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tmartintx

New Around Here
I am designing a network with 57 hybrid clients, 6 servers, 1TB storage array. Will i need a mini or no?
What would be the best hardware to go with on a 250,000 dollar budget?
How many routers/switches/hubs will I need?
What is the best software to go with for database management/email management/scheduling/project management/CAD/Network OS?
What type of UPS is the best and how many will I need?
Would a wireless network be more practical than a wired network?

I know I asked alot but any help is greatly appreciated.
 
tmartintx,

Almost all of the answers are 'depends'. But lets try and ask some questions to pin things down and get you looking in the right direction.

1. What do you mean 'hybrid clients' ?

2. Is this storage array attached to the network as NAS, or to one of the servers?

3. The budget depends on the requirements. Has the client defined what their expectations are?

4. Switches and hubs, unless the bandwidth requirements are extreme, are usually dictated more by physical limitations such as convenient locations, port counts, etc. Will there be centralized wiring closets? Also, don't use hubs. Period.

5. Router scale depends on what it needs to do? Is the site connecting to a single internet connection, or multiple? What kind of fault tolerance is expected? What kind of connections will be coming in and out of the router? And what features will the router requre, based on the business requirements (VoIP, VPN, BGP, or other) ?

6. Software decisions the client should make. However, you can research and recommend software based on their needs. If the majority of companies in your client's industry run software X, maybe there's a reason. I find that some software decisions come down to who's going to manage it. I have clients that I intentionally recommended Microsoft Small Business Server, because of a familiar windows environment and simplified server-related tasks. This was because non-technical people that have only windows experience will be doing some management of that server.

7. UPS runtime is a hard question to answer, even when *I* have the info. Balance the customer's expectations with cost. Unless the client has every computer connected to a UPS too, the goal of the UPS is to provide a chance for the server to shut down gracefully. So if it takes 7 minutes for the server to close out all transactions and files, you'll want a 10+ minute runtime at your given load. Also, keep in mind that bigger UPSs will have different power input requirements, such as 20amp plugs, 220v plugs and more. These things will have to be provisioned beforehand.

8. Wireless should never be used for mainstream business operations, unless there is a really good reason, such as a mobile cart. There are too many things that can affect it, interference being the first. If you use wireless, you have to ensure it's encrypted, that you have enough access points, that they're tuned to not overlap, and that all your computers have wireless cards. And even still, you are dealing with a shared medium. Unless there's a REALLY good reason to go wireless, stay wired. Much fewer problems, and much higher speeds with a gig-e cable.

Try and sort out exactly what you're doing, post some answers, and perhaps we can help you in the right direction. I'd love to have a 250k budget and the project you have. Also, if that budget includes software, expect at least 60% of it to go to licensing, be it server, app, desktop os or other. Unless the client is going strictly open-source, which is unlikely.

Tam
 
As tamarin says, there's still too many questions at this point.

I don't mean to offend, but the type of questions your asking seem to indicate a lack of experience in this realm. I recommend you consult an IT specialist or IT consultant who has more experience in this realm. Designing and planning a $250K network effectively requires a lot of careful planning and insight. I've done a lot of consulting in this realm and there's a lot to think about. Again I don't mean to offend but setting up a reliable 1/4 million dollar network isn't for the light-hearted.

Tamarin makes some good points, I might add:

- The first thing you have to start thinking about is your client (or if this is your employer). You have to have a thorough knowledge and understanding as to what this network is supposed to achieve, what it's supposed to do, how it's supposed to do it, etc. You have to first determine exactly what you're trying to achieve. I've seen beautifully designed and installed networks that don't ultimately achieve much of what the client expects or needs.

- Use brand-name servers (HP/Dell). Don't do home-made, home-built, supermicro servers. You'll be up shirt creek if you ever have to replace anything on it. Any you don't usually save a ton of money going the home-built route in the first place.

Beyond that there's a lot of planning you need to do. Most of those questions can't really be asked in their basic form. I can't tell you what kind of UPS you want, you might need 3, or 10, or more. For example, with SAN's and storage array's I usually like to have 2 separate UPS' feeding the array.

