Help with server please! Running Sage Line 50

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:37

Hi guys,

From a previous thread have boiled server choice down to an upgraded HP ML110 G6, with 8GB Ram and 2 x 1TB ENT hardrives.

Server will be running Sage Line 50 Professional with 4 end users at an office 100 miles from where the server will be setup.

My brother in laws mate quoted him £3000 + for this, but from what i gather he's just trying it on.

HP Server is going to cost around £400 after upgrades. What else will he need and aprox costs?

Please!!

paradigm · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:40

Where is the server being located? Where will the end users be?

The fact that you now say the server will be 100 miles away makes me wonder if you should instead just be renting a co-lo, or some other hosted environment.

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:43

Server will be setup at my brother in laws house, and offices i think are in coventry (anyway away from home)

ruffneck · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:47

sounds like a recipe for disaster.

paradigm · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:47

Any particular reason the server is going to be at home and not in the office?

Your brother in law is going to need some decent business internet connection to sustain the data requests from the office (something with both decent download, but more importantly upload as one is useless without the other), as well as the office needing the same. You'd then need decent routers/firewall appliances at both ends and a VPN tunnel between the two. He'll also be paying the electricity bills for keeping it up 24/7, as well as being responsible for UPS/Power management, backups, and making sure no-one else touches it. He shouldn't be thinking about using it as his workstation.

Put the server in the office, or host it in a datacentre somewhere.

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:51

He's working from home, with only limited visits to the office.

- Business internet
- Routers, wont internet provider provide them?
- Firewall, probably noobish but are talking a phyical firewall or virtual one like windows firewall
- VPN tunnel?

paradigm · 7 Jul 2011 at 12:58

If he is working from home, but 3 others are working from the office, it makes more sense for the server to be in the office, rather than saturate the internet connections at both ends trying to have numerous remote workers access the box. 1 user (him) working from home and connecting via VPN to the office makes far more sense, and is less bandwidth intensive.

As for routers, well this depends entirely on what "business internet" you end up getting. BT Business Broadband (ADSL) and similar are garbage, and the hardware provided is pretty much the same as you'll get from most consumer broadband providers, they certainly won't support VPN endpoints (most likely they would allow for VPN passthrough, but then you'd need to configure the server for RRaS, and configure each of the clients to dial in as standalone machines rather than simply link the two LANs.

As for firewall, if you are going down the option of getting a decent router, it might as well be an all encompassing appliance (routing and firewall) such as the Cisco ASA5505. But then you'd need to know how to configure one.

VPN tunnel = Secure link between two endpoints using the internet as the carrying medium. For example at the office we have a VPN to our datacenter (30+ miles away), from inside connecting to any of the servers at the datacenter appears as they are on the LAN, when in reality they are using out internet connection which is a 10Mb leased line).

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:08

Dam this seems pretty complicated. Hes got someone to setup it all up, im just trying to source/build a server. Im asssuming hell end up getting professional help when setting up. He's not the IT type so trying to help as much as i can.

Makes sense housing server at the office and him connecting from home.

So essenatially providing he gets a decent business internet provider and something like the Cisco ASA5505 (is this at both ends?) he will be pretty much set on the hardware side?

The Cisko also does do VPN? and im assuming VPM is for security?

paradigm · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:12

He'll need a router or firewall that supports VPN endpoint to endpoint at both ends, so most likely yes he'd need two, unless his current office internet connection happened to come with a decent piece of hardware.

The VPN is literally a secure tunnel linking two networks together. Nothing can get into it from the outside world, but it allows you to connect your two remote sites together without the need for dedicated connectivity (such as laying your own fibre) between the two.

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:18

So is the £3000 plus he was quoted really that out there? considering the price of 2 x Cisco ASA5505. That would have included full setup as well.

Rob7865 · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:19

Why not put a extra Desktop PC in the Office and your bother Remote onto that either using MS Remote Desktop or a Logmein derivative?
This will be much cheaper and quicker then a VPN solution
Trying to pull data from Sage across a homeset VPN will not make for good working!

