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New server for small school

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  • school server
  • windows server 2012
  • Business Computing
  • Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
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July 9, 2013 1:48:18 AM

Hi guys,
I have just graduated from a university and now accepted working at a small private school. I have few issues and I would like your advice if possible. Here is the scenario (sorry if its long and pardon my english):

This is a new school and have been operating for about 2 years now. The school does not or never have any server and all work or files only saved locally (on each pc). We have internet WIFI and LAN connection in the entire school (not lease, just simple adsl with 15mb speed). anyway, I found that basically all tasks could be handle.

As the only and first IT guy employee in school so I have suggested to purchase a new server - and got accepted. The main focus of this first server is for domain controller, active directory, file/printer sharing, domain/client setup. and will not be using for Mail, Web, or SQL server.

The school has 35 computers (2 laptops, 18 for teacher in classroom, 10 in com lab, 5 for admin), with total of 45 staff (admin, teachers and teacher assistant).

So, I decided to contact local supplier and ask for quotation. Here is what I received:
IBM Server X3250 M4 1
Xeon 4C E3-1220v2 69W 3.1GHz
2x4GB DDR3 UDIMM Up to 32 GB with 4 Slot
2x2TB 3.5 in SS SATA
Integrated two port gigabit Ethernet
300W AC Power Supply
Windows Server 2012 Standard
WinServer 2012 CALs - 45 users.

With a limited budget, do you think this specs is ok? we will expand in the future but this is I think the kind for server I would like to go first.

I will do all the implementation on both server/domain controller and client. so is there any advice before?

also, how do I set up the kids computer lab?

Thank you for your help.

Cheers;

More about : server small school

July 9, 2013 2:07:42 AM

Save money and get a linux server. Samba 4 can do active directory.

That being said, you didn't list a price. You will most likely want more than 2TB (I know there are two, but you will want to do RAID1 if you want to keep your job.)
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July 9, 2013 2:08:26 AM

Looks good, but you might want server-quality RAM and HDDs, as in the ones that are meant to stay active for an indefinite period of time. (WD RED for example) Also, get a better PSU. A bad PSU could lead to crashing and whatnot.
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July 9, 2013 2:08:27 AM

Looks good, but you might want server-quality RAM and HDDs, as in the ones that are meant to stay active for an indefinite period of time. (WD RED for example) Also, get a better PSU. A bad PSU could lead to crashing and whatnot.
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July 9, 2013 2:16:05 AM

redarsenal said:
Hi guys,
I have just graduated from a university and now accepted working at a small private school. I have few issues and I would like your advice if possible. Here is the scenario (sorry if its long and pardon my english):

This is a new school and have been operating for about 2 years now. The school does not or never have any server and all work or files only saved locally (on each pc). We have internet WIFI and LAN connection in the entire school (not lease, just simple adsl with 15mb speed). anyway, I found that basically all tasks could be handle.

As the only and first IT guy employee in school so I have suggested to purchase a new server - and got accepted. The main focus of this first server is for domain controller, active directory, file/printer sharing, domain/client setup. and will not be using for Mail, Web, or SQL server.

The school has 35 computers (2 laptops, 18 for teacher in classroom, 10 in com lab, 5 for admin), with total of 45 staff (admin, teachers and teacher assistant).

So, I decided to contact local supplier and ask for quotation. Here is what I received:
IBM Server X3250 M4 1
Xeon 4C E3-1220v2 69W 3.1GHz
2x4GB DDR3 UDIMM Up to 32 GB with 4 Slot
2x2TB 3.5 in SS SATA
Integrated two port gigabit Ethernet
300W AC Power Supply
Windows Server 2012 Standard
WinServer 2012 CALs - 45 users.

With a limited budget, do you think this specs is ok? we will expand in the future but this is I think the kind for server I would like to go first.

I will do all the implementation on both server/domain controller and client. so is there any advice before?

also, how do I set up the kids computer lab?

Thank you for your help.

Cheers;


Firstly, ignore the suggestion to use Samba, it will work but the overhead for setting it up is too high. If you're a Linux guru then fine but for the most part Windows Server is easier to get going.

