Is this underspec'ed or overkill for a DR server?

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lchiu7

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#151352 22-Aug-2014 15:12

We have identified we need about 50 people to be able to access systems in the event of a DR. They would need Exchange, Office and some other standard apps. Access would be via a VPN so the remote site would have one server(s) and a VPN router/appliance.

The DR Exchange server (likely to be 2013) would be in a DAG with the production server and data replicated in real time. Given the amount of data the organisation changes each day ( probably < 1TB) we could use DFS to keep the two sites in sync, possibly over a site-to-site 100Mbs VPN (Wellington/Auckland).

Initial thoughts about remote access are using Windows Server 2012R2 and serving up apps using RemoteApp (no need yet for VDI given the standard nature of the apps). Initial thoughts have led to using Hyper-V, firing up servers to support WTS, a Broker, Exchange, a DC, Application Server and SQL.

Talking to some vendors I have been presented with the following (Cisco) configuration. We use Cisco servers in the main DC so it seemed reasonable to stick with them.

2 400GB SSD's would be for the Hyper-V server in a RAID configuration and the 6 1TB drives in RAID 10(?) for the rest of the data.

It's hard to find documentation on how to size this sort of thing so perhaps folks can point me to something?

As an aside the configuration above is < $15K

Thanks

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timmmay

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#1113495 22-Aug-2014 15:24

Not an expert or even close, but 2x400GB seems pretty large for boot devices. 128GB of RAM seems pretty hefty, will that give all those users a virtual desktop?

Have you considered Office365 / cloud for DR?

Have you looked at the resources required for each product and multiplied it out by the number of users? That's how I'd do it.

jnimmo

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#1113498 22-Aug-2014 15:27

I think the SSDs may be overkill, you just mean for actually having Hyper-V installed on? I know VMWare can just go on an SD card
Does this have remote management console built in already (for network KVM?)
Rather than using DFS, would it be an option to use Hyper-V Replica just to push changes down then boot up on this DR server if required? I'm sure over a good link DFS probably works well but have run into issues with it (over a much slower link) in the past.
And like Timmay said, Office 365 seems to be working out cheaper than running Exchange onsite these days.

Dynamic

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#1113499 22-Aug-2014 15:28

To me that looks fine. I assume we are talking about a file server, an Exchange server, an AD server (maybe combined with the file server) and a Terminal Server?

Exchange will keep the disks pretty busy, but even 50 people does not keep a file server busy. The Terminal Server should run nicely from the SSDs.

Have you considered shifting Exchange to Office365? I think you would get special pricing. Your people would be able to access their communications from anywhere using the Active Directory credentials if an office became suddenly unavailable. That would take quite a bit of storage and processing performance requirement away from your in-house and DR servers.

Something else to consider. Is this really necessary? If your IT Support company are doing their job properly, restoring your servers to full service should take less than 48 hours. Giving staff a 2 day holiday while services are being restored might be a more cost-effective option than establishing and maintaining a DR facility over a 3-5 year period. Backing up the servers daily or more often using an image-based backup solution to a storage facility in the remote office should be a relatively cheap and low-maintenance-cost option.

Cheers
Mike

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lchiu7

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#1113512 22-Aug-2014 15:53

Thanks for the input and a couple of comments.

1. Business says they need RTO in less than a day. With real time sync don't have to worry about tapes etc.

2. Hosting in DR site is in budget. It would only be 2U (1U for server, 1U for VPN appliance/router)

3. Office 365 not feasible because of EDRMS embedded with Outlook. Staff say they want access to all past documents over the past 10 years(!). Plus I still need to provision for the SQL applications.

4. I am trying to do sizing which is why I asked if there are any pointers out there.

5. As for the 400 GB SSD what I was thinking was Hyper-V host and all the VM's would run off the SSD's. That is at least 5 VM's.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Regs

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#1113865 23-Aug-2014 00:05

have you considered building up the DR in the cloud - e.g. Microsoft Azure? You could potentially do 1:1 mappings from your current servers, but switch off the VMs for most of the time. You would then only get charged for them when they are running. You wouldn't need to buy extra windows server licenses either, as they are built in to cloud pricing (still need exchange licenses etc). You could also build up the servers and test with lower specs, and only ramp them up (cpu/ram) if you have to do a cutover.

