Burned by Eschewing Best Practices
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Found a bank that is in SUCH bad shape. They are freezing and modding posts there so going to post the disaster here for the record. First, this is my final post that is in moderation. basically, someone is stealing from this bank, probably just by not doing their job and selling the company out to resellers... but it is BAD....
"This is an industry standard problem in the SMB space and you'll see it all over this community, too. People who hide behind IT titles but don't actually do any IT work or act as the IT person / role but instead of "IT buyers" and just "buy IT" from vendors. But since they don't act in an IT role, they don't play the part of protecting their companies from predatory sales people and since "sales is free" and "expertise is expensive" to avoid budget concerns they go to sales people and get the "IT for free" and instead just get sold products that they claim that they need.It's a really effective way to get paid as an IT pro, but do, quite literally, nothing. No need for any skills at all, no need to keep up, no need to even work. Sales people are always happy to do this "work" for free - but of course the only thing that they do is sell you things that you don't need because that's their actual job that they are paid to do. One hour of IT consulting would have protected your institution from all of these issues, that's all it takes. But lacking ALL IT oversight, someone just let a sales organization into the company to "rape and pillage" at will.Think of IT like the castle guards. They are paid to protect the business. But in a case like this, it looks like the senior guard either decided doing his job was too much effort or got slipped some gold in a bag and literally opened the gates to let the known attackers in to have at the undefended castle. But the guards keep reporting to the king that all is well and the people stealing are not to be worried about.Does that make sense? At some point, someone is making money and the IT protection isn't happening. These are literally the textbook examples of how this happens. If you look at SW, there are literally thousands (I really mean that) threads about how this exact scenario should never happen, and how VARs and vendors will take advantage of it, and how Dell does this specifically, etc. It could not fit the predicted scenario more. And the articles I linked, they are years old but fit your scenario exactly. There is a reason for that. This is the pattern that we look for for these kinds of problems. "
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OP
Advice for RAID setup on a server -RAID 10 for a single physical volume or not?
I just wanted to get some external input on this, which is probably not even a very difficult subject..
I've been having somewhat a difference of opinion with my Dell VAR regarding hard drive configuration for a new Dell PowerEdge server I am trying to configure and purchase. The server will be for a new Exchange email server.
Basically, we are a Dell shop, and we have about 18 Dell servers and I have seen that the majority of them have the OS on a RAID 1 volume (2 drives) and then any additional data volumes are always in a RAID 5 config. This seems to be their thing and that's how my VAR wants to set this new server up as well.
Now me, I have been researching RAID levels a lot lately as well as just learning a whole lot about everything since I've become a new sysadmin at my company only a year ago.. and I had the idea to set up a RAID 10 volume to take advantage of the increased read and write times, not to mention a faster drive rebuild time and lower risk of second drive failure as compared to a RAID 5 or 6 config.
What I want to do is to set up a single physical RAID 10 volume made up of 4x 600GB disks and then create two logical partitions, one for OS and one for data. To me, this makes sense and will be fast and provide enough storage to meet our needs for the next five years or so.
So I mentioned all this to my VAR that I wanted to go with this drive configuration, but then he comes back at me and claims that I will still want to have a separate physical volume for my OS with two drives in RAID 1 and that way it will be easier to add drives if we need to down the road.
I responded again with all my reasoning and that we do not plan to expand storage space, not to mention there would really be no difference since we couldn't really expand a separate RAID 5,6 or 10 volume regardless of if the OS was on a separate volume...
Then he finally just responds that I need to trust him on this one and that he has X amount of years of experience, etc. He had also told me that "nobody uses RAID 10", which, according to the Internet, is not true.
I don't want to disrespect someone with more experience and knowledge than me and I know I don't know everything, but I am getting frustrated with my VAR on this.
Any technical input and/or life advice is welcome.
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-Corbin- May 25, 2017 at 9:33 PM
Honestly, they are suggesting the method we all followed back int the 90s mainly because of how expensive hard drive space was. The thought was to put the OS on a fast drive and everything else on slower, larger drives. Now the recommended method is to do one big raid 10. Hard drive space is cheap, and raid 10 give the redundancy and speed. There are cases for raid 6 and SQL servers, but those aren't the norm.
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-Corbin- May 25, 2017 at 9:39 PM
I should have mentioned, virtual (Microsoft or VMware) servers are where most are pushing to now days because the recovery is faster and can be done to any hardware. I drank that Kool-Aid some years ago when i tested it and have loved it ever since.
