Small client need advice

[NetWise]

Lots of really good advise in this thread. As a side note, I've never been able to get 2011 running acceptably in any environment what-so-ever. It slaughters the storage system... 2012 R2 is a massive step up. I agree with those recommending SSD storage here. Just would recommend getting some stuff with decent write endurance and performance consistency if you're going to do anything with SQL on them let alone Exchange.

Well, to go back to the OP's point and talking about what we see/do in Enterprise - traditionally apps like SQL/Exchange would have drives for OS, DB, and Logs. Virtualized that becomes less clear as they're usually on the same SAN, but often still done just to handle queue depths per virtual disk and such. You put SQL *AND* Exchange together, PLUS put all the rest together, and you really need to have an SBS that has 8+ drives in RAID10 or RAID5 (even if only to get enough spindles/pack-rat space).

Too many times these things are tossed on a mirrored (or single ) SATA disk that you wouldn't use for ONE of the roles, but people hope ALL the roles will run great on. It totally needs a ton more disk IO than most people give them. The nice thing is that if you compare even Intel Enterprise-y SSD's to 10-15K SAS dissk for cost, you can build a pretty decent disk subsystem for about the same price with all SSD. Give a good 4C/8T/64GB/All-SSD system to SBS, and it'll preform pretty good - what choice does it have at that point?

 

[coolrunnings82]

@NetWise - Very true, 2011 probably would run acceptably at that point. Never once found a company that'd pay for that server and yet still insist on SBS though! Thank God! 2012 R2 Essentials runs light-years better than 2011 did since they removed Exchange from it but yeah if you're going to run databases, it's pony-up time!

 

[NetWise]

Agreed. MS's new grand plan is R2 Essentials, and Exchange 365. And SQL MSDE which now allows DB's up to 10GB which can be plenty depending on the application. But still on separate boxes. Or if VM's on the same box, at least with better disk IO.

It's a shame there isn't a newer SBS.

My problem has been less and less with SBS, and more with clients that want to have enterprise class stuff for 9 years and pay less than the cost of a good laptop to do it, and then wonder why it behaves poorly. Shocking. That you'd have to lifecycle things once in a while. Who knew! Must have been a surprise. We'll start budgeting for it "now that we know"...

Sigh.

 

[modder man]

I think it is OEM, If anything I would be virtualizing it on server 2012 standard. I would really like to run Server 2012 standard but I have to figure out what to do with exchange 2010 as well as sharepoint/sql. Cloud based is not an option for this client.

 

[NetWise]

Then you can as long as it stays as a VM on that hardware. Whatever virtualization layer in between you're good with (so far as I know).

 

[modder man]

if i virtualize it, it would be on differennt hardware so that is not an option.

 

[Marsh]

I think it is OEM, If anything I would be virtualizing it on server 2012 standard

Did you verify that the Dell T100 would accepted a E3 CPU?

 

[NetWise]

if i virtualize it, it would be on differennt hardware so that is not an option.

Yeah, OEM doesn't allow migration from the hardware. ;(

 

[modder man]

yes the machine will take the e3. I really would like to get off that sbs standard all together but I still have to have on premise exchange as well as sharepoint. Those are the two current hangups.

 

[NetWise]

As frustrating as it might be, the right answer is probably just to beef up the existing box and leave it alone. Splitting it up would be nice, but unless the client is in growth mode and known to soon exceed the licence limits, why bother? They've probably been "happy enough" with the solution thus far, and it's meeting their needs - other than possibly performance. I assume - anyway. That may very well be why they got rid of the previous company doing support, for all I know.

Virtualize it so you can treat it like a VM and use VM native tools to backup/restore/image, do testing of it on another system if you need. De-couple it from the hardware, and make support easier. But otherwise, pump up the hardware, and run it into the sunset, and use the OpEx costs saved by doing little now to build savings to plan for a proper migration in a while.

On Prem Exchange is going to be like $1K for the server and $50/seat or something for CAL's, plus the server. Do they have budget for that? Also another gotcha I think you may run into is I think the SBS *must* be the PDC (role/logically/etc).

 

[modder man]

I had 5k in the budget, that they intended on replacing the this machine with the two HP G7's mentioned at the beginning. Cost of those two servers is $1500 so i had the remainder left for labor as well as licensing.

 

[NetWise]

I'm afraid it's pretty unlikely you'll get licenses in there in that budget, even if the labour is free. Just for the two servers you'd need two 2012r2 Standard's which is about $900 each or so USD? Add in Exchange server, exchange CAL's, Windows 2012r2 CAL's, and you're well over budget, and you haven't touched SP/SQL or labour yet....

I don't see a way you can do it, but we can all try to help out with some ideas...

 

[modder man]

That is looking to be the case for now, this is a friend of mine so I may ship a spare e3 I have around to buy us some time for now.

By the way, I really appreciate this conversation with all of you. I have learned a lot of what small business support means. I have never been on this side of the fence where I has to worry about licensing or otherwise. I have always just worked with what the enterprise has or home stuff.

 

[NetWise]

Oh. You want ADVICE?

RUN. RUN SCREAMING.



Go back to the world of Windows Data Center and unlimited VM's per host and gobs of spindles for SAN's . The world outside the datacenter is skeery!!

 

[TechIsCool]

@NetWise Your funny.

@modder man I would just run SSD. Since you says its 8-5 I would take it down sometime and boot into a ubuntu live cd and poke around the file system. Best case is you have a Huge pile of data that is considered shares and can be kept on spindles while all the OS, Exchange, SQL can be kept on a set of SSDs. Personally that's the way I would accomplish this in place uplift.

 

[modder man]

I need to setup a NAS preferably with a cloud backup service. Should I be looking into a synology or using a distro of linux on my own hardware?

 

[modder man]

Swapped the CPU and this machine is running absolutely awful. Im not sure what sorts of things I could to to determine what the slowdown is being caused by. It just seems to be windows getting lost inside itself.