Secondly, the server spec is fine but you will need to make sure you have a decent warranty with rapid swap-out (and I do mean rapid - 4 hours max). If it's anything like where I work everything ends up on the server and if the server goes down suddenly no teaching can happen.

Thirdly, don't forget that you will need a domain name and the server will need to resolve on DNS or you can't set up Active Directory!
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July 9, 2013 2:29:11 AM

thanks guys, your advice is really appreciated.

@loosescrews I actually choose windows server because I used to work and play around with it during my study (installation, configuration, active directory, policy etc,) and never have any experience with Linux. though, I will certainly look into it and do some research to compare. Yes, HDD will use RAID1 backup.

@Thanatos Telos I haven't really check more in details about the quality of RAM and HDD, but thanks for pointing out. I will definitely check with my supplier to make sure.

@mkaibear thanks for the advice and new good info for me. The product warranty that we are getting is 3 years on site service. Yes, that is the most scaries issue that could happen if the server goes down, and this is the first school single server.

Also I forget to mention, the total price for all is around $4,300 (CALs price is really high)
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July 9, 2013 2:39:06 AM

redarsenal said:
thanks guys, your advice is really appreciated.

@loosescrews I actually choose windows server because I used to work and play around with it during my study (installation, configuration, active directory, policy etc,) and never have any experience with Linux. though, I will certainly look into it and do some research to compare. Yes, HDD will use RAID1 backup.

@Thanatos Telos I haven't really check more in details about the quality of RAM and HDD, but thanks for pointing out. I will definitely check with my supplier to make sure.

@mkaibear thanks for the advice and new good info for me. The product warranty that we are getting is 3 years on site service. Yes, that is the most scaries issue that could happen if the server goes down, and this is the first school single server.

Also I forget to mention, the total price for all is around $4,300 (CALs price is really high)


Oh, and the one big question I didn't ask before - how are you backing this up?

...and how are you planning on testing the backups - don't forget a backup isn't a backup unless it's been tested!
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July 9, 2013 2:49:35 AM

@mkaibear hmmm, to be honest I didn't really think through about this. My initial plan is just to back up all current files and documents (from each PC) on an external hard drive and transfer to the server once its been set up. create share drive etc.. - I hope this is what you mean.
anyway, if everything goes well this new server and all implementation will be done during the school holiday (2 weeks). Perhaps it will cover all the testing stage as well.... do you think this is enough time? and correct steps to do?
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July 9, 2013 2:54:12 AM

also, I'm actually quite confused with the CALs thingy. If our school has more students/staff in the future does that mean we will be purchasing more CAL every year/month?? I asked my supplier and all they tell me that we need CAL in order for us to use 100% licencing. I do some research and understand that it allow each user access to all the instances of a particular server product - which mean it is important.
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July 9, 2013 3:07:27 AM

redarsenal said:
@mkaibear hmmm, to be honest I didn't really think through about this. My initial plan is just to back up all current files and documents (from each PC) on an external hard drive and transfer to the server once its been set up. create share drive etc.. - I hope this is what you mean.
anyway, if everything goes well this new server and all implementation will be done during the school holiday (2 weeks). Perhaps it will cover all the testing stage as well.... do you think this is enough time? and correct steps to do?


No, that's not ok. What happens if the server dies and you lose both hard drives? What happens if someone accidentally deletes everything off the shared drives (it's happened here, department head deleted a whole department's share - of course the RAID doesn't protect you against user deletions!).

You need regular backups of the data. Ideally a daily backup where you have a nightly copy of the data, a weekly backup where you store the data away from the server (in another room, say), and a monthly backup where you store the data on a completely different site.
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July 9, 2013 3:08:15 AM

redarsenal said:
also, I'm actually quite confused with the CALs thingy. If our school has more students/staff in the future does that mean we will be purchasing more CAL every year/month?? I asked my supplier and all they tell me that we need CAL in order for us to use 100% licencing. I do some research and understand that it allow each user access to all the instances of a particular server product - which mean it is important.