I have a fair bit of experience in this realm so I can probably answer some more questions specifically but there's just too many unknowns at this point. It's like asking 'how do you build a building?'.
 
What dictates "6 servers"....(the assignment from the networking class teacher?) if you don't know what you need yet? One server (such as Small Business Server) can take on the role of several separate servers (DC/Infrastructure, eMail, Database, F&P sharing, etc). Though starting with 57 clients....since it's close enough to the limitation of SBS of 75 max...I guess I'd hold back from recommending SBS.

Same building? Same floor? Spread out over several buildings (CAN)? Spread out across town/states/countries (WAN)?

Remote workers/VPN needs?

Expected storage capacity needs?
 
I tend not to recommend SBS except in cases where it's a really small office and the budget is really tight, and for whatever reason they happen to really need exchange. I'm just not a fan of it personally. I guess it's decent value considering you get exchange with it, but again I'm just not a big fan. And as YeOldStoneCat says, it's limited at 75, so if you're already at 60, don't bother.

And I agree with Stonecat, what dictates 6 servers? I'm going to wager a guess that at this point not a whole lot of planning has been done so I'm wondering where the 6 server figure has come from. Also keep in virtualization. In almost all multi-server environments, most servers can be virtualized. I was recently involved in a server consolidation project where we got about 30 servers down to about 4 plus a new SAN with ESX 3.

Also every industry has very unique requirements. I'm personally in the energy industry, and we have very different needs than does retail, sales, marketing, education, etc. Not necessarily anything crazy, but I would definately approach the design of a network very differently in a different company.
 
With that type of a budget, I would definitly look into a Cisco Catalyst syste, and with a good layer 3 setup routers really aren't needed so much, just a gateway/firewall.

The switch systems allow for large growth as well as keeping all of the needed settings in one place, allowing for easy upgrades/replacements with a simple blade replacement.

As Scotty said, Name brand servers!! Before working where I currently do, I never would have thought of HP for servers. At this point I would go to HP first, then look elseware. We currently run everything from Duel proccessor DL360's, to quad DL580's, topping off at two 64 plug HP SuperDomes (Running WINDOWS!).

I would suggest looking into growing, a company that size always has it's ups and downs. When I buy something, the first question I ask, is what else can I do with it. Can I add to it in three-five years to match our needs.

The SAN's we use can take 12 HBA ports, as well as stack to a total of 64, our servers run ESX which allows us to cluster (So long as the processors match -_-). The biggest thing in IT when planning, is to think "What WILL I need" and not "What do I need".

I would aso say no SBS, if you need to expand, you can't. SBS has to be the main domain controler, and it doesn't play well with others. It's like the kid at school that no other kids will play with, because it bites.
 
Just as a point of clarification... I wasn't recommending tmartintx use SBS Server... I was merely citing my having used it for a small 5-user shop that doesn't want to call someone for everything, they wanted to do some management themselves.

I strongly encourage the evaluation of all solutions, and the information provided doesn't allow for a good recommendation.

Tam
 
I tend not to recommend SBS except in cases where it's a really small office and the budget is really tight, and for whatever reason they happen to really need exchange. I'm just not a fan of it personally. I guess it's decent value considering you get exchange with it, but again I'm just not a big fan. And as YeOldStoneCat says, it's limited at 75, so if you're already at 60, don't bother.

I love it..focus most of my clients on it. It can actually scale quite well on a large network (up to 75). The Remote Web Workplace portal is a HUGE feature itself...clients love it. I wish Microsoft would belt out something for vanilla server setups.

Here's one I finished a few months ago....run by SBS.

