Spec me 4 servers....

[Peerzy]

Doing some work for 2 schools and they have 2x pretty naff old servers each from about 2003/2004. School has increased massively since they went in and they are falling over themselves.

1 will be for the ADMIN network (Vanilla) and the other is likely to have some sort of management software running it (RM etc...).

I may go vanilla for both networks but as one of the requirements for the pupil database on the ADMIN network the servers must be running 2008 R2.

Just looking to get some real rough ideas of what I should be looking at.

School A) Infant school so about 300~ users, only 30-40 computers (30 on the curriculum network, 5 on the ADMIN network).
School B) Junior school so about 400~ users, 100@ computers (10 on ADMIN, rest on curriculum)

Ideally I'd like the same setup on both sites and clear scope to grow, they need to last a minimum of 5 years.

What can people suggest/reccomend in terms of the actual server hardware so I can look at some rough pricing.

I'm aware if I go with RM/another management company they will do this for the curriculum side but ADMIN will still need to be specced by me etc...

Clients are all running WinXP at the moment, but will need to be Win7 in the next 12-18months.

Thanks

 

[DJMK4]

Can't comment on the hardware as it would depends on the full requirements, but always spec with the idea of leaving some extra breathing space for growth.

Stick with either HP or Dell servers.

Client os windows 7 and server 2008 R2 on the servers.

 

[Peerzy]

Yup has to be 2008 R2 and Win 7 has to come in within the next 18 months. Can easily see both schools doubling in size in terms of client machines in the next 5 years.

SAN, virtualization and VM's not needed as they don't have anyone to run anything like that on site. I'm ad-hoc support and do projects for them but long term they need to be able to leave the system alone and let it run by itself with minimal maintenance.

ADMIN server needs to run SIMS which uses Mysql (Surrey CC deal with all that though), and just 10 or so users at both sites using standard AD stuff. A coupel of shares, the servers they currently have use 500GB discs which is more than enough.

They have no set a budget (this is what my initial investigation is to do).

I obviously need something uber reliable, 500GB would be enough for data/user areas and shares on each server - I want a backup solution built in though. Other than that I don't know what to be looking for in terms of CPU's, RAM etc.....

 

[Caged]

Having something reliable and having working backups isn't compatible with being able to leave the system alone and run itself I'm afraid - patches will need to be approved, you'll need to do test restores to actually check that the backups work etc.

They might not have the staff on-site to keep it running but at least get them into some sort of agreement where you or one of your staff connects over a VPN once a week or so to check everything is still OK.

 

[Peerzy]

Having something reliable and having working backups isn't compatible with being able to leave the system alone and run itself I'm afraid - patches will need to be approved, you'll need to do test restores to actually check that the backups work etc.

They might not have the staff on-site to keep it running but at least get them into some sort of agreement where you or one of your staff connects over a VPN once a week or so to check everything is still OK.

This is already in place with myself and Surrey CC offer ad-hoc phone/VPN support.

 

[mrbios]

First step, get the whole idea of admin and curric networks out of your head, it's an incredibly old fashioned way of doing things, not one school i know of does it this way any more. If needs be just use vlans and split them into separate sites, certainly no need for two networks though (my place of work was this way when i started 6 years ago)

To be honest it's never going to be as simple as recommending you a bunch of server hardware, to do it properly you've got a load of in depth planning for something like this. The most i could say with the information you've given so far is that i'd recommend HP DL360s for a school environment but that's about as far as i could go, as for actual spec that needs lots more thought.

At the moment you have a network based around year 2000 infrastructure ideas, i don't want to assume how much you do or don't know but from evidence i'd say you either want to spend a good bit of time getting yourself up to date, or ask a private (not a supplier!) consultant to help you.

 

[Peerzy]

First step, get the whole idea of admin and curric networks out of your head, it's an incredibly old fashioned way of doing things, not one school i know of does it this way any more. If needs be just use vlans and split them into separate sites, certainly no need for two networks though (my place of work was this way when i started 6 years ago)

To be honest it's never going to be as simple as recommending you a bunch of server hardware, to do it properly you've got a load of in depth planning for something like this. The most i could say with the information you've given so far is that i'd recommend HP DL360s for a school environment but that's about as far as i could go, as for actual spec that needs lots more thought.

At the moment you have a network based around year 2000 infrastructure ideas, i don't want to assume how much you do or don't know but from evidence i'd say you either want to spend a good bit of time getting yourself up to date, or ask a private (not a supplier!) consultant to help you.

Thanks - exactly the sort of posts I was looking for.

