Planning Server Deployment
-
2014 was a year of break fix - Panic fixing, back tracking and migrating 145 people from POP3 to O365.
2015 has to be better - FIPS 140 Drive Encryption, Phone system migration, server deployment, and adding another 140 Exchange accounts to O365..
Sounds like a fun year for one person? It does to me.
Question regarding servers - Reuse what I have, or go with a new system with the planned VM deployment.
Servers:
HR - Dell PowerEdge t610 with 1 drive
Fiscal - Dell PowerEdge t610 with 6 drivestwo other servers are for Transportation and another section (separate OU with AD).
Currently also no real good backup ability. There are a few 300 - 700GB external USB drives but they have to be manually swapped.
I have an older box that has a SAT 72 Drive, but I'm unsure of it's condition..
Speaking with both @scottalanmiller and @Minion-Queen - I am leaning towards a UNITrends system - I'm working on getting time to do the call back to them on that.
As a Non Profit, like to save as much as I am able. But I know that this isn't going to be a cheap fix. We have the ability to use Tech Soup and save quite a bit.
Software Used:
Sage Account
Abilia HR
KeyScan - Security (on a desktop right now)Adding the AD and F&PS, estimated about 300 total users (local and remote) but since we have O365, won't need the power needed in Exchange.
Opinions-
-
Nothing wrong with a pair of 610 servers. Depending on the age and specs, you may very well just want to beef them up and make them your VM hosts.
Half of the cost of a new server will be drives, so that cost is the same if you buy new or update the existing.
You could easily pop a new desktop temporarily with Hyper-V or VMWare then P2V the HR box.
Then upgrade it and and move the HR system back as a VM.
Begin the migration off the other server to this one and then upgrade it too if desired. -
Fix the storage issue then move to VMs on the systems that you have, most likely.