CALs are difficult. Different places will tell you different things about what you need. Make sure you speak to several vendors to make sure you are getting the best deal.
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July 9, 2013 3:34:01 AM

mkaibear said:
redarsenal said:
@mkaibear hmmm, to be honest I didn't really think through about this. My initial plan is just to back up all current files and documents (from each PC) on an external hard drive and transfer to the server once its been set up. create share drive etc.. - I hope this is what you mean.
anyway, if everything goes well this new server and all implementation will be done during the school holiday (2 weeks). Perhaps it will cover all the testing stage as well.... do you think this is enough time? and correct steps to do?


No, that's not ok. What happens if the server dies and you lose both hard drives? What happens if someone accidentally deletes everything off the shared drives (it's happened here, department head deleted a whole department's share - of course the RAID doesn't protect you against user deletions!).

You need regular backups of the data. Ideally a daily backup where you have a nightly copy of the data, a weekly backup where you store the data away from the server (in another room, say), and a monthly backup where you store the data on a completely different site.


thanks, I wouldn't think that yet if you didn't mention. I guess for now we will just depend on that second hard drive for our back up (will set up auto back up every mid night - mirror RAID). Hmm, it worries me now if that happens :)  May be will get a solution once the school has more budget for it.

re to CALSs, can I ask which one does your school using now? USER CALs or DEVICE CALs? how about server essential version? would it be more efficient for long term use?
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July 9, 2013 3:57:39 AM

redarsenal said:
mkaibear said:
redarsenal said:
@mkaibear hmmm, to be honest I didn't really think through about this. My initial plan is just to back up all current files and documents (from each PC) on an external hard drive and transfer to the server once its been set up. create share drive etc.. - I hope this is what you mean.
anyway, if everything goes well this new server and all implementation will be done during the school holiday (2 weeks). Perhaps it will cover all the testing stage as well.... do you think this is enough time? and correct steps to do?


No, that's not ok. What happens if the server dies and you lose both hard drives? What happens if someone accidentally deletes everything off the shared drives (it's happened here, department head deleted a whole department's share - of course the RAID doesn't protect you against user deletions!).

You need regular backups of the data. Ideally a daily backup where you have a nightly copy of the data, a weekly backup where you store the data away from the server (in another room, say), and a monthly backup where you store the data on a completely different site.


thanks, I wouldn't think that yet if you didn't mention. I guess for now we will just depend on that second hard drive for our back up (will set up auto back up every mid night - mirror RAID). Hmm, it worries me now if that happens :)  May be will get a solution once the school has more budget for it.

re to CALSs, can I ask which one does your school using now? USER CALs or DEVICE CALs? how about server essential version? would it be more efficient for long term use?



RAID is not backup.
http://serverfault.com/questions/2888/why-is-raid-not-a...

At the very least you want 3 2Tb external hard drives in the config I mentioned to you - one daily, one weekly, one monthly. Not an expensive solution!


We use "Microsoft Select Agreement" and pay one ridiculous lump sum to allow any of our 1500 staff and 9000 students to use pretty much any Microsoft products. Not really comparable I'm afraid!
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July 9, 2013 6:59:51 AM

I would suggest that you purchase per-device CALs instead of per-user CALs. This will save you money I believe.

Honestly this situation can be handled with a single domain, but you may wish to consider actually running two. One domain would reside on a separate VLAN and would be only for staff and administration, while the other domain would be in a different VLAN and would be only for students. The reason for this is 1) you are keeping your student-access limited to only student network resources. They are blocked at the physical level from access to the staff network so even if they did get a teacher's password, they can't get access to anything. Second, you can set up authentication per user for the students as well. This is going to be more important into the future when you might need to be monitoring who has access to what, and what a particular user has been doing on the computer and on the network.

The server that you linked to was a pretty basic system, and given the cost kinda pricy for what it is honestly. I've looked into HP servers with more performance and features for about the same cost. Your first server doesn't have to be huge, but you're going to want to virtualize to give you the room to grow, and the flexibility of moving your services around in the event of some kind of failure or future upgrades. You can virtualize your environment all within the original licensing cost of Server 2012, so that's not going to cost you anything additional initially. As you grow and need to run more virtual servers and physical servers then you just purchase additional licenses of Server 2012, but a single Standard license includes running two virtual machines on a single physical host. If you prefer to instead go with VMWare that is possible, but the cost for entry is much greater, and it is much more complex to set up.