Comm rack on the left, APC Netshelter on the right.
hosp1.jpg


Closeup of the Comm rack...spare Linksys/Cisco RV082 up top as backup router, pair of HP Procurve switches for their main LAN, 24x gigabit ports, managed, the SMC gateway, a DLink 1228p PoE gigabit web managed switch which manages their thin client access points, and lower priority LAN devices plugged into it such as networked printers, and on the bottom..the Juniper SSL VPN appliance
hosp3.jpg


NetShelter opened up...
hosp4.jpg
 
Untangle linux distro firewall up top on the Compaq Evo business desktop, P4 2.4 with a gig of RAM, HP MSA1000 SAN unit, HP Proliant DL360 quad core Xeon as their Small Business Server, pair of HP Proliant DL320s...Terminal Server, and BlackBaud server.
hosp5.jpg


Avocent KVM monitor, a pair of Dell PowerEdge 1600SC servers..one for their primary application database, the other as their second DC, file storage, and print server. Three APC 3000 units to power them.

hosp6.jpg


With the Avocent KVM monitor opened up..some of the Untangle router rack components on the screen.
hosp7.jpg
 
This project is for an aircraft overhaul company. The company employees 70 maintainer's and 50 administrative personnel. The building is a single floor and the maintenance facilities are attached to the administration facility.
The maintenance facilities require 9 workstations and one server. The administration facility requires the other 48 workstations and 5 servers with the 1TB NAS array.
 
Is there existing infrastructure to migrate from?

The amount of switches 'n network hardware is hard to answer without seeing a layout of the floor plan and offices. You could get away with just 1 switch...if it's all somewhat small. Or...if its' a spread out area...you may need just a small central distro point with a head switch...with fiber home runs going out to switches on the other ends of the building.

Do they have an ERP package already? Like Macola or JobBoss? You'd most likely want a server dedicated just for that.
Another server for their DC/infrastructure
Another server for their e-mail
A NAS box for file storage....I'm sure much of the storage will be for larger CAD drawings....so a fast NAS box..no SATA slugs here..15krpm SCSI, on iSAN.
Depending on the accounting departments needs...I'd probably have a separate server for their software, also on this server you could run other light network management tools, their central antivirus management server, WSUS, backup

Unknown internet connection..but I'd probably want at the very least a 2 meg pipe...they'll be e-mailing large files back 'n forth, 'n downloading large ones.

Wireless? If needed by office staff that use it for light duties.
 
Is there existing infrastructure to migrate from?

The amount of switches 'n network hardware is hard to answer without seeing a layout of the floor plan and offices. You could get away with just 1 switch...if it's all somewhat small. Or...if its' a spread out area...you may need just a small central distro point with a head switch...with fiber home runs going out to switches on the other ends of the building.

Do they have an ERP package already? Like Macola or JobBoss? You'd most likely want a server dedicated just for that.
Another server for their DC/infrastructure
Another server for their e-mail
A NAS box for file storage....I'm sure much of the storage will be for larger CAD drawings....so a fast NAS box..no SATA slugs here..15krpm SCSI, on iSAN.
Depending on the accounting departments needs...I'd probably have a separate server for their software, also on this server you could run other light network management tools, their central antivirus management server, WSUS, backup

Unknown internet connection..but I'd probably want at the very least a 2 meg pipe...they'll be e-mailing large files back 'n forth, 'n downloading large ones.

Wireless? If needed by office staff that use it for light duties.

Beat me to it. This is around about the same that I would be recommending.

Also, think long and hard about exactly what kind of traffic the NAS is going to be seeing on a daily basis. Yeoldstonecat makes some good points about engineering drawings, etc. Depending on your ERP solution, there could be a lot of database transactional work going and coming from the NAS. You're borderline NAS here, at minimum you'll want is a really fast NAS, as stonecat already recommends. In this case an entry level SAN or iSCSI SAN might be a lot better. SAN's make nothing but total sense. They're very reliable, very scalable, and fast. I would be seriously questioning the desire for a NAS here. I suppose it would work but a SAN is going to be a little more appropriate IMO.

If you DO decide to go the NAS route it might be a good idea to do 2 of them tied together by DFS. DFS isn't perfect, but it's a good way to get load balancing, replication, and redundancy out of 2 NAS's running storage server 2003. DFS has some limitations depending on how some of the files are used (i.e. if you have files that stay open all day, they won't replicate terribly well). I've done this on a few occasions to help make up for the relability shortcomings of NAS's versus SANs.

And what dictates needing 1 server per maintenance facility for 9 workstations? I can't seem to wrap my head around that one. You're going to need probably at least 4 or 5 servers at the heart of it, plus another 1 per maintenance facility? Now you're up to probably 15 servers. I obviously don't know much about the environment, but if it's all local I can't seem to find many reasons why you would want a server in each maintenance facility. Why can't each maintenance facility just run whatever they need to in the core?

