Small Business Server help

Dribbles

Dribbles

Dribbles

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2009
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207
Location
Edinburgh
Hi All,

I was looking for some advice. I work for a small voluntary organisation with 12 staff each with their own computer linked to a server. We are looking to buy a new server and have had a quote from our I.T company for close to £5000 for server, onsite backup, remote backup and installation.

Obviously this is a lot of money and I think we could probably do it much cheaper. Our current server is a Dell Poweredge 420 which is ancient, but which still works well enough.

I don't know which server exactly they are quoting for as they haven't stated, but it is a Dell Server, Quad Core 2.4ghz, 16gb ram, 3x500gb hd. £2045.00. To me it seems excessive considering we currently only use 21gb of space on our current server!

Do we really need onsite backup (2x2tb) and remote backup (3x750gb)?

Do we need a Dell UPS External Battery Module for 500W as well?

They've also stated it'll take three days to set it up, is this reasonable?

Sorry for all the questions, I know lots about gaming pcs, but next to nothing about servers! Any advice would be appreciated, thanks
 
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What is your current server doing (AD, Mail, IIS etc)?
Is it mission critical that this server runs 24/7 without any power outages?
 
Dribbles said:
Do we really need onsite backup (2x2tb) and remote backup (3x750gb)?

Do we need a Dell UPS External Battery Module for 500W as well?
Click to expand...

Well ultimately it's all about risk, and how much value the stuff these things protect offers to you, which we cannot answer.
 
The server does mail, not sure what IIS and AD is, but it doesn't host a website or anything. We use it to access our desktops from home.

It's not the end of the world if the server is down. It's only really used 8am-8pm.

As to how valuable the stuff is, obviously it's valuable, but 21gb and mail to backup, will it really require all those backup solutions?
 
Well again this is for you guys to decide :)

You need to look at the scenarios, do some kind of risk assessment, and if certain areas are highlighted as being 'riskier' than the business would like then you want to do something about them.

Taking offsite backups for instance, what's the likelihood of the server itself being stolen/damaged through some way, along with any on site backups? Think of things like theft, vandalism, flooding and other natural stuff etc.

What would be the impact if either of those things happened? Also how long do you need to store backups, what's the strategy, do you have adequate secure storage on site?

An offsite backup doesn't stop those things from happening, but it mitigates things by keeping copies of stuff somewhere that won't be effected by the same event (if your offsite is an adequate distance away ;) ).

That's all pretty high level stuff but you get the idea.

As I said we can recommend a best practice/nice to have list of things to have, but only your business can truely decide what's requried.
 
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Dribbles said:
The server does mail, not sure what IIS and AD is, but it doesn't host a website or anything. We use it to access our desktops from home.

It's not the end of the world if the server is down. It's only really used 8am-8pm.

As to how valuable the stuff is, obviously it's valuable, but 21gb and mail to backup, will it really require all those backup solutions?
Click to expand...

IIS stands for Internet Information Services, basically hosts websites/files.
AD stands for Active Directory, basically has all of your users/computers and other information in it.

I'd say every SOHO (small office home office) environment needs a backup solution, have you ever considered just getting a NAS, putting it on the other side of the building, running that in RAID1, and putting all of your backups on that?

As for the UPS, if you feel as though the server needs to be running 24/7 with 100% up time, then get the UPS, if not, don't.
 
Thanks for responses, I understand that it is up to us to decide about backup solutions.

How about the server's specs, are they reasonable for a server that's connected to 12 computers, does mail, AD, backup on and offsite?

For the onsite and offsite backup do we need that much storage?

Does a new server take three days to setup?

Thanks again
 
With the storage, it depends on what's proposed, you say offsite is 3 x 750gig but what is it exactly?

A NAS located somewhere else, a cloud/online service (doubt it if it's described as 3x750 but still)?

What's the backup strategy/retention policy, how many backup versions do you keep?
 
According to the quote the remote backup is a 3x750gb hds plugged into local NAS (I don't know if that makes sense!). It seems to be using software called shadow protect.

Our current backup is backing up to tape in the server, which is not covering everything anymore.
 
