ESXi on them, virtualize the old servers and create a distributed node, with failover protection (Each Server is powerful enough to run all critical servers by itself, so if one server dies, the other picks up the slack).

 

Then you can use snapshot backups to a NAS or a third physical server. Ideally with an off-site mirror.

 

Each physical server should be running RAID1 for ESXi. You can then either use a SAN or DAS, or just fill out one or both of the servers with a ton of HDD's. For the main array, use RAID6 or RAID10, depending on budget and performance needs.

 

For a Small-Medium business, I'd HIGHLY recommend buying new servers with Pro business warranty. Both HPE and Dell offer similar servers and you can get 24-7 next day warranty service. Eg: Motherboard dies: they ship you a replacement overnight, and a tech arrives in the morning to install it.

[JuztBe]

4 hours ago, Jrhumphrey89 said:

^This.

 

What this conversation has become now is infrastructure choice. You need to decide if you want to

A. Buy hardware\software upfront and mitigate long term cost

B. Migrate to a monthly pay cloud based environment with Azure\amazon, office365\google docs 

C. A hybrid of onsite servers with subscription based services  

 

They each have their pros and cons. I think this is where you need to start.

 

Right now I'm leaning towards office 365 for mail, office(and whatever else it offers) needs. And couple server solution for rest of the stuff.
There's no rush to implement AD so it could be the next step after everything else is in good shape.

 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

I would replace every server with just two servers.

 

Install ESXi on them, virtualize the old servers and create a distributed node, with failover protection (Each Server is powerful enough to run all critical servers by itself, so if one server dies, the other picks up the slack).

 

Then you can use snapshot backups to a NAS or a third physical server. Ideally with an off-site mirror.

 

Each physical server should be running RAID1 for ESXi. You can then either use a SAN or DAS, or just fill out one or both of the servers with a ton of HDD's. For the main array, use RAID6 or RAID10, depending on budget and performance needs.

 

For a Small-Medium business, I'd HIGHLY recommend buying new servers with Pro business warranty. Both HPE and Dell offer similar servers and you can get 24-7 next day warranty service. Eg: Motherboard dies: they ship you a replacement overnight, and a tech arrives in the morning to install it.

I see most people are offering couple server solution. Sounds good on paper.

I've contacted my local data center and they are running their daily operations from multiple servers. At least my contact said so, going to try finding out more info.

 

Any benefits in having multiple servers? Expandability I suppose, no VM licensing fees(but additional hardware costs).
P.S. It's medium-large business. ~100 people using PCs for all kind of stuff.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, JuztBe said:

Right now I'm leaning towards office 365 for mail, office(and whatever else it offers) needs. And couple server solution for rest of the stuff.
There's no rush to implement AD so it could be the next step after everything else is in good shape.

 

I see most people are offering couple server solution. Sounds good on paper.

I've contacted my local data center and they are running their daily operations from multiple servers. At least my contact said so, going to try finding out more info.

 

Any benefits in having multiple servers? Expandability I suppose, no VM licensing fees(but additional hardware costs).
P.S. It's medium-large business. ~100 people using PCs for all kind of stuff.

So first you need to decide how you want the physical infrastructure to run:

 

Potential options:

1. Physical Servers for every role (Eg: If you have a DC, it's a physical server with Windows Server installed onto it)

-sub options:

A. One server with as many roles as you can (Pro: Cheap hardware costs. con: Single point of failure, and when you need to do maintenance, everything goes down)

B. Multiple servers (Pro: Mitigated single point of failure, if you need to restart one service, you need to only take down one server. Con: very expensive hardware costs)

 

2. Virtual Servers. Have one or more servers run a Hypervisor OS (ESXi, Proxmox, Xen, Hyper-V, etc), and just create a VM for each "Server"

-sub options:

A. One single VM server - single point of failure

B. Two or more VM servers (a cluster)

 

3. Cloud (Eg: Azure, Office 365, etc)

 

Now, you can mix and match as needed, but you need to look at the pro's and con's of each and pick something to start with.

 

For example: Office 365 is a no brainer for most smaller companies, compared to hosting your own exchange server. We do this. O365 Exchange Online is pretty damn good, and still has full compatibility with local Outlook clients, or you can access through browser.

 

There are free Hypervisor OS's out there - ESXi base version is free, though it lacks some of the "must have" features (like the API for snapshot backups, along with failover protection).

