I'm looking for some advice regarding network configuration in a
colocated environment. The reason I'm asking is that up until now,
we've housed all of our servers in-house. All of the web sites and
servers are on our LAN. It's high time we moved everything to a more
stable, higher availability environment provided by a quality data
center. It's going to take a serious mindshift when we can no longer
edit files on mapped drives, or can't walk over to the servers to see
how they're doing. So, I'm trying to get a handle now on what'll be
required and how to manage it all. Additional web servers, possibly
additional SQL servers will be added as our clientele grows.
We'll be colocating the following:
(2) Web servers. Running NT 4.0, IIS 4, and CF Pro 4.0.1. Hosting
numerous low volume ("mom and pop") web sites. These sites will use
mostly Access as a database, although they'll have the option of using
MS SQL 7. Some sites are static html, with no database needs.
(1) Web server. Running NT 4.0, IIS 4, and CF Pro 4.0.1. Hosting a
family of related web sites owned by a single client. Probably maxing
out at 5 million pages per month. Almost every page is CF based, each
with multiple db queries.
(1) MS SQL 7 server, running under NT 4.0.
(1) Mail & DNS server. Probably running Rockliffe MailSite and BindNT
under NT 4.0, although I'm also considering a Linux or BSD mail server
running Qmail or Postfix.
(1) Backup server, with tape drives, and/or large IDE disks for backup
of web, mail, dns and SQL servers. Running NT.
(1) Firewall, running Linux or BSD.
(1) Fast ethernet switch, segmentable into two VLANs, one for web
traffic to the Itnernet, the other for local traffic between web servers
and SQL server and backup traffic.
(1) KVM switch, cabling.
The upstream Internet connection will be provided by the data center
through an ethernet connection, so there's no need for routers in this
installation. UPS and generator backup is also provided. So, from the
above list, what am I missing?
The web servers will get two ethernet cards. One with a public net
address, the other on a network segment on which the SQL server will
reside.
Some of my major concerns:
How should the NT domain(s) be set up? Everything in one NT domain?
That means that I have to make at least one of the above boxes a domain
controller. Not sure of the security implications of this. I imagine
it would make administration easier, certainly if I'm logged in at the
console. Alternately, I could configure all the boxes as standalone,
with purely local authentication. In this scenario, will I run into
difficultiess when doing backups, or accessing the database server from
the other machines?
Should the SQL server machine be behind either another firewall or in
another (non "DMZ" zone) of the existing firewall? Is it a hassle
passing database traffic through a firewall?
What are the remote management tools that I should be looking into?
PCAnywhere seems to be quite common. Anything I can't really do from
PCAnywhere or a similar package? I'm also looking at remote
power-cycling equipment for when things really go south. How necessary
do you think this is?
Any other advice?
Thanks,
Jim
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