Also think monitoring. Nagios is a good (and free) open-sourced utility that also works cross-platform. I've had some experience with Level and it isn't too bad either.

Lots of options for routers or switches. I'm a bit of a watchguard fan myself, so an X750 or something of the like might be good here. I like Cisco's as much as the next person, but Watchguard's have always represented a nice middleground, and a lot easier to configure (drag-and-drop VPN's are the bomb). I've had a chance to play a bit with WG's SSL1000 product and man-o-man is it ever slick. Not sure what you want or need for remote connectivity though. I usually stick to HP ProCurve switches unless I have a need to look elsewhere. I tend not to like Linksys, D-link, and the like in bigger environments. They're just a really solid switch IMO. Almost all of them have lifetime warranties too.

Lots of options, lots of planning to do. Make sure to have lots of sit-downs with the stakeholders in the business to iron out what their expectations are. Project Management in my opinion is managing expectations.
 
Also, think long and hard about exactly what kind of traffic the NAS is going to be seeing on a daily basis. Yeoldstonecat makes some good points about engineering drawings, etc. Depending on your ERP solution, there could be a lot of database transactional work going and coming from the NAS. You're borderline NAS here, at minimum you'll want is a really fast NAS, as stonecat already recommends. In this case an entry level SAN or iSCSI SAN might be a lot better. SAN's make nothing but total sense. They're very reliable, very scalable, and fast. I would be seriously questioning the desire for a NAS here. I suppose it would work but a SAN is going to be a little more appropriate IMO.

You can also use a NAS front end on a SAN. iSCSI SANs are by far the best bang for the buck these days, as the equipment to run them is already in place. I would avoid Fibre Channel for your level of a project (Very costly for very little gain over iSCSI)

If you DO decide to go the NAS route it might be a good idea to do 2 of them tied together by DFS. DFS isn't perfect, but it's a good way to get load balancing, replication, and redundancy out of 2 NAS's running storage server 2003. DFS has some limitations depending on how some of the files are used (i.e. if you have files that stay open all day, they won't replicate terribly well). I've done this on a few occasions to help make up for the relability shortcomings of NAS's versus SANs.

I currently have a write up about some of this stuff in the works, just a matter of finding the time to finish it >.>. With that said, I would look more into linux NAS/File server clustering, as windows file systems (NTFS/FAT32) are very very lackluster when it comes to clustering (DFS is a form of clustering, however it uses file replication rather than using a single storage source)

Also think monitoring. Nagios is a good (and free) open-sourced utility that also works cross-platform. I've had some experience with Level and it isn't too bad either.

Depending on the servers you decide on, a lot of the higher end brands (Dell, HP, IBM) offer a web baised monitoring system that comes with them. Might take a bit of setting up, but most Biz support (HP is really good, atleast) will take the time to help you.

(Not picking on you, just adding to what you said)

This is a really big project, which requires a lot of thought. I'm currently in the process of finding quotes on upgrading our phone system. This project will take an estimated eight months, seven and a half of which are planning. Most of the setup and deployment will be done on a single weekend.. (Yes, life is grand for us IT types..)
 
Equipment Number of Units
BL460c Server Blade 2
SB40c Storage Blade 1
SB448c Tape Blade 1
BL465c Server Blade 1
C3000 Enclosure 1
t5135 thin clients w/ 19 in Monitor 30
xw4600 fat clients w/ 22 in Monitor 27
3600n Color Laser Jet 10
P1505 B/W Laser Jet 5
ML 110 G5 Tower Server 1
Cat 5 Wire, 1000ft 1
ProCurve 2510-48 Switch 2
ProCurve Wireless Access Point 10ag 1
Microsoft Fingerprint Reader 60
Microsoft Business Hardware Pack 60



Software
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g
Widows Vista Business Edition
HP Server Solution Software
Norton 360

This is what I have put together so far. Is there anything I am missing or maybe a better security software that may be out there. Thank you for all the help.
 
Well, hopefully that all coincides with your planning.

