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Setting up and managing a medium business server

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  • Business Computing
  • Servers
Last response: in Business Computing
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June 27, 2013 5:40:07 PM

So I'm a fairly intelligent person with a semi decent IT background, and anything I don't know, I can learn.

With that in mind my company has finally decided we need to figure out what's going on with our server, and upgrade. With that, we need someone who actually knows anything about server architecture. Apparently that's going to be me.

So my question is does anyone have any good books they would recommend for someone looking to get a crash course in business server architecture and operations?

More then anything I guess I'm looking for a good starting point, then maybe a few advanced points to move toward.

Yes, we should probably just hire an ACTUAL IT Networking guy. We won't. So don't respond with that, its of little help. Any other help or advice is appreciated.

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June 27, 2013 8:40:14 PM

I think it's kind of hard to recommend where to start at, because servers in their nature are so specialized in so many different areas. For instance, is your server maintaining a database, or being a network domain controller? Is it doing just file sharing, or are you using it for terminal services? Determining what your server is used for is where you should begin, and from there look up and research those specific roles.
June 27, 2013 10:47:44 PM

For now it will just be a file sharing network between about 15-20 people. Right now we sit at about 15 gigs not counting any of the backups. Those 20 people all need to be able to read, write, and edit files simultaneously without the entire thing freezing constantly or taking 20+ seconds to open folders/files (Thats what we're dealing with now, and its only going to get worse as the year goes on).

I would like room to grow, but for now I'll focus on our immediate needs, and worry about web servers and whatnot later.

Does that help at all? In the mean time, your advice at least has me on a decent path, instead of just struggling through the massive amounts of information out there.
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June 28, 2013 4:19:24 AM

My honest answer would be to start with learning how Windows Server works. You are going to do this regardless of anything anyone tells you, so I'm going to try to point you in the right direction :p 

Look over some of the training material for whatever version of server you are running. I tend to stress this, but core understanding of how and what servers do is a huge chasm between armchair IT and real IT, from my experience.

Some questions to ask, since it sounds like it may be as much of a hardware problem as a software problem:
How large are the files that users are opening and editing?
How I/O and traffic intensive is working in these open files?
How are disks currently setup in your existing server? (E.G. is it a RAID 1 with 2 7200 RPM disks or a RAID 5 with 4 10k rpm disks?)

From there - I would try to find out what your current bottlenecks are. If it turns out that your users are saturating your network and you are running on a 10/100 core switch, then you may need to buy a gigabit core switch and see about teaming network adapters on your server (ideally, the network adapters are going to be teamed under any circumstances - but I often seen people who have just plugged in their network adapter).

Also, ESX is free - if you see your company expanding, is it worth investing the time to learn about virtualization for your upgrade/new servers?
June 28, 2013 6:55:11 AM

Cscott_it has some good points above. Determining what you need, and determining what is wrong, can help really narrow the field of information you can research through to try and solve your issues.

File storage can be simple to implement, but for efficient performance, data protection, and security access things can get more complex. Poor performance with accessing shared files can be attributed to both software and hardware, and not always just with the server either. Your network infrastructure itself can be a culprit if it is not capable of offering you the throughput you need for moving large amounts of data back and forth simultaneously. Nice quality gigabit switches are cheap anymore. Sometimes a small business might need a managed switch with extra features, such as VLANs or Quality of Service Prioritization, but this also is more expensive.

Also, the main storage sub-system (the hard drives) is the slowest component for any computer for data access. The faster your hard drive throughput, the faster you can access data and bandwidth. Data transfer, however, will operate at the speed of the slowest connection. What this means is if your server hard drive has an average throughput of 125 MB/s, and if you have a gigabit network operating optimally giving you about 110 MB/s, then you will only get the 110 MB/s to your end computer. What makes it worse, though, is if the end workstation computer hard drive only has a throughput of say 70 MB/s like many cheaper standard mechanical hard drives, then your data transfer from the server to the client or vice versa will be only 70 MB/s or less.

What you may be running into, though, is that each client computer is simultaneously accessing data and throughput and not only is your network saturated, but your hard drive system in your server cannot keep up with the demand. This is where performance hard drives, specialized RAID, and such can help out with throughput efficiency. It might help to know more about your current server - specifications, hard drive configuration, operating system, etc. - and we might be able to also help you along with suggestions to eliminate the performance issues you are seeing.

For your specific needs, I'd recommend doing some testing and benchmarking to determine where you are running into troubles. Use a utility like HDTune on the server to determine the throughput of your hard drives. You can also do HDTune on one of your end computers to get an idea of how your hard drives are performing on the server and client side. Finally, try copying files back and forth to the server and see what kind of throughput performance you get with that.
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