It's hard for us to say how much storage space you will need, but 2 TB may get filled up in that size of environment pretty quickly. Still, it's a starting point. What you may consider doing, though, is getting four 2 TB drives in RAID 10. This will give you twice the throughput, which is necessary for future growth running multiple virtual machines and multiple simultaneous access. It will also give you 4 TB of total storage to work with in creating VMs and actual data stores. This should be run with a nice dedicated RAID controller, and not some basic integrated software controller, so figure in some additional expense in upgrading the RAID controller.

As others have mentioned, you need a backup routine besides the RAID array, to regularly be copying your data to. Also, don't forget the UPS. A quality battery backup is crucial in not only providing continual runtime to your server if the power goes out, but helps protect the system from power surges or electrical fluctuations which could cripple a computer.
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July 9, 2013 10:57:52 PM

choucove said:
I would suggest that you purchase per-device CALs instead of per-user CALs. This will save you money I believe.

Honestly this situation can be handled with a single domain, but you may wish to consider actually running two. One domain would reside on a separate VLAN and would be only for staff and administration, while the other domain would be in a different VLAN and would be only for students. The reason for this is 1) you are keeping your student-access limited to only student network resources. They are blocked at the physical level from access to the staff network so even if they did get a teacher's password, they can't get access to anything. Second, you can set up authentication per user for the students as well. This is going to be more important into the future when you might need to be monitoring who has access to what, and what a particular user has been doing on the computer and on the network.

The server that you linked to was a pretty basic system, and given the cost kinda pricy for what it is honestly. I've looked into HP servers with more performance and features for about the same cost. Your first server doesn't have to be huge, but you're going to want to virtualize to give you the room to grow, and the flexibility of moving your services around in the event of some kind of failure or future upgrades. You can virtualize your environment all within the original licensing cost of Server 2012, so that's not going to cost you anything additional initially. As you grow and need to run more virtual servers and physical servers then you just purchase additional licenses of Server 2012, but a single Standard license includes running two virtual machines on a single physical host. If you prefer to instead go with VMWare that is possible, but the cost for entry is much greater, and it is much more complex to set up.

It's hard for us to say how much storage space you will need, but 2 TB may get filled up in that size of environment pretty quickly. Still, it's a starting point. What you may consider doing, though, is getting four 2 TB drives in RAID 10. This will give you twice the throughput, which is necessary for future growth running multiple virtual machines and multiple simultaneous access. It will also give you 4 TB of total storage to work with in creating VMs and actual data stores. This should be run with a nice dedicated RAID controller, and not some basic integrated software controller, so figure in some additional expense in upgrading the RAID controller.

As others have mentioned, you need a backup routine besides the RAID array, to regularly be copying your data to. Also, don't forget the UPS. A quality battery backup is crucial in not only providing continual runtime to your server if the power goes out, but helps protect the system from power surges or electrical fluctuations which could cripple a computer.


Many thanks for your advice!! this has been very useful and exactly what I need to know. All points noted and will work on the situation here.. however, additional cost will not be our strong point at the moment.

I do not have much knowledge about virtualizing/licencing and yes I notice MSServer 2013 standard comes with 2 VM. so, do you think this machine can run additional 2VMs? or is it better to wait and invest on higher specs machine instead (may be next year)?

Also thanks for pointing out about the price, actually those number are not include rack, ups, anti virus etc.. so, will definitely contact more vendors to compare. oh, I really forget to ask this but my vendor also suggested me to have Kerio Control install. Do you think this is necessary?
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July 9, 2013 11:21:00 PM

mkaibear said:
redarsenal said:
mkaibear said:
redarsenal said:
@mkaibear hmmm, to be honest I didn't really think through about this. My initial plan is just to back up all current files and documents (from each PC) on an external hard drive and transfer to the server once its been set up. create share drive etc.. - I hope this is what you mean.
anyway, if everything goes well this new server and all implementation will be done during the school holiday (2 weeks). Perhaps it will cover all the testing stage as well.... do you think this is enough time? and correct steps to do?


No, that's not ok. What happens if the server dies and you lose both hard drives? What happens if someone accidentally deletes everything off the shared drives (it's happened here, department head deleted a whole department's share - of course the RAID doesn't protect you against user deletions!).