Rob

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:22

Rob7865 said:
Why not put a extra Desktop PC in the Office and your bother Remote onto that either using MS Remote Desktop or a Logmein derivative?
This will be much cheaper and quicker then a VPN solution
Trying to pull data from Sage across a homeset VPN will not make for good working!

Rob

That sounds pretty cost effective. So have the router networked in house all at the office, negating the need of an expesnive Cisco router/VPM and possibly even the business internet?

edscdk · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:27

a server for sage pro and 5 users?

I assume there is no server currently so its a tiny business,

I would get a cheap server from dell with 500 /1tb mirrored SATA drives for about £900 with windows 7 on, stick on acronis ~80 and two external 1tb USB drives £60 each...

use one usb as a daily backup (this one staysi n the office), use the other to copy the contents of the daily backup drive onto each friday then take it home (this then stays off site until the next friday)

the company now has a nice little file server to store their files on and change from £1500.

I would be tempted to set up a machine in the office for remote access (team viewer or log me in maybe) and simply get the home user to remote access that machien to work, that way he is not going to corrupt sage if the line drops out.... database + file datasourse + VPN = corrupt data...

paradigm · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:27

I tend to do things "right" rather than "cheap". You'll find before long that working over RDP gets incredibly frustrating and slow. Granted using Sage over a VPN won't be blistering, but the general interraction with the desktop won't feel like wading through treacle.

Of course you can get RDP to feel fast, but then that involves decent internet speeds at both ends (both up and down) again.

Rob7865 · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:28

Yurp !

If your brothers office is running SBS - then this feature is built-in
Rob

edscdk · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:29

Craterloads said:
So is the £3000 plus he was quoted really that out there? considering the price of 2 x Cisco ASA5505. That would have included full setup as well.

overkill i'd only dream of using them for offie to office connections or a very rich paranoid client workign from home

edscdk · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:31

Rob7865 said:
Yurp !

If your brothers office is running SBS - then this feature is built-in
Rob

if he has sbs he does not need another server - unless sage pro is going to be hosted on sql back end - (dont even know if that is possible, all sage 50's i ahve seen run with a file database...)

Rob7865 · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:32

paradigm said:
I tend to do things "right" rather than "cheap".

Thats fine, but getting the OP to setup Cisco VPN end points for a single user to use Sage is not the "right" methord for this need.

As it has already been said, Sage over a VPN will lead to problems! A simple desktop with remote access facilities would solve the OPs problems at a fraction of the cost for Off site servers, Business grade ADSL and maintenance

Just my 2 pence!

Craterloads · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:36

Should point out this is essentially a new business he's setting up (in the same field as his last venture) so everything from scratch including buying a version of SBS

edscdk said:
a server for sage pro and 5 users?

I assume there is no server currently so its a tiny business,

I would get a cheap server from dell with 500 /1tb mirrored SATA drives for about £900 with windows 7 on, stick on acronis ~80 and two external 1tb USB drives £60 each...

Wouldnt the HP ML110 G6, which comes to around £400 after upgrades, suffice? considering the small scale of the business.

edscdk · 7 Jul 2011 at 13:44

paradigm said:
I tend to do things "right" rather than "cheap". You'll find before long that working over RDP gets incredibly frustrating and slow.
Of course you can get RDP to feel fast, but then that involves decent internet speeds at both ends (both up and down) again.

RDP is fast, if its slow, the connection is slow, if the connection is slow sage will crawl along I have a customer using sage over RDP is works a treat, I changed them to sage over rdp because sage over VPN was killing them (so slow) with frequent lockups (as in it stopped for 10seconds then started going again)....

we also has a lot of crashing out and having to mess about with some locked file or something (forget now)

I botched their setup as they were on a budget so they RDP into the server... however if I had more time and a little budget I would have installed a machine in their office with sage and got them to team viewer / logmein to it...