Thank you.
I can't use cloud services because most of the data on the network
are subject to HIPAA requirements. HIPAA compliance requires specific
agreements with cloud vendors that render them legally and
specifically liable for the confidentiality of the data, and those
agreements ratchet costs waaaaay up.
Not to mention the fact that I would never turn over control of my
data to someone to whom I would then have to pay a monthly fee to access.
I would also guess that if I did this my 25 Mbps internet connection
would be inadequate.
As for budget, one of the things I'm trying to understand is what
would be a reasonable cost to address all of my concerns and issues.
Naturally, I have a well-functioning system right now, and I would
not spend ANY money to replace it unless I am convinced that there
would be great advantages to doing so.
Ken
I don't see a mention about budget. If you have a large (not small)
budget I would first give your information below to rackspace (I did
that many years ago and I am very happy with the performance, support and cost)
Also, I would check into amazon, M$, Google, etc, other large name
cloud providers that I have no experience with.
If you can find a solution that satisfies your risk tolerance, I
would put all of this in the cloud, (different cloud servers, maybe
from different vendors) except I would have a local backup, copied
to DVD on a regular basis. The reason I like DVD is because any
computer can read them and it is easy to pull a file(s) out of a
zipped file if you need to check something offline. They don't take
up much room. We have more than 12 years of weekly backups on DVD
which is as close to permanent as you can get for 12 cents each.
On 4/13/2016 6:56 AM, Ken Dibble wrote:
Have any of you had experience working with (rather) large
virtualized networks?
It's been suggested that I virtualize my network. To me the
advantages are not clear but the risks are. Since I am old-school
and highly risk-averse when it comes to computer technology, I need
to hear different perspectives from people who are not trying to
sell me anything.
We have 7 servers that are candidates for virtualization on a
single hypervisor.
- Domain controller (currently Linux but may be replaced with Windows)
- Heavily used Linux file server that includes two VFP databases
and serves up a large and growing number of network shares on which
many users depend heavily
- Lightly used Windows Medicaid billing server running software
that is very slow and requires maximum throughput/speed
- Lightly used Windows Accounting server that is running software
that is very slow and requires maximum throughput/speed
- Windows RDP server that has about 15 authorized users; there's
slow growth on this, and it runs separate instances of my VFP
application for some of those users.
- Windows Document management server
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Antivirus server (not a Windows server OS)
The Accounting and Medicaid boxes both have SQL Server Express
databases, and there is client software on the workstations that
access it, but the servers also have additional software installed
as well. So it does not appear to me that this is either fully fat
client-thin server or fully server-hosted software.
The network has about 130 workstations, connected through four
gigabit switches, and there is moderate growth on that. We have a
25 Mbps synchronous internet connection and it is heavily used by
many workstations. There are only a couple of network printers;
most people have desktop printers.
There is a VoIP phone server on a separate physical network but
which is connected to the computer network for remote-access
purposes and to enable use of "switchboard" software on a few workstations.
There are two other servers on the network that are not candidates
for virtualization:
- Fax server; has legacy dedicated hardware
- Backup server, which is almost constantly either running scripts
to backup and transfer data from the other servers, to itself and
to a removable drive, or having data fed to it from other servers.
Total "live" data on the network servers is about 1 TB; we can
expect slow-to-moderate growth on that.
The risks it seems to me are:
1. Fail-over: If the hypervisor goes down, nobody, but nobody, can
do any work. Therefore I need a redundant mirrored system on a
separate box, and a robust mechanism to continuously mirror the
data without affecting performance. Is that really possible?
2. What is going to be the real, day-to-day effect of using a
virtualized RDP server in a stack of other virtualized servers,
some of which have heavy intranet traffic? I do not want to be in a
situation where I'm told there are no worries and then, this system
is installed, and the thing is dog-slow.
3. In fact, I don't want that to happen in relation to any of the
applications we are using. What is a realistic expectation on this?
If the reality is that I will be assuming greater risks than I face
now with separate physical servers, and those risks cannot be
mitigated effectively, then are there any countervailing advantages
to virtualization that would be great enough to justify making this change?
Thanks to all for the benefit of your experience.
Ken Dibble
www.stic-cil.org
[excessive quoting removed by server]
_______________________________________________
Post Messages to: [email protected]
Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox
OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech
Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox
This message:
http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/E1.57.25792.5786E075@cdptpa-oedge02
** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the
author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added
to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