You need regular backups of the data. Ideally a daily backup where you have a nightly copy of the data, a weekly backup where you store the data away from the server (in another room, say), and a monthly backup where you store the data on a completely different site.


thanks, I wouldn't think that yet if you didn't mention. I guess for now we will just depend on that second hard drive for our back up (will set up auto back up every mid night - mirror RAID). Hmm, it worries me now if that happens :)  May be will get a solution once the school has more budget for it.

re to CALSs, can I ask which one does your school using now? USER CALs or DEVICE CALs? how about server essential version? would it be more efficient for long term use?



RAID is not backup.
http://serverfault.com/questions/2888/why-is-raid-not-a...

At the very least you want 3 2Tb external hard drives in the config I mentioned to you - one daily, one weekly, one monthly. Not an expensive solution!


We use "Microsoft Select Agreement" and pay one ridiculous lump sum to allow any of our 1500 staff and 9000 students to use pretty much any Microsoft products. Not really comparable I'm afraid!


woohh.., ok 1500 staff and 9000 student? that's not even close to compare with.

And thanks for the advice about back up, I didn't think about this as I only understand to use RAID (foolishly as a back up). Perhaps because we are just a small school and do not process very large number of data. I will adjust our budget again and go with this solution.
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Best solution

July 10, 2013 10:07:45 AM

The server system that you originally quoted out might be able to do up to two virtual machines, though they will need to be pretty low power VMs and won't give you much room to expand them. The good thing is that server can accommodate more memory in the future, so that gives you a starting place at least.

The big thing that I'm concerned with on that particular server is there just are certain points that aren't quite where I personally would feel comfortable rolling it out as the sole server for a network this size. For instance, the server does not use redundant power supplies, so if you do have the PSU fail your entire server and all of your network is out. The onboard RAID controller is going to be software based with no cache, so not only will performance be affected, but it's not going to be the most reliable storage for protecting critical data in the event of power failure. This risk is lessened with having a decent battery backup unit in place, but is still going to be a hurdle that eventually will have to be overcome.

In an ideal situation for the type of network you are running and the ability to grow with future needs, I'd recommend looking into a server with dual-processor capabilities, even if you start with just a single processor for now. Quad core, with hyper-threading optimally, would be the minimum for processor performance, an 16 GB of RAM for running at least two virtual machines with plenty of RAM to increase the capabilities of those VMs or add more if you need. You also need something with as many NIC ports as possible, and just two onboard gigabit NICs is going to be pretty limiting as you grow, so something with an onboard quad-port NIC would be ideal. And finally, a decent dedicated hardware RAID controller. Many pre-built servers like those from Dell and HP come with these hardware RAID controllers still imbedded on the server motherboard, but it is much different than the basic software RAID used in the entry-level server configurations.

I know that all of this translates into more cost, though, so that's why I would recommend contacting multiple vendors or even getting directly in touch with the manufacturers like Dell or HP and get their input and pricing for your needs.

I'm not sure where you are located, or if you qualify really, but you should also look into technology assistance for educational institutes such as TechSoup, which can offer unbelievable price discounts on everything from software to network hardware to qualifying organizations.
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July 10, 2013 8:28:00 PM

choucove said:
The server system that you originally quoted out might be able to do up to two virtual machines, though they will need to be pretty low power VMs and won't give you much room to expand them. The good thing is that server can accommodate more memory in the future, so that gives you a starting place at least.

The big thing that I'm concerned with on that particular server is there just are certain points that aren't quite where I personally would feel comfortable rolling it out as the sole server for a network this size. For instance, the server does not use redundant power supplies, so if you do have the PSU fail your entire server and all of your network is out. The onboard RAID controller is going to be software based with no cache, so not only will performance be affected, but it's not going to be the most reliable storage for protecting critical data in the event of power failure. This risk is lessened with having a decent battery backup unit in place, but is still going to be a hurdle that eventually will have to be overcome.

