I think I'm clear about what this young Jedi knight is asking. His conundrum is that he'll end up with way too many servers if he implements both a Windows Terminal Server and a Samba file and printer server on separate machines.
That's how I read it too. Does he keep his 10 Samba servers and add another 10 Windows servers to do terminal services, or does he put his file and print services on the same Windows servers and only have 10 servers to manage ?
I suppose a few things for him to think about would be :
1) Does he intend separating File/print services from Terminal services (for performance reasons ?) in the future ? If so, then it would make sense to leave the file/print servers that are already there as they are rather than migrate them to the one server and separate them out again later.
Bear in mind that there are arguments both for and against consolidation :
Consolidation puts all your files on the same machine as the applications, so minimal network traffic and networking issues. On the other hand, keeping the two roles separate may (depending on your applications and situation) give you better performance and/or less risk from an individual service failure.
2) Are there any specific management benefits either way ? It's not so much "are 10 servers easier to manage than 20" but "is a group of Windows servers easier to manage than a group of Windows servers plus a group of Linux/Samba servers". This is very much down to the experience of the individual/team, but I would guess that since they already have these servers then they are probably also comfortable with administering them.
3) Are there any performance/reliability/capacity issues with the existing servers ? If so then it may work out cheaper to spec the new servers to handle both roles than it is to upgrade/replace the existing hardware.
4) What is your budget, and what are the relative costs ? Does the per-user Terminal Services licence cover the file and print services when the user is using only the terminal services ? If so then there is minimal cost to combine the two services. On the other hand, if you have to add File/Print client licences then this could add up to a fair wad of cash.
5) Other than File/Print services, are there any other reasons for keeping a Linux server on site ? Eg, do you want to run the ISC DHCP server (no Windows version I believe), or will the MS DHCP server do you ?
Just a few things to ponder over. But at the end of the day, everyone has to make a decision on what works for them - and leaving 'religious fervour' out of it, we can't answer it for him.
Simon
-- Simon Hobson MA MIEE, Technology Specialist Colony Gift Corporation Limited Lindal in Furness, Ulverston, Cumbria, LA12 0LD Tel 01229 461100, Fax 01229 461101
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