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Server Advice and Help

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  • Laptops
  • Desktops
  • Business Computing
  • Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
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June 6, 2014 3:25:31 AM

Our office has grown form 2 pc's and a laptop to 3 desktops, 2 laptops, various networked printers, and two touch screen workstations for the factory.
I have everything wired in through a 16 port gigabit switch which is in turn liked into my router (Juniper SSG 5)

Everything is becoming messy and complicated and I'm trying to streamline the operations.

The two factory machines both run off our 'server' database which is just a simple HP desktop with microsoft server 2008 on it.

We now have two ladys doing the accounts that are using Quickbooks and currently share a PC via time seperation. I need them both to now work full time so I will need to add Quickbooks to the server and VPN them into that machine.

We also have a lot of files that are currently on all machines that I would like to centralise onto the server

Most importantly I need the server to be backing up the factory database and maybe copying to the cloud or whatever is suggested.

I also need to be able to VPN from anywhere as supposed to just from the office to the server.

I assume that the current HP PC will not do the job (p6-2180ea) and realise I will need to upgrade to a proper designated server.
From reading other posts I feel it will be best to buy a brand name that is easy to use. My network and server knowledge is mediocre at best.

So I guess what I'm asking is what server do you suggest?
And is this the best thing to do?
What is the best way to back things up (I thought about a tape back-up but I feel this may be old hat now)?
And what is the best way to configure the network? i.e. set-up a mini network independent of what I have at present, with the server as it's core, connect a hub, then to this a PC or two to this and my new router (Juniper SSG 5) to this hub and get the VPN working on this so it can see your files on the server from the Pc and through the VPN
And should I make it all rack mountable and separate for storage etc?

Apologies for the mammoth sized questions, and as stated I'm not great with these things so if I'm way off mark with anything just let me know and be blunt. I trying to learn as fast as I can

More about : server advice

June 6, 2014 6:30:07 AM

I would look at Dell or HP for a pre configured server. I know when I do a business about this size I will look at a Dell T320 server. For backup you could use Veeam, Symantec Backupexec, Windows Server Backup. That part will depend on you and your budget. I would use external hard drives that are rotated out either every day or week depending on what you seem fit.

Are all the computers currently joined to the domain right now?
How much hard drive space is on your current server and how much is being used?

If you feel like this is over your head with purchasing a server, try looking for a IT consulting group in your area. See if they can purchase a server and backup system that will fix your needs. And if you feel confidant that you can setup the server and transfer the data, see if you can use them as a help line for questions.
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June 7, 2014 7:30:33 AM

Yes was planning weekly external drives to be taken away every friday
the database that is on the server is small at only 20gb and only increases by 2gb/year. currently 800gb free
if by domain you mean on our network then yes (apologies as that term is new to mean)
the server is currently peer-peer to the router as are all the other devices via the switch
I think what I need to do is to put the server between the switch and router so all the other devices connect that way?
Thank you for your help jeff. Problem is I live in the middle of nowhere and to get decent IT support its costs about £700 and I can't afford that so trying to get as much free help as I can.
Is there any specific reading you would suggest? or if i just use google I should be ok?
Looked at the DELL T320 and seems affordable just need to try and understand what additions I need in their configerator as alot of it seems foreign to me!
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June 7, 2014 9:20:31 AM

Setting up a separate dedicated server could be quite handy for you not only to help clean up your current network configuration but to allow for improved efficiency and room for future growth. As stated above, I'd suggest looking at Dell or HP for pre-built business class servers.

There's a few things here I wanted to ask before further suggestions:

1) Domain or workgroup? It sounds like the way your network currently is setup is workgroup. This means there is no central computer that is managing all the user accounts, passwords, logins, etc. User accounts are created on the individual computers only. This is most common for small home and business networks with up to ten computers. Once you get beyond that, workgroups get very complex and may even stop working properly. I'd highly recommend at this point planning to implement a domain controller as part of your new server. Set up a virtual machine on the new hardware running Server 2012 R2 and set up the Domain Services roles for creating your user accounts, managing permissions, etc. However, this will also require that the computers in your network are running the Professional version of Windows to join to the domain, so there may be some added cost and complexity there if you need to upgrade licenses or computers.

