New Server Advice

[glenbrian]

Hi There.
Our small school is looking at buying some new servers and I am seeking some help or advice into which way we should go, at few thoughts given was the IBM 3650 series and another was the Intel White Box - The S3210 SHLC and the Intel S5000 SLSATA, could anyone give some advice on the IBM and Intel White servers.

Thanks for your help and time.

Brian

[ua549]

You should establish a requirements definition that includes hardware, vendor support, service level expectations, etc. From there you may wish to look at the market before issuing an RFP. I would not simply select a vendor and choose a product that may meet some notion of what will work for your site.

[Nora]

I have a similar question, but I do not know how to answer all of my questions about what I want yet. I need to come up with a server solution for between 10 and 25 people.
I'd like to get help with how to answer these questions:
How do I know how fast my server needs to process data?
How do I know how much RAM I need? Our office computers are 2GB and that seems OK.
Thanks!
Nora

[Nora]

Another question:
Do we need extra network interface cards on the server or are the ones on our computers enough? If I am planning for 25 people, then do I need 25 cards?
Thanks again!

[ua549]

What are you currently using?
What kind of work will the server do - database, files, applications, email, web, etc.?
How many transactions will the server process per unit of time?
Many servers come with inbuilt gigabit ethernet NICs.
Unless you are serving large files or hundreds of transactions per minute the gigabit NIC should be sufficient.
Memory is dirt cheap these days. I usually provision a server with as much memory as it can hold.

[Nora]

Thanks for the reply-
I need my server to hold a CAD/CAM database. And a small database for part numbers. But I don't see these DBs growing very quickly in the next 5 years.
We use Mozilla Thunderbird email and don't plan to switch to Outlook or similar.
I don't know how to know the answer for how many transactions will the server process per unit of time. For example, the CAD/CAM software (2 users) autosaves every 10 minutes or so. So say every computer (25 maximum computers) saves data every 10 minutes and the data is a maximum of 5MB and a minimum of 175KB (because most users are saving things in Word, Excel, Quickbooks) then I guess a maximum of 75MB every 10 minutes. I would bet it is a lot less since we currently only have 12 users- I am just planning for future.
Is that a correct analysis?
Nora

[ua549]

You are looking at work loads and utilization correctly.
Are you planning a Windows domain? 25 users is quite large for a work group.
Will users store their files on the server? other computers?
If data is stored on individual PCs, don't forget to include space on the server for PC data backups.
It sounds like your needs are minimal.

[Nora]

hello-
Yes all of the users will be storing files on the server.
What is the data speed value when I am looking at these? I see numbers in MHz and Ghz, not mbs...can you point me in the right direction? What is a normal speed for a small business?
All of our computers are Windows based, but I had thought to put a Linux operating system onto the server. Any thoughts? I have Ubuntu on one of my home PCs but otherwise have no experience with Linux.
The server will be on internet.
I would like to have remote backup too. Is this possible?
Thanks in advance for advice!
Nora

[ua549]

Everything is possible. Remote backup can be very slow because of the volume of data. You will want some form of local backup. I would also suggest some form of RAID storage. Personally I use RAID 1 for my OS and programs and RAID 5 for my data.

Network LAN speeds will be either 100 megabits per second or 1 gigabits per second depending on the capabilities of the end points and the switch. (8 bits = 1 byte) Data throughput will be a small fraction (<50%) of the signaling speed because of overhead. Speeds can be mixed on the same LAN, e.g., server @ 1Gb and clients @ 100Mb. Internet connections vary considerably but are often 3M bits per second. It depends on how much money you wish to spend for a commercial internet connection - hundreds to thousands of dollars per month.

Unless you are quite experienced with *nix, day-to-day maintenance and support can be an issue. You may want to consider Windows small business server. Choosing the OS will be your toughest choice. Windows will cost more on the front end, but on going support costs will be minimal. If you decide on *nix, consider a commercial distribution such as Red Hat with support services. CentOS is a Red Hat clone. Depending on your location you may be able to contract with a local firm for support.

[Nora]

why would we choose server instead of external hard drive?

[ua549]

I'm not sure I follow "server"?

You'll want the basic storage to be on RAID to protect against a drive failure and subsequent down time and/or data loss from your last backup point. With RAID if a failure occurs, you simply remove the failed drive, plug in a spare drive and the system automatically rebuilds the missing data. Some configurations can have a hot spare on standby so that you simply replace the failed drive at your convenience.

RAID is not a substitute for a backup.

Can you actually fit a backup on an external hard drive? If so, you may want more than one so that you can keep the backup until another backup is completed. The worst case scenario is a failure during the backup process that not only wipes out the primary storage, but also the backup drive contains partially updated data. Best practice is to never reuse backup media until you are sure there is another good backup.