0

I recently started my own company as a freelance .NET developer. Being a developer, network infrastructure and topology isn't my strong suit. The hardware infrastructure I have available is drawn in the schema below. The question is where to install/host my needs?

So, my needs are:

  • Active Directory
  • DNS
  • DHCP
  • IIS
  • SQL Server
  • TFS 2010
  • Sharepoint foundation
  • Exchange server

Current Situation

Since I am new here, I apparently cannot add pictures to my post. So here is the link to the current topology: Topology


Available OS licenses:

  • 1x Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
  • 1x Windows Server 2008 R2 Web
  • 1x Windows Small Business Server 2011
  • 1x Windows Home Server 2008

Server specs:

  • Server 1: AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+ / 6 GB DRR2
  • Server 2: (need to buy, probable specs) Intel I7 2500 / 12 GB DDR3

The configuration I had in mind:

  • Router: DHCP
  • Server 1: Win2008 R2 Enterprise + Active Directory + DNS + File Server
  • Server 2: Win2008 R2 Web + Sharepoint foundation + exchange + IIS + SQL Server + TFS 2010

The servers will receive a dedicated IP address from the router based on their MAC address. Hyper-V might also be an option on Server 1. But I have no idea about the load Hyper-V brings, nor the load of AD / DNS / File Server.

Feedback

What do you guys think? Keeping in mind that there only are 2-3 actual users.

Mike Bevers
  • 1
  • 1

2 Answers2

1

Mike I have to say, for 2-3 user base, this is a very expensive setup, nevertheless these are the requirements so..

I'd add a L3 managed switch in between the router and rest of the host. For a couple of reasons, but the simplest way to add some basic security such as vLans and link aggregations to Server 1 and Server 2.

I would never ever ever put my SQL DB on a web server with external facing access. You are just asking for trouble, just imagine you get hacked, they have everything they need on one server!

In an event, you did end up getting hacked, do you really want all your source code available on TFS 2010 easily accessible?

Likewise Exchange is best to place separately for too many reasons (unless you end up using SBS edition), am sure you can find best practices online.

You should also know you cannot add the full blown server 2008 enterprise and use this as DC with SBS at the same time.

You should use the DC for both DNS and DHCP for easy maintenance.

I can go on forever lol so i will stop here!

EDIT: I'll add two more things, you need to consider backup and a central storage device - perhaps a NAS device? And please do not use RAID 5, try RAID 6 or 10...

Cold T
  • 2,401
  • 2
  • 17
  • 29
1

Cold T made some excellent points so I won't cover the same ground again.

The R2 Enterprise Edition license will allow you to run four additional R2 Enterprise servers on the same box using Hyper-V. This would be a good way of getting the most from your hardware - except you're going to need more RAM. Even 12GB is not enough for four VMs - look at 32GB or more if you can afford it.

Chris McKeown
  • 7,168
  • 1
  • 18
  • 26
  • +1 Step 1 is to virtualise your infrastructure. Hyper-V or ESXi. ESXi is pretty clever with memory management and I happily run 6-8 VMs at a time on it. Bearing in mind you're limited to running 4 Windows VMs on your Enterprise licensed machine anyway, I personally wouldn't worry about upgrading the memory beyond 16GB. You'd be able to assign 4GB to each VM this way. – Lewis Apr 04 '12 at 22:44