In an ideal situation for the type of network you are running and the ability to grow with future needs, I'd recommend looking into a server with dual-processor capabilities, even if you start with just a single processor for now. Quad core, with hyper-threading optimally, would be the minimum for processor performance, an 16 GB of RAM for running at least two virtual machines with plenty of RAM to increase the capabilities of those VMs or add more if you need. You also need something with as many NIC ports as possible, and just two onboard gigabit NICs is going to be pretty limiting as you grow, so something with an onboard quad-port NIC would be ideal. And finally, a decent dedicated hardware RAID controller. Many pre-built servers like those from Dell and HP come with these hardware RAID controllers still imbedded on the server motherboard, but it is much different than the basic software RAID used in the entry-level server configurations.

I know that all of this translates into more cost, though, so that's why I would recommend contacting multiple vendors or even getting directly in touch with the manufacturers like Dell or HP and get their input and pricing for your needs.

I'm not sure where you are located, or if you qualify really, but you should also look into technology assistance for educational institutes such as TechSoup, which can offer unbelievable price discounts on everything from software to network hardware to qualifying organizations.


Thanks again for this advice! I did some reasearch about what you mentioned and indeed all that translate into more cost.

Well, I just had a meeting with my boss today about this project and it wasn't easy to explained and convince about all these technical stuffs but in the end he also agrees about the ability to grow in future. We are a small school but growing quite fast. Anyway, I got a green light to expand my budget (wisely of course) and come up with something better and best for our situation. So, what I'm going to do now is to directly contact manufacturer to get their input and best price. Actually the reason why I didn't directly in touch with one of the manufactures before is because our school is located about 3 hours drive from the city. We are in a small town (here in ASIA) with limited resources, no direct manufacture and few vendors to compare (that is also why price is higher). What really concern me is the ability to get support in the future.

To be honest after you mentioned about it, I think i'm not really qualify - yet. That is why I open this thread to ask opinions. Like I mentioned before I'm a newly graduated and this
is my first job/project. I totally understand the risk and all but also exited with this opportunity :) 
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July 10, 2013 9:00:49 PM

I own a business in a rural small town area myself, and the closest Dell or HP support center is at least three hours away, so support falls to local providers here. This is where it's going to be important for you to get to know local help, and also start playing with the equipment yourself. You're not going to learn it unless you get your hands dirty in it. I learned virtualization simply by getting a server and starting playing with it. If you need something to use as a test bed, you can purchase a used older generation server for dirt cheap sometimes and even incorporate it into future usage for your primary server. I'm not sure what brands would be more easily supported or available in your area, but what might be a good idea, if you can swing it, is to see about spending a little bit of money buying a basic server of the same type you are looking at getting, but perhaps just a generation or two older and used. This way you're getting a sense for the quality of the server, and have a system you can begin building and testing your virtual machines, domains, group policies, and everything on. In the mean time, you can also be researching local partners to help with supporting the server if you don't wish to have to deal with that yourself. It also gives you time to find the best deal.
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July 10, 2013 9:47:29 PM

choucove said:
I own a business in a rural small town area myself, and the closest Dell or HP support center is at least three hours away, so support falls to local providers here. This is where it's going to be important for you to get to know local help, and also start playing with the equipment yourself. You're not going to learn it unless you get your hands dirty in it. I learned virtualization simply by getting a server and starting playing with it. If you need something to use as a test bed, you can purchase a used older generation server for dirt cheap sometimes and even incorporate it into future usage for your primary server. I'm not sure what brands would be more easily supported or available in your area, but what might be a good idea, if you can swing it, is to see about spending a little bit of money buying a basic server of the same type you are looking at getting, but perhaps just a generation or two older and used. This way you're getting a sense for the quality of the server, and have a system you can begin building and testing your virtual machines, domains, group policies, and everything on. In the mean time, you can also be researching local partners to help with supporting the server if you don't wish to have to deal with that yourself. It also gives you time to find the best deal.


Yes exactly, that is what I have in mind as well. We have a pretty good relationship with some local vendors where most of our equipment's are from. So, with this new adjusted budget I will try to get the best deal from direct manufacturer and look for local partners to help with supporting.

anyway, thanks once again for all your advises (also others before). now at least i have a better and clear idea of what I need and best for this project. not to forget, I was able to convince my boss to give extra money for first project.

cheers;
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