On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 7:54 PM, Cesare' A. Ramos <[email protected]> wrote: > The majority are under 20) that are currently running a single server that is > acting > as AD, file, print, IIS, DHCP, Internal DNS, and Exchange 2003 server on MS > Windows 2003 standard server.
Until a couple years ago, %DAYJOB% was basically a single-server shop. ~70 workstations Dell PowerEdge 2500SC 1 GB RAM 733 MHz CPU (single core) 90 GB HD storage (RAID 5, 18 GB x 6, hardware controller) Windows 2000 Server Active Directory (sole DC) File and printer sharing Internal DNS, DHCP, WINS Internal IIS (not used for much) Exchange 2000 Enterprise Firebird (Interbase) database server Never had any server failures or serious craziness due to the server. It was a bit slow to boot, but that's more because the Dell RAID controller's initialization time is measured in minutes. The server is still in production, albeit doing a lot less. We technically had (and still have) another Windows server, but it's more of a glorified desktop, and just does a handful of "utility" tasks: MS WSUS, MS RIS, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Symantec AV Server. Our newer server is running much of the same workload. No problems yet. Knock on wood. I'm hoping to finally get a dedicated Exchange server when we go to Win Server 2008. > Is MS Windows SBS and option yet but not a reality.. SBS is basically a purchase bundle, plus the installers do some of the integration/tuning work for you. (Plus you get the SBS wizards. Whether you consider that a feature or not is your call.) SBS doesn't fundamentally change the underlying software. So if SBS can do it, so can the individual piece parts bought and integrated separately. Microsoft Product Support Services will tell you they don't recommend running everything on the same box. But that caveat applies *to SBS as well*. PSS would really prefer SBS just didn't exist. But PSS doesn't have to like it; they just have to support it. Certainly, if a given configuration is a bad idea for the stand-alone SKUs, it's an equally bad idea for SBS. SBS isn't magic. All that said, it is true that spreading out your services across multiple servers is a always a good idea if you can afford it. This is basically just not putting all your eggs in one basket. If Exchange has some kind of heartburn and you need do heavy maintenance on the server, with a dedicated server, it means just Exchange is down. If it's an all-in-one server, *everything* is down. Plus, with everything on dedicated hardware, you don't have to worry about compatibility, integration, tuning, balancing, etc. But those are all administrative/planning benefits; they're not technical requirements of the software. Random example of something you have to worry about: Putting MS RIS and Exchange on the same filesystem (drive letter) will cause the SIS Groveler to puke all over the place. (For 2000, anyway.) But that applies to SBS, too. Dedicated Exchange server means you never encounter that problem. Adequate testing means you encounter it and plan for it before going into production. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
