Advice on server specs

[Mr.Clark]

I've been asked to spec out some new servers - 2 domain controllers and a set for Network Access Protection

For the DCs, I've looked at Dell's R200s, with not a huge amount of CPU, RAM or disk, coming in at under £700 each.

For NAP, I'm looking at running a PowerEdge 2950 with the Policy Server, Health Server and Enforcement Server running as separate VMs, possibly under HyperV. Also possibly another VM running a WSUS child and Trend AV updates for the NAP non-compliant clients.

I specced up a fairly chunky box with a 2.8GHz quad Xeon, 12 or 16GB RAM, 4 or 6 450GB drives in RAID5 coming in at around the £4k mark.


Do these sound reasonable? We've got a Select agreement, so will get the OSes separate (Server 2008 Enterprise, probably) for not a huge amount.

I'll be having discussions with the guys, but jsut want to sanity check my selections before I do, in case I've done something glaringly obviously dull.

Thanks

 

[Mr.Clark]

I don't think I could sell that to the guys - we'd need 2 VM boxes running a DC each, plus the NAP VMs in their own little DHCP area... it seems overly complex.

What makes the R710 better than the 2950? It seems higher priced for an equivalent spec.

 

[Mr.Clark]

Having both DCs on the same box would be unwise, as they'd be the only 2 in the domain (we're doing a new one).

I'll ask about having a virtual DC - can HyperV allow you to do a Physical-to-Virtual? Being able to create one DC and clone it into a VM would be quite nifty.

Dell need to work on their marketing... I couldn't see any differences between the Xeons. Model numbers mean nothing, I'm not ujp on desktop chips atm, let alone server ones.


Thanks for this, I'll see how the meetings go