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cavemanager May 25, 2017 at 9:43 PM
-Corbin- wrote: I should have mentioned, virtual (Microsoft or VMware) servers are where most are pushing to now days because the recovery is faster and can be done to any hardware. I drank that Kool-Aid some years ago when i tested it and have loved it ever since.I also forgot to mention that in my original post that I had also been considering doing a virtual Exchange server. My CTO is also a bit old-school and feels more comfortable having a separate physical server for email, just in case. But we did just get a brand new Dell SAN this year and we have a pretty killer virtual environment (vmware 6) and this is probably the direction we should be going. Maybe I will try to convince him again..
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-Corbin- May 25, 2017 at 10:07 PM
Nothing wrong with separating services in my mind. This is one reason the virtual setup shines so well.
Tomorrow morning you'll get more suggestions as more peeps read over this, but this is what's worked well for me.
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CrimsonKidA May 25, 2017 at 11:10 PM
-Corbin- wrote: Now the recommended method is to do one big raid 10. Hard drive space is cheap, and raid 10 give the redundancy and speed.^ This, 100% no question. Also, if you are dedicating one physical server to a single Windows OS (as opposed to a hypervisor host) it's a complete waste of resource
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CrimsonKidA May 25, 2017 at 11:14 PM
cavemanager wrote: Basically, we are a Dell shop, and we have about 18 Dell servers and I have seen that the majority of them have the OS on a RAID 1 volume (2 drives) and then any additional data volumes are always in a RAID 5 config. This seems to be their thing and that's how my VAR wants to set this new server up as well. So I mentioned all this to my VAR that I wanted to go with this drive configuration, but then he comes back at me and claims that I will still want to have a separate physical volume for my OS with two drives in RAID 1 and that way it will be easier to add drives if we need to down the road. Then he finally just responds that I need to trust him on this one and that he has X amount of years of experience, etc. He had also told me that "nobody uses RAID 10", which, according to the Internet, is not true.Fire your VAR.
No, seriously. Like yesterday, FIRE THEM. They are either incompetent or (worse yet) exploiting your for own their bottom line!
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CrimsonKidA May 25, 2017 at 11:22 PM
cavemanager wrote: I also forgot to mention that in my original post that I had also been considering doing a virtual Exchange server. My CTO is also a bit old-school and feels more comfortable having a separate physical server for email, just in case. But we did just get a brand new Dell SAN this year and we have a pretty killer virtual environment (vmware 6) and this is probably the direction we should be going. Maybe I will try to convince him again.. + expandIt's not "probably" the direction you should be going, it definitely is. Yours (and most companies) should have been moving to a fully virtualized environment 5-7 years ago at least. There are literally no negatives, only positives. Your CTO's "old school" mentality is most likely just rooted in stubbornness and ignorance. Do the research and present it to him. This is really a black-and-white issue at this point. There is some merit to still keeping a physical DC, but that's the only one I know of.
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Northlandeng May 26, 2017 at 12:08 AM
CrimsonKidA wrote: Fire your VAR. No, seriously. Like yesterday, FIRE THEM. They are either incompetent or (worse yet) exploiting your for own their bottom line!^This!
If your VAR refuses deliver what you are asking for, they are not adding any value and you may as well just order what you want directly from Dell.
Edit: And yes, you are on the right track thinking OBR10. And I would definitely push for virtualization, even if your exchange server is the only VM on this host.
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toby wells May 26, 2017 at 12:54 AM
Neither setup is correct...
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Mail in 365
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Virtualise all servers!
The idea that anyone would be configuring physical devices in 2017 is crazy. Virtualise all workload
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adrian_ych May 26, 2017 at 1:06 AM
toby wells wrote: Neither setup is correct... - Mail in 365 - Virtualise all servers! The idea that anyone would be configuring physical devices in 2017 is crazy. Virtualise all workloadsI do agree that virtualization is the way to go for application servers.....
Even for instances that you may not want to go towards cloud email (O365 or G-suite) for whatever reasons, you should consider virtualizing the servers....
........
Aside to your question, always use RAID 10 and not RAID 1 for OSe and RAID 1 for Data (in your case of 4 HDD). If you have not purchased the server yet, do consider getting a 5th HDD for hot-spare since it is a Dell and the hot spare will kick in in case of HDD failure and Dell may take 4 hrs to come down to replace the faulty HDD.