Avoid Norton 360 if you can, for many reasons. First of all, it's a consumer product, not business. There's no form of central monitoring capabilities with the software. Go for Symantec Antivirus (SAV). There's various packages available for combinations of servers and workstations. 360 is a home user product and unless I'm missing something is totally the wrong kind of product for a business beyond 2 or 3 users. And even then it's totally bloated. It's just wrong on so many levels.

Server OS's? Nothing mentioning windows server? Why are you buying Vista business? Don't your desktops already have an OS on them? Virtually any business desktop will already have XP Pro or Vista Biz on it.

Lots of things seem to be missing?
 
Love HP ProCurve switches..their access points are rock stable also.

I'm not fond of Vista at all...I upgrade a law firm with Vista last December...really wish I stuck with XPp...all other clients I'm still doing XPp for new workstations.

Why a desktop antivirus? And such a bloated one? I can't stand Symantecs Corp Edition either..since version 9 it's gone downhill..and I had been reselling it since version 5. Too bloated, too many issues with push installs, and too much malware makes it past it..I see it all the time. Kaspersky, NOD32, Trend Micro..are good. Go with a managed business solution one...you centrally manage it from a single console..it deploys updates across your LAN, you can see status of clients, do push installs from it to new workstations, etc.

I pretty much exclusively use HP printers...I'd recommend going with some better workgroup grade printers in the 4000 series..you'll find those little 1505 jobs too lightweight, and they have some driver issues also regarding PDF files.

HP Proliant servers are my favorite, also like Dells PowerEdge 2950 III series. IMO the little wanna be server 110 series Proliant shouldn't be in a network of your size..it's just a glorified desktop. Proliant ML/DL 350 G5 or higher..better yet...380 or higher series.
 
I want to point out a few things that I've learned over the years of doing this kind of stuff that appears to be lost in this conversation.

First, I haven't seen anything that is looking at your clients application specifics. Simply put, what specific applications is your client using, or what do they want to use, if this is a green-field?

Second, how will they be accessing those applications, are they client-server based, Web based, Remote Desktop, etc.?

Third, you really need to examine your support avenues. In my most recent experiences with the support organizations of HP and IBM, I really like IBM hardware by the way, I have found them lacking, unless I have signed my clients up for some very expensive support options. Everything on the lower tiers goes offshore. Dell, on the other hand, though I am not a fan of their hardware, have some decent support offerings, and are based in the US.

Fourth, are you reselling, implementing and supporting? Or some derivative?

Now, let's get into some basics, my philosophy is design from the OSI model, top down, Layer 7 to 1. Implement from the bottom up, Layer 1 to 7. Makes everything simpler and keeps your head in the right frame of reference. Also it ensures you know everything.

Does your $250k budget encompass infrastructure, network and computing, support? If so, your budget for hardware just got cut by 30%. How much does implementation cost? You need to factor that in. The customer has done you a real favor by defining the budget you need to work within.

All that being said, now, let's look at your hardware and software you have described.

SAN - you don't have enough money for a SAN. A SAN will triple the cost of the infrastructure to support it. A NAS is your best cost-performance option.

Blade servers - cost-performance is again, way out of line for your budget.

This is a small outfit currently, where are they going to scale to as far a number of workstations to support? SBS while its great for a very limited growth organization, you're too close to maxing out the capabilities. An forget about Linux and others. This is probably a primarily Microsoft environment, don't make your life difficult, stay with Microsoft software - 32 bit. Server 2003 R2 or some derivation, not many small Enterprise applications are supported under 64-bit software other than native 64 bit Microsoft apps.

Network switching - small Enterprise - Some of the HP ProCurve Web managed 24-port L2 switches should work well, low-cost, good quality and they have VLAN capabilities, if needed, as the organization needs to segment, if they need segmentation at all. If they want to do segmentation, you'll need a L3 switch at the core to route the VLANs. This can be implemented now, without having to turn on all the features or use the L3 capabilities. Find something with "throw-away" capabilities, and keep a spare switch, no sense is spending a great deal of money on network switch support contracts for an Enterprise this size.

