Servers/storage for 75 users?

[paddyhasneeds]

Assume a standalone office i.e. no parent company/resources for 75 or so people, maybe more in time (i.e. SBS seems out the picture).

A domain, email, file storage (10tb or so) is needed as is proper backup i.e tapes that can be taken offsite.

I've no idea whatsoever of performance or growth requirements, it's a total unknown at this point.

I have my own ideas but I'm asking the question without listing them so I get a decent range of options.

I'm comfortable with SANs, ESX etc. just looking for the best solution - not the cheapest.

[mikeh501]

you have any budgetary constraints at all? "best" covers quite a bit of ground. Are e-mail and file storage the only services required? What type of business is it? What about internet access? needed?

[paddyhasneeds]

mikeh501 said:

you have any budgetary constraints at all? "best" covers quite a bit of ground. Are e-mail and file storage the only services required? What type of business is it? What about internet access? needed?

Nothing specific no, not dirt cheap, not totally OTT. For now a domain and file/print and email server is the requirement but I have no idea where it might end up hence not wanting to limit my options too much from day one.

[mattley]

Assuming you've setled on Windows domain a PDC/Print/File box and an exchange box are pretty straight forward 10TB of file system however will need more than just a couple of tape drives. How static is this data, how is it organised and how well will it compress?

LTO5 will offer about 1.5TB uncompressed so with compression so if it's all word documents which compress by about 90% you could possibly use tape, but if all JPG or EPS you'll need some decent archive methods in place. With no data mgt in place you're probably better off looking at an incremental remote solution.

[paddyhasneeds]

mattley said:

Assuming you've setled on Windows domain a PDC/Print/File box and an exchange box are pretty straight forward 10TB of file system however will need more than just a couple of tape drives. How static is this data, how is it organised and how well will it compress?

Literally no idea - which sucks but right now it's all the "brief" I have.

I've no issue with the technologies, but with all the unknowns and potential for change I'm trying to get a feel whether people would go with an entry level SAN/server/ESX setup or a single box ESX setup and so on.

Either way I'd factored on ESX (as it's so much easier to adapt to moving goalposts that way) and for backup a tape library - there will be internet connectivity but for 10tb any sort of non on-site backup is out of the question.

I didn't know LTO5 had actually started shipping yet so that's one to consider.

[mattley]

paddyhasneeds said:

- there will be internet connectivity but for 10tb any sort of non on-site backup is out of the question.

Not if most of the data is static it isn't, I wouldn't write it off until you know more about the dataset. A remote array that can be shipped to a DR Site is a known restore scenario, restoring a large dataset from incremental tape backups can take way longer than imagined.

I wouldn't go VM/NAS for a site that size but I can see that without any sensible projection you're probably best off going down that route as you've got the option to allocate resources wherever they're needed dynamically rather than actually having to spec capacity based on what your not being told.

Clients eh

[paddyhasneeds]

mattley said:

paddyhasneeds said:

- there will be internet connectivity but for 10tb any sort of non on-site backup is out of the question.

Not if most of the data is static it isn't, I wouldn't write it off until you know more about the dataset. A remote array that can be shipped to a DR Site is a known restore scenario, restoring a large dataset from incremental tape backups can take way longer than imagined.

I wouldn't go VM/NAS for a site that size but I can see that without any sensible projection you're probably best off going down that route as you've got the option to allocate resources wherever they're needed dynamically rather than actually having to spec capacity based on what your not being told.

Clients eh

I think where I'm after guidance is where you'd draw the line at resiliency/redundancy with no set of requirements given.

For example, I could buy a DL180 G6, stuff it full of RAM and disks, bung ESX on it and I've got something that will, in performance terms, quite likely suffice to run a DC, email and file/print VM - but it strikes me as quite a large single point of failure (as does any single physical server for a given role).

The question is what's the next step up - two servers running ESX as a cluster isn't prohibitively expensive but shared storage can be.

Part of the problem (other than no bloody spec) is that I'm more familiar with a few hundred people to support where the cost of a SAN is easier to justify - 70 people seems, to me, that horrible number where it's not a quite small business to the point that a server in the comms cupboard would suffice, but not quite large enough to chuck much more money at it than a small business would.

