Server Setup for Medium Sized Business

[imperium2335]

Hi,

I would like some advice on what would be the most suitable server setup for my scenario, which is as follows:

There will be about 100 users logged onto the domain and accessing files on the server.

We have an internal information management system that has a large database behind it which the staff will be working on, so a lot of database (mysql) queries, read/writes etc.

We want a redundancy solution that is as bullet proof as possible to keep down time to a minimum.

And finally a back up solution.


I am current thinking of a RAID 1 setup for the boot drive, a fast IBIS SSD for the database drive, and a RAID 0 + 1 setup (4 drives) for the shared user areas.

We are considering setting up two servers that are identical, both with the specs above, the idea being if one fails the other kicks in, which would be a manual process as I have no idea how you would get this to happen automatically.

Backup will be done to NAS drives every hour, and at the end of each day a backup is taken home on a usb ex-HD.

Is that the best way to ensure minimal downtime or would it be better to just build one super server instead of two smaller ones?

Budget is £4500 (about $9000).

This is going to be a custom build.

 

[imperium2335]

Anyone?

 

[Kewlx25]

MYSQL indicates opensource. Why not use ZFS on FreeBSD. Much more resilient than just standard raid 0+1.

As for a backup, do you have any other back-up servers you can use?

Man, medium business is kind of a sucky place to be. You have enough important data, but not enough funding for a decent setup.

$9k isn't much for a DB server in with critical data. Ask your superiors how much that data is worth to them, because that's how much your should spend. Don't worry about performance, worry about your storage system. At my job, a DB server is $60k and we off-site back-up 10TB every night to a local 150miles(240km) away.

Ideally, you would have your server admin and your DB admin decide what kind of setup they need instead of asking on a forum.

 

[imperium2335]

Thanks, I am the server and db admin tho lol! $60k!! Is that for storage? Because at present we only have 50gb tops.

 

[imperium2335]

BTW the database I'm working with is currently 6MB, and grows at about 300KB each day.

Does that mean that for now, I don't need that much RAM, I am thinking about 6GB DDR3 triple chan (not ecc as from what I've read it really isn't worth it), do you think that is more than enough for now?

 

[Kewlx25]

Sounds like you have a fairly small DB requirement. A weaker single socket 6core DB with 6GB of memory will probably do well.

As I said, the storage is the most important. You don't need to go crazy on really expensive storage, but make sure it's backed-up well. ZFS is awesome as a storage file system. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Losing your data to corruption or human mistakes is an expensive "oops".

P.S. Don't forget to check your back-ups. The admins at my job do a monthly test of back-ups to make sure the process is working. I've heard horror stories of back-up devices being incorrectly setup and after years of running, something happened and the back-up was needed. Turns out the back-ups are corrupted and the multi-million dollar business about disappears over night.

 

[nigelren]

Hiya
Instead of building it yourself - which always has potential for problems ( IMHO ) how about buying a decent second hand server. You can get a decent HP server for less than half your budget, especially DL585's or even 385's. I have a 585 with dual PSU, dual NIC, quad CPU(4x4 core), 32GB ram, 256MB battery backed RAID card which has cost me about £800 to build ( off E-Bay). Both the 385 and 585 have an 8 bay drive cage which supports SAS and SATA drives. The P400 card supports RAID 1,10,5,6 for fault tolerance, the battery backup allows you to move the drives and controller to a new machine to allow any operations to complete in instances of total failure of the server.
The PSU's and hard drives are hot swap to can be changed on the fly in case of failure, so no need to take the machine down either.

Nigel
( Hoping that I don't sound too much of a HP salesman :-/ )

 

[Jurgens]

Lose that fancy stuff. i have the exact same server. just with a i5 and 16gb ram. server 2008 standard 64 R2...

all you need to do is take that server and put in another 2 drives 2 x 1tb. in level 1 Raid (mirroring) for the backups. so if 1 harddrive crash, the other 1 will still have the data on it. (it works like a dream for me)

MySQL aint a real biggy. te biggy is the connectivity to the server. get yourself 4 RJ45 lan ports (1gb/s) so you have high speed acces to the server.

i dont know the layout of the office. but try to get a cable from each hub to the server. if you have 1 hub, great. smack all four cables into that hub.

but anyway. your build will do good. i recomend server 2008 enterprise 32 bit.. i think it can take 64gb ram, not so sure. but it is not needed for a second server. as i said, put in 2 extra drives in RAID1 for backups. your data will be save on the server. secure and updated. you will just need MySQL software for the backups. but thats your prob for later.

i hope i could have helped you

REGARDS

 

[Jurgens]

oh and get a huge UPS. enough said