Every business is unique and virtualization has changed the game. It all depends on how much down time your users can tolerate, the services they require and the budget you have to work with. If you load up a server with a dozen different features and have to reboot it because of one of them that may be fine for you but not for someone else. You've pretty much made your argument in your original email, it's just up to you to figure out your needs. With virtualization it makes it easy the split things up, also makes it easy for server sprawl to set in and make things harder to manage.
________________________________ From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 19, 2010 8:54 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Do you all like fewer or more servers? I only have a hundred users. Been doing this for about 12 years. I always thought it was better to have more or less one major server per service. That way, if one of our services came down or needed work, I wouldn't be taking down the entire system. I have a buddy with fewer users than me and he has 20+ servers. Some in the air (virtual), some on the ground. I have seven servers running. Both of us host our web services at an outside firm. Both of us use Exchange. An outside firm says we should go with only a couple of servers. That sure would make things easier, but... ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