Servers: Active Directory (authentication), Exchange for collaboration (will do email-Outlook, scheduling-Outlook and project management-Project), Storage, Database-MS SQL, CAD-? - total 5. No knowing what your specific applications are using these services for limits the amount of advice.... I would need to know the design goals for each of the servers to advise in any constructive manner.

Desktops - ditch Vista, WinXP Pro only. You don't need the Vista headaches.

Wireless - I would avoid unless your going to set up WPA2-Enterprise with Active Directory. If that's your plan, go with fat APs from Cisco, Proxim, etc. The wireless switches with thin APs are great for large deployments, a headache and expensive for 1-3 AP deployements.

Heat - how big and well ventilated is the server room/closet/etc. Have you thought about your cooling requirements? 5 servers are going to kick out a lot of heat, and they're only going to operate good up to about 95F. One watt consumed is equal to 3.412 Btu/hr. To calculate tons of air conditioning required, multiply the total wattage consumed by 0.000285 or as some AC units are measured in BTU, it should be 1-2x, BTU produced versus dissipated.

UPS - This is kinda like cooling requirements, it depends on what a normal load consumes. Stick with someone real, I typically use Liebert, Eaton (PowerWare, BEST) or General Electric. These guys usually have some very good environmental monitoring capabilities as well. You want to UPS to signal your servers through a network port... Hopefully your servers are equipped with out-of-band remote management capabilities, and this would be a perfect entry point. This is not a place for USB ports. And remember, if the AC power to the building fails, the air conditioning fails too. You want just enough run-time to allow for a 5 or 10-minute power outage and then a graceful shutdown of your servers.

Help me understand where you are wanting to go with all of this.

steve.
 
I definitly agree on the blades, you're biting off mroe than you can Chew here. Blades are more of the "toss away" server in a sence. They're made for very tight racks that need to pack as much of a punch as they can for as long as they can. When one goes out, nothing's missing as they rely highly on clustering.

Blades also put off two, to three times the ammount of heat as a normal server. Without the proper equpment in the room, you will be frying eggs on the case.

You might want to consider Virtual PC's as well, buy one or two big servers, then build everything on top of them. ESX would be to big of an investment for six servers, but an HP DL580 running Debian 64, with no desktop would make the perfect platform for VMware server.

With more than one server, this gives you more redudancy than people will give you credit for, with a good linux NFS setup, you can just replicate the drives back and forth on a night by night basis. Thus if one goes down, everything can load on the other without a hitch.

This isn't quite an ESX/HA/VMotion cluster, but it will do very well for a company of that size.

I personally live in VMWare ESX, we run give or take 250-300 servers on a cluster of 6 HP DL580's, then we have two mroe in another cluster for testing/building of new systems. VMWare server can easily be installed onto a Desktop PC to build a server, then moved over to put it into production.

As for SANs, they aren't as costly as they used to be. So long as you go iSCSI, they're fairly cheap. It's FC SANs you have to watch for.

As for OS, YES avoid SBS! Also, I would stick to 64bit windows where possible. We are currently trying to move to a 64 bit network, however it's not as easy once everything is up and going. Like I stressed above, Plan ahead!! Everything grows, be sure when the company grows, they don't have to run out and buy new equpment, when the need arises, they need it then, not in a few weeks.

We get anywhere from none, to ten new user setups in a weekly basis, some start a month after, most the next week. In that case, we need a computer for them /then/. You also have to plan for outages, they may not happen, but what if they do? We use Cisco 4500 switchs, which allow us to replace the blades in minutes, which means we can swap out 48 gigabit ports as fast as we can rewire the switch to the new blade.

Also, monitering software will only do so much for you, you still need to check the servers. Check lists are your friend. I'm more Anal about that than the person you have flying you around the country. I get to work at 7:30 in the morning, by 8:30 AM, I have checked every system that I list as a critical (Anything that will cost us money by being down).

So the idea is to get it as un-complicated as possible, without losing the parts that make it a compleat network. Full time job in the least.
 
I would agree with Brandon here, blades don't quite seem to be right solution. I typically only use blades when I need to pack a lot in as little space possible. Maybe that fits the bill for you, but I'm not so sure about blades in this case.

Still too many questions.
 

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