2) Quickbooks through VPN? I'm a little confused with how you described needing to set up your quickbooks. Do you have two computers locally within your office that need to access Quickbooks? VPN is a remote access technology for people to connect to data or network resources within your office while they are outside the network such as at home or in another town. If you have two employees that will be local in the office needing to access QuickBooks on two computers, then the simple solution is just setting up QuickBooks with Multi-user mode. This allows multiple people to open and work with Quickbooks simultaneously. You can put the main part of Quckbooks and the server database application on your new server, and install the Quickbooks software on each of the other desktops still, connecting back to your server.

3) Proper spacing and resource management? Setting up a simple office server can actually be pretty cost efficient especially if you are doing lightweight work. For example, if you have less than 2 TB of storage space and only need to run a domain controller and file storage, then there is really limited resources or storage capacity needed. However, it sounds like you have more than that which will need to be running on your server. Domain controller, file server, QuickBooks and other application server, plus a database for your workstations. I'd recommend looking into Server 2012 R2 Standard at least, with two virtual machines. One VM would be your domain/DNS/file server, another would be your application server (Quickbooks and database). You can split these out even more for better resource management but that will be more expensive as it requires additional Server 2012 R2 license and hardware resources. But my biggest suggestion is don't try to skimp by! I've seen many places that have ended up trying to save a few hundred dollars and got "just enough" for what they need. Less than a year later they are frustrated because their brand new server isn't powerful enough to handle some new things they want to do, and they have to buy another.
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June 10, 2014 6:11:26 AM

apologies for the long delay in reply been away

currently running workgroup. its a very typical office set-up thats done by a pc enthusiast but now I am trying to put some thought into it to get it working more streamlined

yes I think I'm a little confused as to how best to handle quickbooks. Currently have two ladies that use the same machine. Done by time seperation. But now the workload has come to a point where I need them both to do more. One will be at the office the whole time and the other will be at the office sometimes but would like to work remotely if possible. Will investigate multi user for quickbooks, thank you!

Ok so now I'm thinking I will need a new server with raid 1 for to give a physical back up of the factory database incase of corruption
With cloud back - up (looked at carbonite and looked reasonable) for the factory database, quickbooks and sage accounts

I have managed to fix the VPN issue. Our ISP performed a firmware update on the router and wiped the setting so all I needed to do was re-open the relevant holes.

Can you suggest an particular reading for the set-up of the server. As virtual machines are domain controllers are not something I have worked with before. If google will suffice I will just google my questions. But if there is something particulary useful then please point me in that direction

You siad not to skimp on the server. Can you make any suggestions? As not sure what skimping would be.

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June 10, 2014 4:15:03 PM

One thing to clear up is all. RAID 1 is not for backup. RAID 1 provides redundancy purely for the purpose of keeping the server running in the event that one hard drive fails. But it is NOT a backup. If you accidentally delete your database files, change settings, download a virus, etc. all of those changes are instantly written to the second disk as well, so there's nothing to recover from in that case. I'd suggest RAID 1, yes, for the sake of keeping the server running, but it's indeed true you need to have another form of backup. You addressed this with discussing Carbonite.

Again, it's hard for me to tell you what server to look at as I don't know the specific hardware recommendations or requirements of your specific software, the load you are currently utilizing for hard drive and network throughput, memory demand, etc. However, given what you have stated, I can tell you that at minimum you're looking at something like an HP ML310e G8 server with a quad-core hyperthreaded processor and at minimum 16 GB of RAM. The problem with this system is it isn't tremendously upgradable. For example, the onboard RAID controller is good for small low-throughput environments like a basic file server, but for running multiple virtual machines and database systems, it's going to be pretty limiting and not as stable. So I'd recommend upgrading to a Smart Array P420 SAS RAID controller. You'll also do best with a RAID 10 array of 1 TB hard drives at minimum, and could be nice to have SAS drives. The problem here again is you are limited to four hard drives maximum.

So, if you want more flexibility and room to expand, then you should step up to something more along the lines of the HP ProLiant ML350p G8 server. Start with a single processor and at least 16 GB of RAM, but if you need you can always add a second identical processor for more horsepower and really cram in the RAM on those systems. Of course, you're looking at quite a bit more cost as well.
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