New Setup - Number of Roles/Servers

[Westyfield2]

Small Business. And I really mean small.

Completely starting from scratch with nothing inherited sounds great... until you also hear the budget. I would be thinking of running SBS, but I don't like the idea of everything on one server... and with the new version I guess Microsoft thought the same!

So I'm looking at PowerEdge/ProLiant, running ESXi and a few Server 2008 (or Server 2012) VMs. I say a few, but my Sys-Admin experience is wanting me to have eleventy million VMs each for one and only one role... and then you remember the budget.

I'm thinking:

Server 1

• Active Directory Domain Controller
• DHCP
• DNS

I'd rather run nothing else on the DC, but surely DHCP and DNS will be okay? Oh and no, I won't be DHCPing the DC .


Server 2

• Print Server

Server 3

• File Server

Server 4

• SQL & IIS

Server 5

• Exchange

TBH I'm tempted by "cloud" Exchange Online/Office 365 rather than hosting Exchange on-premises.


Anything else *needed*? Any comments on running DC/HDCP/DNS together? And any comment on where to do Exchange? Oh and any SBS fans?

 

[Shad]

The only thing I'd say is running DC, DHCP and DNS roles on one server is ok, but please have a secondary server doing exactly the same thing. No AD and no DNS are going to make for a very bad day when that server's down.

 

[teaboy5]

How many users? There is no need to have one server just for printing, just stick the file and print server on the same box.

Also if its a small number of users, just use the cloud for mail.

 

[El Pew]

If you're running all this on one physical machine then is there really any point virtualising and having 5 VMs? You have the overhead of running 5 sets of Windows services plus ESX that you don't really need.

There's no real reason why you can't run all that on one Windows server installed directly on the metal. I've run AD/Exchange/SQL/IIS/Sharepoint/FIM 2010 on the same box loads of times in relatively high-use scenarios and it's been fine, if you're talking less than 25 users you should have no problems.

 

[Showboat]

If you're running all this on one physical machine then is there really any point virtualising and having 5 VMs? You have the overhead of running 5 sets of Windows services plus ESX that you don't really need.

There's no real reason why you can't run all that on one Windows server installed directly on the metal. I've run AD/Exchange/SQL/IIS/Sharepoint/FIM 2010 on the same box loads of times in relatively high-use scenarios and it's been fine, if you're talking less than 25 users you should have no problems.

+1 You did say small... how small??

Also, what happens when the box falls over in 1-5 years time and you can't source hardware for two weeks.. give them a slap and get more money for some resilience and build a second box. You will also want backups!

 

[llamadal]

same situation, have gone with office 365 which holds no disadvantages for me.

Do you need to run software off the server or need mass storage?