This is my first big project running myself so I'm more than open to using other peoples help and advice.

Funny you should say no schools have ADMIN and curriculum as a secondary school I do work for just had CC4, VM's, SAN the lot put in and went this way. Although the ADMIN is being virtualized into CC4 in a few months.

I was looking at the HP ML350's as Towers would be much easier to fit in current server rooms. Are these similiar to the DL360s you suggest?

Where would you suggest to read up on/forums/sites to get a bit more clued up on this stuff.

 

[LordSplodge]

First step, get the whole idea of admin and curric networks out of your head, it's an incredibly old fashioned way of doing things, not one school i know of does it this way any more. If needs be just use vlans and split them into separate sites, certainly no need for two networks though (my place of work was this way when i started 6 years ago)
.

I haven't worked for my LEA for over four years and we had ditched the two separate networks years ago (about 2001 I think!)

 

[TNGL]

Where would you suggest to read up on/forums/sites to get a bit more clued up on this stuff.

Definitely, EduGeek. They have network managers and technicians in the education sector.

 

[ShadowMan]

I was looking at the HP ML350's as Towers would be much easier to fit in current server rooms. Are these similiar to the DL360s you suggest?

For HP, ML's are the towers and DL's are the racked versions. Rest is model number and revision.

ML360 G6 and DL360 G6 should basically be the same but with different chassis.

If you wanted to look at Dell options I just installed a Dell PowerEdge R710 into a factory. Starts around the £1k mark for a basic server but easily customisable.

For reference we loaded our with 4 x 300Gb SAS disks, 2 x 100Gb Enterprise SSD. 2 x 5650 Xeons and 32Gb RAM. Came in around the £7-8k mark I think. This running 5 VM's on ESXi currently and soon set to have more. Basically moving the entire server estate onto 1 box (Not a great idea in itself but you should have seen the old kit) until we get the money for the 2nd node and the vCentre licences to go to HA covered estate. As the standalone ESXi license was free it seemed a shame not to use the tech and remove the old kit (7 x 6 year old Dell kit with no warranty and failing components).

 

[mrbios]

Definitely, EduGeek. They have network managers and technicians in the education sector.

The important thing though is not to trust everything they say! Some of them are right cowboys, they chuck money at things like there's an endless supply with no thought to the actual requirements of a task.

There are some very good people on edugeek but you'll find just as much stupid advice as you will good, so just be aware!

Thanks - exactly the sort of posts I was looking for.

This is my first big project running myself so I'm more than open to using other peoples help and advice.

Funny you should say no schools have ADMIN and curriculum as a secondary school I do work for just had CC4, VM's, SAN the lot put in and went this way. Although the ADMIN is being virtualized into CC4 in a few months.

I was looking at the HP ML350's as Towers would be much easier to fit in current server rooms. Are these similiar to the DL360s you suggest?

Where would you suggest to read up on/forums/sites to get a bit more clued up on this stuff.

It's hard to point to exact things without having a good idea as to the setup of your network, the size, the amount of buildings, the projected amount of growth within the school etc, these are all things you need to collect together first in my opinion before moving on to what you're going to buy and replace etc.

Here are a couple of crucial tips for a school network:
Avoid SAS drives, 10 x the cost for a small boost in performance, consumer SATA drives in RAID6 are more than sufficient for resilience and performance.
Don't give 1GB to the desktop, 100mbps to the desktop is more than enough.
Only huge networks need 10GB kit, not even worth considering even for "future proofing" for schools. (im not saying you would, i'm just making a list of the stupid things people on edugeek might recommend)
Completely avoid fibre channel SANS, i can recommend infortrend eonstors as an iSCSI solution, or thecus enterprise NAS's are pretty good and both companies offer cheap reliable solutions.

Configuring your network correctly is more important than the hardware it runs on in my opinion as well, try and cut out as much broadcast traffic as you can.

EDIT: to be honest if there's anything specific you want to ask, as i work in the same area, PM me on edugeek (same username)

 

[LordSplodge]

Completely avoid fibre channel SANS, i can recommend infortrend eonstors as an iSCSI solution

Unfortunately it is not that black and white.

 

[mrbios]

Unfortunately it is not that black and white.

Well no but no harm in recommending the odd device or two, depends on many factors as to what he goes for. Though i stand my ground on avoiding fibre channel, no place for it in schools, i fully understand its place in business and the world in general, but schools are piddling money up the wall with it. (not sure as to which part you were referring so i covered both)

(admittedly i don't know much about FCoE or how much that costs compared to older FC stuff though, although i bet it's still doubling the cost of a school iSCSI or NAS system)