Network Upgrade

Here what I have. 2 Dell poweredge servers (500mhz 512 ram) with autoloaders. (kick *** servers btw) And another compaq server thats decent (300mhz 256 ram) with lots of hd space and an external tape backup unit. All servers have raid 5. Here are the requirements:
1. Have a Primary domain controller
2. Have a backup domain controller
3. Backup all three servers nightly
4. Run microsoft exchange
5. Run microsoft SQL (2 databases)
6. A file server for home dir and stuff
7. Need fire wall protection (a cisco pix is what I had in mind so the servers aren't sitting on the net)
8. Make as much as possible redundant.
Any ideas how I should set this up.

how many clients will these serv?

About 40 workstations.

Here is what I have to suggest :

Quote:

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Originally posted by Drippy1:
Here what I have. 2 Dell poweredge servers (500mhz 512 ram) with autoloaders. (kick *** servers btw) And another compaq server thats decent (300mhz 256 ram) with lots of hd space and an external tape backup unit. All servers have raid 5. Here are the requirements:
1. Have a Primary domain controller - get a "client" PC, put it in the servers room and install it as PDC (make sure you have 2 HDDs in RAID 1

2. Have a backup domain controller Again a "client" PC and make it DHCP, WINS, DNS etc.. (get RAID 1 for it)

3. Backup all three servers nightly - use the 300mhz 256 ram for that.

4. Run microsoft exchange - [use one of the powerful servers [/B]

5. Run microsoft SQL (2 databases)use the 2nd powerfull server for that.

6. A file server for home dir and stuff use the 300mhz 256 ram for that.

7. Need fire wall protection (a cisco pix is what I had in mind so the servers aren't sitting on the net)- I can't recommend anything withou more info, basically I would say FW-1.

8. Make as much as possible redundant. - I would install each server in the following way : 2x small HDDs (O/S) RAID 1, all the rest RAID 5. Backup scheme - Full back up once a week, incremental during days.
Any ideas how I should set this up.

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now a good idea is to get power users to work on the strong server (500) unless the Database is killing it..

bta - print server can be the 300 as well..

Hope you find it helpful ..

I'll be happy to answer any questions / comments.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Drippy1:
Here what I have. 2 Dell poweredge servers (500mhz 512 ram) with autoloaders. (kick *** servers btw) And another compaq server thats decent (300mhz 256 ram) with lots of hd space and an external tape backup unit. All servers have raid 5. Here are the requirements:
1. Have a Primary domain controller
2. Have a backup domain controller
3. Backup all three servers nightly
4. Run microsoft exchange
5. Run microsoft SQL (2 databases)
6. A file server for home dir and stuff
7. Need fire wall protection (a cisco pix is what I had in mind so the servers aren't sitting on the net)
8. Make as much as possible redundant.
Any ideas how I should set this up.

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Here's my two cents

Buy yourself a shared storage box for the two dells and create a cluster. Run exchange and sql on the cluster. Make the cluster your bdc. Buy veritas cluster backup kit (for restarting a backup when one of the members of the cluster dies). Backup the cluster from the cluster and backup the compaq from the compaq. Make the compaq your pdc and lose the raid 5 for your boot partitions. Mirror the boot partitions. Also, once you have everthing installed on all of the boxes just perfectly, create a paralell install of NT with backup exec installed in a seperate directory. Now, image all of your boxes. If one fails catastrophicly and you need to get it up quick, restore your image to the failed machine and perform your full backup from the paralell install (this allows you to overwrite files that normally may be in use and the open file agent can't grab).

Pix is nice. If your needs are small check out the 515R. I think it handles 40K connection.. and it's easily upgraded with memory and a new ios that is UR (Un Restriced).

Hope this helps.

Quote:

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Originally posted by condor:
Here is what I have to suggest :

now a good idea is to get power users to work on the strong server (500) unless the Database is killing it..

bta - print server can be the 300 as well..

Hope you find it helpful ..

I'll be happy to answer any questions / comments.

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I would have to agree with the above. Also a good idea for more storage is a NAS device. It integrates with you NT domain and gives you users access to more storage.

The Cisco PIX firewall is a great firewall solution - well supported, popular and secure - however the Cisco IOS is no easy task - get a good book and think about taking a management course on it.

I agree with Condor 99%. The other 1% is the backup server being the same box as the file server (home dirs, etc) and the print server. Here's what i'd do with these:

Get two more client boxes, say 400-500mhz with 128-256mb, the more the better of course.
Setup one of these boxes as the print server (queue) and the other as the file server.
Like condor said, make the 300mhz machine the backup server, weekly full, weekday incremental. I also agree on the raid 0. Raid 5 might be a good idea for the file server if you can afford it, and if your users are working directly off the server.

My reasoning is because in a group of 40, people will be using the print server (queue) a lot. If the users are also saving files to their home directory and/or working off the file server, AND it's running backup exec or legato or Veritos, it's just a mess WAITING TO HAPPEN. Separate these machines!

Just my $0.02 :)

If you run the tape backup at night (I start ours at 1am, nobody in the office at that time of day) then you don't have to worry about it. Trying to backup something (like a whole server) through a ethernet cable can put a heavy load on the network and you want to avoid doing that if you can, at any time of day

You may have to put tape backups in each server anyway, if the amount of data is so great that one tape either isn't big enough or can't finish the job during the night before ppl show up for work in the morning. Something else to think about.