 

Windows Hyper-V is great if you're running a predominantly Windows based infrastructure. License costs can be mitigated by buying Windows Server Data Center edition licenses (You need one license for each physical server, and you can run unlimited Win Server VM's under the same key). Data Center is very expensive compared to Server Standard, but if you run a lot of Servers, it's probably cheaper to pay once up front.

 

Multiple servers allows you to have expandability and to avoid a single point of failure.

 

I'd recommend:

Virtualized base setup (Two servers, both running a cluster aware Hypervisor such as ESXi or Hyper-V)

-Run all your normal servers on here, DC, DNS, DHCP (If applicable), File Server, WSUS, etc.

 

Then use Cloud services to run those critical services that aren't practical to manage yourself

-O365 Exchange Online, etc.

 

Alternate Suggestion: If you have a massive Internet Pipe, run everything from Azure, and only have a single local DC that links into Azure - this Server can be much lower spec'd, as all it does is act as a local AD Domain cache.

[kirashi]

8 hours ago, JuztBe said:

@Jrhumphrey89 @NelizMastr @kirashi

Wondering how well person would do without windows server knowledge setting up AD. Wouldn't that lead to more problems than solutions?

8 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

I'm unsure how your company has worked at all without any IT knowledge in the first place. Your current environment seems way more complex than it needs to be. 

You could, in spirit of Office365 and Cloud, look into Azure AD instead. From what I've heard, it's pretty neat.

2 hours ago, JuztBe said:

Right now I'm leaning towards office 365 for mail, office(and whatever else it offers) needs. And couple server solution for rest of the stuff.
There's no rush to implement AD so it could be the next step after everything else is in good shape.

--SNIP--

 

This, this, and this. ^^^ Going entirely hosted on something like GSuite or Office365 for Business actually makes the most sense here, as you can add / remove users as needed and manage it all from the cloud, instead of having to support both hardware and software needed to run your own AD environment on-site.

 

Sure, it might look like an expensive monthly fee to the bean counters in accounting, but it'll be a lot cheaper than going the route of self-hosting your own AD server and dealing with the nightmare that is self-hosted Exchange.

 

[Guest]

 

12 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

 

You'll still need Active Directory, though. But then again, why run over 100 PCs without a central means of managing and securing them? This is common practice since the late 90's  

Nope

8 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

I'm unsure how your company has worked at all without any IT knowledge in the first place. Your current environment seems way more complex than it needs to be. 

You could, in spirit of Office365 and Cloud, look into Azure AD instead. From what I've heard, it's pretty neat.

You don't need a dedicated AD server - Microsoft 365 Business will include Azure AD and basic device management (not Intune) as well as all the benefits of Office 365 Business Premium.

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I would replace every server with just two servers.

 

Install ESXi on them, virtualize the old servers and create a distributed node, with failover protection (Each Server is powerful enough to run all critical servers by itself, so if one server dies, the other picks up the slack).

 

Then you can use snapshot backups to a NAS or a third physical server. Ideally with an off-site mirror.

 

Each physical server should be running RAID1 for ESXi. You can then either use a SAN or DAS, or just fill out one or both of the servers with a ton of HDD's. For the main array, use RAID6 or RAID10, depending on budget and performance needs.

 

For a Small-Medium business, I'd HIGHLY recommend buying new servers with Pro business warranty. Both HPE and Dell offer similar servers and you can get 24-7 next day warranty service. Eg: Motherboard dies: they ship you a replacement overnight, and a tech arrives in the morning to install it.

Why over complicate things?

[NelizMastr]

Why criticize without actually providing some input? What would you do?

[Guest]

 

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

Why criticize without actually providing some input? What would you do?

 

10 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

Microsoft 365 Business

 

As mentioned, Microsoft 365 Business (not Office 365 Business) would be the best bet.

 

• Mail goes to Exchange Online
• Files into Microsoft Teams / SharePoint Online
• Join devices to Windows 10 Business (requires existing 7 Pro / 8 Pro / 10 Pro license) 
• Communication via S4B
• Planning via Planner

If you need specific rollout advice OP, let me know, just finished the deployment training for the new Microsoft 365 last week  

 

 

[JuztBe]

4 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

 

 

 

As mentioned, Microsoft 365 Business (not Office 365 Business) would be the best bet.