Dribbles said:
According to the quote the remote backup is a 3x750gb hds plugged into local NAS (I don't know if that makes sense!). It seems to be using software called shadow protect.

Our current backup is backing up to tape in the server, which is not covering everything anymore.
Click to expand...

By remote backup, I thought everything was being backed up in to the cloud, lol.
 
To be honest, I think you could scrap the UPS. For backups, have a NAS with 2 X 1TB HDDs running in RAID1, with the NAS placed somewhere else in the building, you could then use Windows Backup to backup everything to the NAS, or I'd recommend one of my favourites, Acronis. If you don't think 2 x 1 TB would be enough, get 2 x 2TB and run in a RAID1 configuration.

Or you could try something like 3 x 750GB in RAID5. But it'd probably be much cheaper to configure a backup solution yourself, rather than have a company do it for you.
 
Is there just a UPS or a UPS plus additional battery pack?

False economy to get rid of a UPS on a server IMHO. You might not need 24/7 availability as a business. However, wait till the first time a power cut takes down the server in a dirty state and somebody then has to recover (for example) a broken Exchange Information Store...
 
Ok, by the sounds of what people are saying:

I could get it much cheaper if I did it myself. However, I lack skills to do this.
The more comprehensive the backup solution, the better.
We should probably have a backup policy
UPS is useful, but not essential
 
#Chri5# said:
Is there just a UPS or a UPS plus additional battery pack?

False economy to get rid of a UPS on a server IMHO. You might not need 24/7 availability as a business. However, wait till the first time a power cut takes down the server in a dirty state and somebody then has to recover (for example) a broken Exchange Information Store...
Click to expand...

Definitely.


A couple of Q's
Will they be migrating the data and repointing the workstations to the new server?
Is your company a registered charity?

Overall 5k isn't that bad, you'll always pay that kind of money on labour if you're getting IT professionals and the server price isn't bad if it includes the windows licence & CALs.

Also I would ask what they define by Local & remote backups because it sounds like local is the server itself.
 
I, personally, think that is extortion considering there is no software included.

With only 12 staff I would suggest Small Business Server 2011 Standard, this along with something like a HP ML110 G6, 16GB ram, a USB backup drive with removable media such as a HP HDX , 2 1TB drives set up in a mirror (RAID1).

You could even go for SBS 2011 essentials if you did not want to host your own email, I would suggest looking at what would be best for your business.

The prices would be around

ML110 G6 - £330
16GB RAM - £80 (its dirt cheap DDR3 at the moment)
HP RDX - £550 with a couple of 320GB removable disks.
SBS 2011 Standard - £570 + £440 or so for an additional 10 licences so you would have 15 in total. (SBS essentials is about £380 including 25 licences)
2x 1 TB disks - £80
Whatever AV choice you want.

So from a 15 min price up it would be roughly - £2050, less with SBS essentials.

All you would need is someone to set it up, so 3k setup costs!!

The SBS install takes no time at all if the person doing it knows what they are doing and migration work can take time yes, but 3k!

All the above would give you everything you need imo, bare metal backups, the ability to take the backups off site everyday, fault tolerant disks, an active directory domain, exchange email, sharepoint collaboration, outlook web app if you needed it etc etc...

Obviously the quote you had might have included some form of support as well so that should be thought about.
 
Thanks Harry, that looks a bit more realistic. We don't need a top of the range server, the one we have at the moment works fine, we just don't have proper backup and are scared that it's on its last legs.

So would it be 1066mhz ddr3 ram we would need for the server?

The rdx are just tape drives that continuously backup data ?
 
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RDX drives are HDDs in a proprietary removable cartridge.

IMO you should always use ECC memory in a server.

IMO you should get a complete server with an onsite warranty from one the major suppliers (HP, Dell etc.)
 
At the end of the day, you are getting an external company in to purchase, install and configure a new server for you. £5k is about the going rate for all of their time & management in this procurement work.

However maybe you should go back to them with a proper requirement, rather than let them drive you to what they want to sell you.

What after install support do they provide, and is any included in that 5k ?

There are many many questions that you need to ask your organisation before you go back to your supplier with a response.
 
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