[Jubal]

What I would do is ask the main man at the client what is RPO and RTO were by application and work back from there. Without that you're just guessing and any budget is likely to be questioned.

Same goes for your VoIP thread, without information it's ridiculous to specify anything. I might just be grumpy tonight but IMO whoever is delegating these tasks without giving you access to the information is a bit of a fool.

[TonyToniTone]

paddyhasneeds said:

Part of the problem (other than no bloody spec) is that I'm more familiar with a few hundred people to support where the cost of a SAN is easier to justify - 70 people seems, to me, that horrible number where it's not a quite small business to the point that a server in the comms cupboard would suffice, but not quite large enough to chuck much more money at it than a small business would.

Suppose it depends on what the business needs\wants or can afford. I know a company that had a server room built, inert gas fire suppression, san, citrix etc for less than 70 people.. probably 50 there now and only 20 really using the system the rest are telesales.

You might want to take a look at the proLiant G7's while you are pondering..

[lestag]

paddyhasneeds said:

Assume a standalone office i.e. no parent company/resources for 75 or so people, maybe more in time (i.e. SBS seems out the picture).

A domain, email, file storage (10tb or so) is needed as is proper backup i.e tapes that can be taken offsite.

I've no idea whatsoever of performance or growth requirements, it's a total unknown at this point.

I have my own ideas but I'm asking the question without listing them so I get a decent range of options.

I'm comfortable with SANs, ESX etc. just looking for the best solution - not the cheapest.

Not really enough information.
Is this for your company or is it a client of yours?
Is it a high availability requirement or a days outage ok to rebuild?
ESX = yes but do you need the features of the paid for versions (Vmotion etc) hence the above question
LTO = yes but it is also waht teh 10TB contains and teh applications used.

[paddyhasneeds]

Jubal said:

I might just be grumpy tonight but IMO whoever is delegating these tasks without giving you access to the information is a bit of a fool.

You're not grumpy you're absolutely correct, but for now I'm stuck with it.

I'm sure more information will come, in the meantime I'm curious at what point any of you would think that 70 people of any usage profile warrants less than a basic SAN/redundant server setup - it just doesn't seem to fit "box in the corner" territory.

[lestag]

paddyhasneeds said:

I'm sure more information will come, in the meantime I'm curious at what point any of you would think that 70 people of any usage profile warrants less than a basic SAN/redundant server setup - it just doesn't seem to fit "box in the corner" territory.

It depends how long can they do without it...
I have done 150 people, 23 servers (prod/test/devl), fine without a SAN

near enough to the five nines ( well actually 100%..) 8am - 5pm month in month out

[paddyhasneeds]

lestag said:

paddyhasneeds said:

I'm sure more information will come, in the meantime I'm curious at what point any of you would think that 70 people of any usage profile warrants less than a basic SAN/redundant server setup - it just doesn't seem to fit "box in the corner" territory.

It depends how long can they do without it...

Yeah that would be nice to know as well.

In the absence of any info whatsoever (and I mean that literally, someone needs a slap), I've gone with my gut which is a basic SAN and small ESX cluster.

I've made it clear to my boss that I'm pissing in the wind so I've gone with a proper/robust setup and it can be scaled down if/when some sort of requirement appears.

[Munter]

paddyhasneeds said:

lestag said:

paddyhasneeds said:

I'm sure more information will come, in the meantime I'm curious at what point any of you would think that 70 people of any usage profile warrants less than a basic SAN/redundant server setup - it just doesn't seem to fit "box in the corner" territory.

It depends how long can they do without it...

Yeah that would be nice to know as well.

In the absence of any info whatsoever (and I mean that literally, someone needs a slap), I've gone with my gut which is a basic SAN and small ESX cluster.

I've made it clear to my boss that I'm pissing in the wind so I've gone with a proper/robust setup and it can be scaled down if/when some sort of requirement appears.

Sounds good to me. Gives you room to adjust either way when you know what the budget is. Not that I'm suggesting anybody would scale up a project to absorb excess budget....