Disaster Recovery and Disaster Avoidance Planning for a Small Manufacturing Firm
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This is the time to make the move. Seriously, even with just one server, racking is worth it IMHO. You generally get better equipment at better prices and everything is easier to deal with. Tell management that you are going to save a ton of money here and do some great stuff and part of the deal is you want a small 1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 rack and going to start upgrading stuff to more business grade as updates get made. Start with your server. You'll be very happy that you did. Doesn't have to be a cabinet, something small will do.
@JayRMS is our resident rack and cabinet expert, he can guide you and hook you up for something small for a starter rack system.
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Just get a rack mount. You can still put it on a shelf...
I just spec'd one for you.
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Note 1: That server is $5k and change. With two good procs, 64GB of RAM, and 16 terabytes of storage (in RAID10).
I picked the 4TB over a 3TB because XByte has them on sale at the moment.
Far cry from your quote and well under the $10k you mentioned.
You can drop 2 drives (for 12 TB in RAID10) and get two identical server for $10k.
Note 2: I did specify NBD parts only warranty on the assumption that you have a 2nd host being replicated to for fail over on hardware issues.
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My only question about that setup is, will it have the IOPs he needs?
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What is the storage like in the current setup?
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@Dashrender said:
My only question about that setup is, will it have the IOPs he needs?
Great question. Have the results from that DPACK been posted yet?
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@scottalanmiller @Dashrender @travisdh1
Of course it will. He is not doing anything that takes IOPS. go back and read the OP.
a DC, file server, server running Veeam, and an old SQL server that Excel spread sheets connect to.
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Just to quantify my experience, I have a client with Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2, and MS Dynamics 2011 running an accounting application. it runs just fine on 7.2k NL SAS
People have this fear of SQL and think it needs 15K drives to do anything.
Most SMB do not use any application hard enough to warrant 15K or even 10k drive a lot of the time.
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@JaredBusch said:
Just to quantify my experience, I have a client with Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2, and MS Dynamics 2011 running an accounting application. it runs just fine on 7.2k NL SAS
People have this fear of SQL and think it needs 15K drives to do anything.
Most SMB do not use any application hard enough to warrant 15K or even 10k drive a lot of the time.
And most of those remaining that do can more effectively fix that using more memory rather than faster storage. A little extra memory can do performance wonders for SQL Server.
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@scottalanmiller @JaredBusch Thanks for the mention!
@garak0410 we (xByte) can definitely help you out with a lower cost solution on refurb servers with full manufacturer's warranty. We are open to setup a conference call so you can speak with our engineers in order to find the right solution to fit your needs. Feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you.
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@JaredBusch said:
Just to quantify my experience, I have a client with Server 2008 R2, SQL 2008 R2, and MS Dynamics 2011 running an accounting application. it runs just fine on 7.2k NL SAS
People have this fear of SQL and think it needs 15K drives to do anything.
Most SMB do not use any application hard enough to warrant 15K or even 10k drive a lot of the time.
I only wanted to make sure it was considered.. it wasn't a fear.
I have an Exchange server and 6 other VMs all running on SAS NL (8 drives in RAID 10). Works great most of the time. Backups do put a bit of a strain on it.
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@garak0410 said:
I've got a ghost writer...nice...
I am just crazy busy at work but this post reflects a fraction of what's on my plate right now. SO let me take a piece at a time.
We are running production VM's on that aging (but licensed) PowerEdge 2900. Do I need replacing that as my priority or perhaps look at the Starwind solution first? We are going to need more storage since we are adopting DocuWare.
Could be! there will be some mess with licensing as we don't do Xen so for NFS storage you'll need VMware key
Either way I've asked engineers to jump in here and help you so ping me if they would not get in and respond to you ASAP -
@KOOLER said:
Could be! there will be some mess with licensing as we don't do Xen...
You guys should fix that, you know...
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@garak0410 said:
We are running production VM's on that aging (but licensed) PowerEdge 2900. Do I need replacing that as my priority or perhaps look at the Starwind solution first?
Actually two options here:
StarWind Virtual SAN, which is software only
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san
StarWind HyperConverged Platform, which is the bundle of the Dell hardware, storage and hypervisor. https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-hyperconverged-applianceActually in my opinion giving a try to the second option is way much better idea since you are still considering geеting the Xbyte as an option, and xByte is actually out partners
So as the result you`ll get the fully functional system, not just the part of it. -
@original_anvil said:
@garak0410 said:
We are running production VM's on that aging (but licensed) PowerEdge 2900. Do I need replacing that as my priority or perhaps look at the Starwind solution first?
Actually two options here:
StarWind Virtual SAN, which is software only
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san
StarWind HyperConverged Platform, which is the bundle of the Dell hardware, storage and hypervisor. https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-hyperconverged-applianceActually in my opinion giving a try to the second option is way much better idea since you are still considering geеting the Xbyte as an option, and xByte is actually out partners
So as the result you`ll get the fully functional system, not just the part of it.Does it come pre built? I thought that was generally frowned upon around here?
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@Dashrender said:
@original_anvil said:
@garak0410 said:
We are running production VM's on that aging (but licensed) PowerEdge 2900. Do I need replacing that as my priority or perhaps look at the Starwind solution first?
Actually two options here:
StarWind Virtual SAN, which is software only
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-virtual-san
StarWind HyperConverged Platform, which is the bundle of the Dell hardware, storage and hypervisor. https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-hyperconverged-applianceActually in my opinion giving a try to the second option is way much better idea since you are still considering geеting the Xbyte as an option, and xByte is actually out partners
So as the result you`ll get the fully functional system, not just the part of it.Does it come pre built? I thought that was generally frowned upon around here?
It is frowned upon, but not because of the pre-built bit I don't think. I think it's that most pre-built kit has SPOF somewhere and is sold as HA when it's not. Just be sure you're getting what you need instead of what a sales guy want's to sell you.
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OK @travisdh1 , but I was looking more from a configuration side of things, not SPOF.
Scott generally speaks out about users having vendors do the hardware setup of a server. The vendor probably won't make the settings setups decisions that you want/need.
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@Dashrender said:
OK @travisdh1 , but I was looking more from a configuration side of things, not SPOF.
Scott generally speaks out about users having vendors do the hardware setup of a server. The vendor probably won't make the settings setups decisions that you want/need.
Well that one is sold as an appliance. So you would expect configuration. THis one seems different only because it is on an Dell server.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
OK @travisdh1 , but I was looking more from a configuration side of things, not SPOF.
Scott generally speaks out about users having vendors do the hardware setup of a server. The vendor probably won't make the settings setups decisions that you want/need.
Well that one is sold as an appliance. So you would expect configuration. THis one seems different only because it is on an Dell server.
Which bring me back to my question - is this is wise buy considering it's an appliance? Maybe it is, maybe it's been vetted and found to be a good setup - then again, maybe not?
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@Dashrender said:
OK @travisdh1 , but I was looking more from a configuration side of things, not SPOF.
Scott generally speaks out about users having vendors do the hardware setup of a server. The vendor probably won't make the settings setups decisions that you want/need.
Considering some of the things I've seen come from manufacturer that's the right conclusion. In this case tho, you're specifying how much CPU, RAM, HD/SSD, etc you want and all they do is setup the StarWinds VSAN for you. Is it better for you to do it yourself? Probably. In this case I'd actually consider it, assuming someone from StarWind is actually doing the configuration.
