[mclark1129]

Hey,

I've been asked to set up a small business network for my father who is moving his business into an office in the near future. I'm a pretty tech savvy guy, but I don't have a huge amount of hands-on experience in networking. When researching the subject I've come across such a large selection of features and configurations that it's tough to decide what would be effective for my requirements and what would be overkill. I also want to make sure that I can set up as secure of a network as possible. Hopefully I can post some of my ideas and get some feedback from those of you who have a bit more expertise in this area.

The network is going to consist of a server, 4 desktop machines, a printer and a scanner, all connected wirelessly to the network. The server will need a good backup system (possibly RAID?)

The users of the network will also want to connect to the network remotely on their personal laptops, probably through a VPN or something like that (any good links on setting up a secure VPN?)

This network is primarily going to be used for file and print sharing, mostly MS Office documents. What hardware specs do you think would be adequate for the servers and the desktops, including the amount of storage space needed on the server?

Another option I want to use is centralized mail storage on the server with Microsoft Exchange. Of course, I'm having a tough time deciding whether or not to go with an Exchange hosting service, setting up the server in-house, or using Exchange to aggregate mail from the e-mail server provided by the company's web hosting service.

That's most of the requirements I can think of at the moment, I know it's a lot but any advice you can offer me at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

[zx10guy]

First, RAID is not considered a proper back up solution. RAID is only to provide fault tolerance for online data to maintain up time. You still need to implement some sort of backup plan/scheme.

Having a server on wireless is a huge mistake. A server should always be connected to the most reliable connection possible with provisions to have the best performance pipe available.

VPNs are not an easy point and click proposition. You have to do some planning to properly design a VPN system for a network. You have to consider things like whether you have a static IP from your ISP, to what type of traffic is going to be tunneled down the VPN, the encryption type to be used, and whether you will allow split tunneling or force all traffic down the VPN tunnel.

[mclark1129]

Hey, thanks for the response

First, RAID is not considered a proper back up solution. RAID is only to provide fault tolerance for online data to maintain up time. You still need to implement some sort of backup plan/scheme.

Ok, I suppose that makes sense. I guess I'll have to opt for a tape drive or something like that when we configure the server. As far as the RAID goes, do you think it would be necessary to have at all for a small server? It's not a terribly expensive upgrade, but I don't want to get it if it wouldn't be very useful.

Having a server on wireless is a huge mistake. A server should always be connected to the most reliable connection possible with provisions to have the best performance pipe available.

Oops, I didn't mean the server would be wireless. It's going to be connected directly to the wireless router, which will be directly connected to the modem. What I meant was all the desktops in the office will be connected to the server through wireless. That should be ok, right?

Mike

[JohnWill]

I think RAID is probably overkill unless you are REALLY concerned about having virtually 100% up-time. Yes, connecting through wireless will be OK, but remember that you are sharing the bandwidth, so you won't want to depend on any significant bandwidth to the server being available. Truthfully, unless there's a burning reason for using wireless, wired connections will be MUCH faster, way more secure, and much easier to configure and keep working. The only thing wireless has going for it is... well it's wireless.

Think about sharing a 54mbit connection (real throughput is maybe 30mbit) on a contention basis with half-duplex connections with a bunch of workstations. Then consider doing a large file transfer over this link and what it'll do to the performance of other workstations accessing the server. It's not a pretty picture.

[zx10guy]

As long as you understand the various caveats with the different RAID schemes and their limitations, I don't see why one wouldn't implement it in a server situation. Even with a small server, I see benefits in setting up at least a RAID 1 setup.

[JohnWill]

Well, as long as you understand that you are paying for twice the disk capacity, and they'll be additional maintenance involved, even if just because of the additional hardware, sure. OTOH, the vast majority of small installations probably don't need RAID, but we could argue this all night.

[zx10guy]

As far as disk capacity and paying twice for it, it's no longer an issue with IDE/SATA drives. The cost difference is so minor for the capacities available it gets lost in the noise. The only time paying twice for storage comes in to play is if you're doing a large capacity RAID 10 setup or you're dealing with higher end SCSI or fiber channel drives.