 

• Mail goes to Exchange Online
• Files into Microsoft Teams / SharePoint Online
• Join devices to Windows 10 Business (requires existing 7 Pro / 8 Pro / 10 Pro license) 
• Communication via S4B
• Planning via Planner

If you need specific rollout advice OP, let me know, just finished the deployment training for the new Microsoft 365 last week  

 

 

Will do if it comes down to 365 at the end. 

Maybe you have some general advices right now? 

 

 we need servers in any case i think.  for networking stuff and licenses hosting. 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, JuztBe said:

 we need servers in any case i think.  for networking stuff and licenses hosting. 

What networking stuff and license hosting?

[JuztBe]

10 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

What networking stuff and license hosting?

Autocad license and potentially of another software later down the line. And curently routing different departments so they would be on sperate local network. 

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, JuztBe said:

Autocad license and potentially of another software later down the line. And curently routing different departments so they would be on sperate local network. 

 Right - don't bother with on premise - just put that into an Azure VM with a site-to-site VPN: it'll be less headache, especially with backups.

[Jrhumphrey89]

If you need local servers I still stand by my previous choice.

 

Server: Dell R710 377$

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-PowerEdge-R710-Virtualization-Server-8-Core-48GB-4x300GB-10K-1-2TB-PERC6i/142063304976?hash=item2113a20110:g:fRkAAOSwtnpXk4TN

 

UPS: 1500va ups 169$

https://www.amazon.com/APC-Back-UPS-Battery-Protector-BR1500G/dp/B003Y24DEU/ref=sr_1_3_sspa?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1511187691&sr=1-3-spons&keywords=ups&psc=1

 

OS: Unraid Basic 59$

https://lime-technology.com/

 

Total: 605$

 

If you find you need more then just get x2 

[Dark]

I 100% agree with Windspeed.  

 

If you still require on-prem hardware then I would stay away from well-aged technology in favor of current technology, warranty, compatibility.  The slightly higher cost comes with many added benefits.

[JuztBe]

On 11/22/2017 at 11:07 AM, Windspeed36 said:

 

 

 

As mentioned, Microsoft 365 Business (not Office 365 Business) would be the best bet.

 

• Mail goes to Exchange Online
• Files into Microsoft Teams / SharePoint Online
• Join devices to Windows 10 Business (requires existing 7 Pro / 8 Pro / 10 Pro license) 
• Communication via S4B
• Planning via Planner

If you need specific rollout advice OP, let me know, just finished the deployment training for the new Microsoft 365 last week  

 

 

I have a specific question regarding mail. Is it actually good? Is there are some kind of problems, slowdowns etc. you noticed in the time you were using?
Can't just say to people above me that it's reliable, fast etc. without knowing how it is exactly.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, JuztBe said:

I have a specific question regarding mail. Is it actually good? Is there are some kind of problems, slowdowns etc. you noticed in the time you were using?
Can't just say to people above me that it's reliable, fast etc. without knowing how it is exactly.

So that's an open ended question however you shouldn't be worried about it being unreliable.

 

Microsoft have a 99.9% SLA (service availability agreement) between you and them: more can be found here; https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-trust-center-operations

 

Also some helpful info on the locations of it; http://o365datacentermap.azurewebsites.net/

 

Millions upon millions of people use this infrastructure, yes it does have issues however all providers will have problems.

 

More info on availibility can be found here: https://portal.office.com/servicestatus

 

Note: there's a much more comprehensive health dashboard available once you login.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

 

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, JuztBe said:

I have a specific question regarding mail. Is it actually good? Is there are some kind of problems, slowdowns etc. you noticed in the time you were using?
Can't just say to people above me that it's reliable, fast etc. without knowing how it is exactly.

We've been using O365 and is prior incarnations for a long time, vary rarely has issues.

 

Pretty much everyone in the education sector (Universities and Schools) uses O365 now, have done since it was called live@edu. It's a lot less hassle than on-prem servers and in the long run more reliable.

[dalekphalm]

44 minutes ago, leadeater said:

We've been using O365 and is prior incarnations for a long time, vary rarely has issues.

 

Pretty much everyone in the education sector (Universities and Schools) uses O365 now, have done since it was called live@edu. It's a lot less hassle than on-prem servers and in the long run more reliable.

We've also been using it for around a year now. Sure it occasionally has its quirks (what doesn't?) but it is way better than our old email solution, and made more sense than upgrading to an on-prem exchange server.