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Small office server for remote users

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  • Business Computing
  • Office
  • Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
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August 15, 2013 7:48:47 AM

Hello,
I would like some advice on what configuartion to get and how many CALs for the office server.
What we need to use: word and excel mainly.
have around 60 staff members
they would need to be able to log in remotely. maximum 10 at any given time.
What server would you recommend? How many cores? how much memory? what platform ? windows 2008? which version?
Users would use work laptops and connect remotely with remote desktop.
Can i create 60 account users on a server?
Any advice would be much appreciated.

More about : small office server remote users

August 15, 2013 8:08:56 AM

Lazlaz said:
Hello,
I would like some advice on what configuartion to get and how many CALs for the office server.
What we need to use: word and excel mainly.
have around 60 staff members
they would need to be able to log in remotely. maximum 10 at any given time.
What server would you recommend? How many cores? how much memory? what platform ? windows 2008? which version?
Users would use work laptops and connect remotely with remote desktop.
Can i create 60 account users on a server?
Any advice would be much appreciated.


I would say server 2008 r2.0 atleast or sbs with 16Gb of ram and 10 CALS , preferably dual sockets with quad core xeons or higher.

ive always wanted to give server 2013 a try or even 2010 but never had the chance. better off using at least 2010 and play it safe for the future.

you can create 60 users easily. are you thinking of doing exchange as well? might as well build one beefy system for the future and host a bunch of stuff on a bunch of tiny servers
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August 15, 2013 8:52:06 AM

Thanks Overclocking.
I have asked for quotes now. Wonder what they will come back with.
have you any specific recommendations? Like a HP or a UK based company who could assemble such a server? I don't think a rack system would be appropriate for us. Any good towers with the kind of memory you mention? Or should i just get a basic tower with dual sockets and upgrade memory on my own?
Whats the difference between 2008r2 and enterpise?
thanks.

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August 16, 2013 6:56:00 AM

Lazlaz said:
Thanks Overclocking.
I have asked for quotes now. Wonder what they will come back with.
have you any specific recommendations? Like a HP or a UK based company who could assemble such a server? I don't think a rack system would be appropriate for us. Any good towers with the kind of memory you mention? Or should i just get a basic tower with dual sockets and upgrade memory on my own?
Whats the difference between 2008r2 and enterpise?
thanks.



Hmm Id say If you have a Rack Rack mount it. There are plenty of beefy servers that are rack mountable that will hold 64GB+ of ram and have dual sockets. I would Give IBM A try Or even HP's but I cant say much about the HP servers a whole lot anymore.

I know we have used a couple IBM servers and they handle tons of people well. You would honestly have to find your price range and build around that and custom build one from them. Remember get tons af big drives for your raid and backup drives when doing this, Its not worth running out of space.

This may help with the difference between the two editions www.dell.com/downloads/.../OS%20Spec%20STDvENT_FINAL.pd...

I would try and use 2010 or 13 since 2008 is already 5+ years old
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August 16, 2013 7:18:27 AM

The server editions out and available for use as a platform are Server 2008 R2 or Server 2012. Which one you should use is going to depend upon software and hardware compatibility that you are planning and utilizing currently. If everything supports it, I'd highly recommend going with the newer Server 2012, as there are many improvements and features, and it is replacing Server 2008 R2.

We use primarily HP servers for our customers, and they are wonderful servers. Very high quality, tons of support, highly configurable. The down side is that Gen8 servers require HP Gen8 hard drives (due to the SmartDrive caddies) which makes storage cost much more expensive compared to OEM enterprise drives like the Western Digital RE drives.

For what you are looking to do, I'd also highly recommend virtualizing your workload to separate it out into multiple components for ease of maintenance. For instance, with a single license of Server 2012 Standard you can also run two virtual machines with that same license. I'd create one VM for your domain controller, set up all of your user accounts and domain policies, along with any network storage rules necessary. Then create a second VM for your remote desktop session services. This way when users do remote access back to your server they aren't logging into the same desktop environment that is actually used to manage all of your users accounts and permissions.

But there are more options than even that. First, you need to determine if you are going to be using session-based remote desktop, where each user logs in to the same virtual machine and has access to a session with the same desktop, programs, etc. Generally changes that are made during each session are lost once they log out (such as saving files to desktop, My Documents, etc.) Session-based remote desktop is the more traditional way that RDS has been done in the past. However, many people are making the move to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) leveraging more powerful modern hardware. This allows individual users to log into individual virtual machines. They have their own virtual computer to work with that isn't simultaneously shared with others, so they can make changes, save files, etc. and you can customize each VM individually as needed for the end user(s). VDI is a little more complex to set up, but sometimes offers a little more options for people if you need to give them the full desktop experience including highly customizable desktop environment.
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