The reason I suggested RAID 1 is because it's simple to set up, provides very good up time, and little maintenance. The ability to keep your server running along even in a degraded mode with no I/O impact other than when the volume is restoring itself makes this a great option for anyone looking to field a server. I rather deal with the small initial setup of a RAID 1 than having to have to worry about restoring the entire server from backups. But I want to reiterate that RAID is still not a replacement for a proper backup scheme. But if I can avoid having to rebuild a server (OS and apps), I'm going to go for that. And it is also why I tend to like to separate my system volumes from my data volumes so I can break the dependencies between the two.

[JohnWill]

Well, my experience with inexpensive on-board RAID controllers is they're less than 100% reliable at either continuing with a failed drive or rebuilding the new drive on the fly. Considering the reliability of most drives, I prefer the KISS principle here.

[zx10guy]

Depending on the onboard controller, I agree with you. But adding in a dedicated controller is not that big a deal either. And depending on where the OP gets their server, the onboard controller is just an evolution of the manufacturer's dedicated controller now integrated into the motherboard. Dell has done this with many of their servers with their PERC RAID controllers.

[rhynes]

I have to go with john on this one... Yes, at minimum have a raid 1 setup but not the basic onboard. They are not great at all. Any server wants 100% uptime and you do want some redundancy. What are you looking at for server hardware?

As for exchange, be prepared for the added costs of antispam and antivirus software. These generally don't come cheap at the enterprise level but there are some cheap versions out there. You get what you pay for.

The biggest security risk of using exchange is introducing viruses/trojans etc to your domain controller. Please be aware of this.

As for backup, lately i've been backing up using external hard drives and a robocopy (synchronization) like program. Works great. Have some companies using a couple of terabyte hard drives and it's not a problem doing an overnight backup of 100 gigs and more.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by rhynes

I have to go with john on this one... Yes, at minimum have a raid 1 setup but not the basic onboard. They are not great at all. Any server wants 100% uptime and you do want some redundancy. What are you looking at for server hardware?

As for exchange, be prepared for the added costs of antispam and antivirus software. These generally don't come cheap at the enterprise level but there are some cheap versions out there. You get what you pay for.

The biggest security risk of using exchange is introducing viruses/trojans etc to your domain controller. Please be aware of this.

As for backup, lately i've been backing up using external hard drives and a robocopy (synchronization) like program. Works great. Have some companies using a couple of terabyte hard drives and it's not a problem doing an overnight backup of 100 gigs and more.

You're making the assumption that the motherboard used for this server is a typical desktop/gamer motherboard. Specific server motherboards can have very good imbedded RAID controllers especially those that are sourced from Intel.

[rhynes]

I fully understand that, but it's usually a safe assumption...

Regarding Intel raid controllers, I won't touch them anymore if I can help it. The raid controller is supposed to be an independent subsystem from pretty much everything else, but 3 times in the last year, i've faced catastrophic server failures with $10,000 enterprise servers.

In all 3 instances, the server had bad ram, but not bad enough to rear it's ugly head and show signs/symptoms. Combine that with a hard drive on a raid that's gone south, and it's a disaster. Complete raid loss and no way to recover. Intel hasn't given me an answer yet, they don't know why it's happening.

For me it's Dell servers all the way now, just wish they wouldn't make them so bloody heavy. They've been rock solid over the years and the only problems i've faced was a bad hard drive once in a while.

JMO

[zx10guy]

Not sure how bad RAM can be blamed on a RAID failure. Even if the RAID controller had it's own cache memory, it's dependent on what is stored in system RAM sent to it. If the RAM was somehow corrupt, then it's either a RAM module problem or the motherboard itself. This is also why many servers use ECC memory to deal with issues like this.

[rhynes]

Well, if you can figure it out, let me know... Intel can't give me an answer. In all 3 failures, bad ram combined with a drive loss equaled complete raid loss.

Nothing wrong with the raid controller or any of the other hardware, just the ram. Delete and recreate the raid, add new hard drive, new ram, reinstalled the server with the original hardware and they are running fine to date.

The raid controllers are supposed to be independent - and that's what scares me.

[zx10guy]

The RAID controller is independent in a sense even integrated controllers. The RAID controller is going to write exactly what it gets from system memory onto the disk. This is also true with a dedicated controller whether the dedicated controller has its own cach memory or not. The only thing I can think of without having laid hands on your setup during the failure is if the RAID controller was working in degraded mode and was using system memory for its overhead (especially if we're talking about a parity based RAID configuration.)