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Alex.Gaft May 26, 2017 at 1:45 AM
We use exchange on VMware for our 3000 accounts without any problems, no need to record here all the pros for virtualization. Virtualization and cloud are the future.
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ICH May 26, 2017 at 3:10 AM
Quite simply you are right and the VAR is wrong. Do NOT trust him, no matter how many years experience he is quoting you. He is simply WAY behind the curve here. OBR10 (One Big RAID 10) has been best practice for several years now. Find a new VAR. I would not give anyone the time of day if they were spouting the rubbish that your VAR is. If he wants to play who can p!ss highest up the wall on experience, I have been an IT pro since 1979.
It is very easy to find yourself resistant to new ideas, and to rely on what you know has worked for you in the past, but you have to stay up to date, and embrace the changes in the industry, or you become irrelevant. The VAR are not only offering bad advice, they are rejecting the correct way of doing things, for whatever reason, either to increase their profit margin or simply due to incompetence. Your VAR is now irrelevant and you should switch to a company that is offering up to date ideas.
And yes, everything should be virtual, including Exchange if you are running it on-premise. -
cavemanager
Anaheim
OP
cavemanager May 26, 2017 at 7:03 AMICH wrote: Quite simply you are right and the VAR is wrong. Do NOT trust him, no matter how many years experience he is quoting you. He is simply WAY behind the curve here. OBR10 (One Big RAID 10) has been best practice for several years now. Find a new VAR. I would not give anyone the time of day if they were spouting the rubbish that your VAR is. If he wants to play who can p!ss highest up the wall on experience, I have been an IT pro since 1979. It is very easy to find yourself resistant to new ideas, and to rely on what you know has worked for you in the past, but you have to stay up to date, and embrace the changes in the industry, or you become irrelevant. The VAR are not only offering bad advice, they are rejecting the correct way of doing things, for whatever reason, either to increase their profit margin or simply due to incompetence. Your VAR is now irrelevant and you should switch to a company that is offering up to date ideas. And yes, everything should be virtual, including Exchange if you are running it on-premise.Thanks for the advice. I see that a lot of you are saying OBR10 is recommended and best practice now. Can you or someone else provide me with a source that says this, or is it just general knowledge?
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OP
cavemanager May 26, 2017 at 7:06 AM-Corbin- wrote: Honestly, they are suggesting the method we all followed back int the 90s mainly because of how expensive hard drive space was. The thought was to put the OS on a fast drive and everything else on slower, larger drives. Now the recommended method is to do one big raid 10. Hard drive space is cheap, and raid 10 give the redundancy and speed. There are cases for raid 6 and SQL servers, but those aren't the norm. http://www.thecloudcalculator.com/calculators/disk-raid-and-iops.htmlCan you show me any sources that say one big RAID 10 volume is recommended? I notice a lot of you are saying that, and it would be nice to have something to show my VAR plus I would just like to see it.
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CrimsonKidA May 26, 2017 at 8:22 AM
cavemanager wrote: Can you show me any sources that say one big RAID 10 volume is recommended? I notice a lot of you are saying that, and it would be nice to have something to show my VAR plus I would just like to see it. + expandORB10 is just a RAID10 comprised of more than the minimal 4 disks, yes.
As for an article to read about it, Scott Alan Miller (who I bet might have some choice words for your, ahem..."VAR") wrote one that addresses your exact concerns in this thread. Have a look: http://www.smbitjournal.com/2012/11/one-big-raid-10-a-new-standard-in-server-storage/
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toby wells May 26, 2017 at 8:22 AM
cavemanager wrote: Can you show me any sources that say one big RAID 10 volume is recommended? I notice a lot of you are saying that, and it would be nice to have something to show my VAR plus I would just like to see it. + expandIts like asking an architect why arches are good for bridges
They just are
RAID 5 was deprecated by most vendors many years ago, I think Dell were last to issue something but that was in 2012!
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/251735-new-raid-level-recommendations-from-dell
5 Years since its probably one of the most discussed topics on Spiceworks
The maths and practical experience is just overwhelming
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CrimsonKidA May 26, 2017 at 8:24 AM
toby wells wrote: Its like asking an architect why arches are good for bridges They just are + expandToby, while you are right, this is the same kind of lip-service (no offense) he's getting from his VAR. He needs facts here to back up his argument.
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Northlandeng May 26, 2017 at 8:28 AM
One Big RAID 10 - A New Standard In Server Storage