Inmage Scout has also been recently added into the Azure Site Recovery DR lineup meaning you can do end-to-end DR from physical or virtual on premises environments pretty easily. http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/07/16/azure-site-recovery-now-offers-disaster-recovery-for-any-physical-or-virtualized-it-environment-with-inmage-scout-2/

Feel free to ping me if you want more info, or are keen to try out (for free :-))

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Jax

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#1113930 23-Aug-2014 10:17

I think the Server spec is ok - Nice to run the VMs out of the SSD too.

Some thoughts:

In a DR scenario, have you considered how you will failback?
are you using virtulisation @ Head office? what is it?
Not sure why the SD card is required if Hyper-v
Note: This is not a backup.. you mention doing away with tapes? somethign like Cryptolocker could hurt
Apps/SQL will need more design
You'll need contorl of public DNS for mail delivery etc
Would you need to backup the DR environment in a Dr event?
I think you'll need to license all the VMs as they are running realtime

Cheers

cr250bromo

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#1114000 23-Aug-2014 12:17

I setup a Cisco UCS with very similar specs to the one you are proposing - very happy with it.
In terms of sizing, whoever does your Cisco pre-sales should be able to help (at AUT we use IBM)
The Cisco Nexus 1000V is also nice in that it extends the Cisco switching/routing into VMWare/HyperV...

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insane

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#1114041 23-Aug-2014 12:58

portunus: I setup a Cisco UCS with very similar specs to the one you are proposing - very happy with it.
In terms of sizing, whoever does your Cisco pre-sales should be able to help (at AUT we use IBM)
The Cisco Nexus 1000V is also nice in that it extends the Cisco switching/routing into VMWare/HyperV...

Hey I'm all down with using UCS, great in large environments or where consistency is key. At the UCS course I went to it's clear that all the major ICT providers in NZ are getting in on it too, specially as part of FlexPod deployments (where I used it).

Nexus 1000v however... no thanks, that's just too unreliable in my experience and q week value proposition when it was a paid product. Hardly surprising they are having to give it away now as no one wanted it when it was a paid product.

lchiu7

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#1114073 23-Aug-2014 14:26

Jax: I think the Server spec is ok - Nice to run the VMs out of the SSD too.

Some thoughts:

In a DR scenario, have you considered how you will failback?
are you using virtulisation @ Head office? what is it?
Not sure why the SD card is required if Hyper-v
Note: This is not a backup.. you mention doing away with tapes? somethign like Cryptolocker could hurt
Apps/SQL will need more design
You'll need contorl of public DNS for mail delivery etc
Would you need to backup the DR environment in a Dr event?
I think you'll need to license all the VMs as they are running realtime

Cheers

Thanks. The answers to this

- In a DR scenario, have you considered how you will failback? - yes
are you using virtulisation @ Head office? what is it? - Hyper-V
Not sure why the SD card is required if Hyper-v - performance
Note: This is not a backup.. you mention doing away with tapes? somethign like Cryptolocker could hurt - doing away with tapes for restore. Tapes still used as tier 2 backup at the DC (tier one to disk)
Apps/SQL will need more design - done
You'll need contorl of public DNS for mail delivery etc - under control - have control over DNS and MX records
Would you need to backup the DR environment in a Dr event? - yes so we can get back
I think you'll need to license all the VMs as they are running realtime - yes apart from SQL (need to check Exchange)

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

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#1114075 23-Aug-2014 14:32

insane:
portunus: I setup a Cisco UCS with very similar specs to the one you are proposing - very happy with it.
In terms of sizing, whoever does your Cisco pre-sales should be able to help (at AUT we use IBM)
The Cisco Nexus 1000V is also nice in that it extends the Cisco switching/routing into VMWare/HyperV...

Hey I'm all down with using UCS, great in large environments or where consistency is key. At the UCS course I went to it's clear that all the major ICT providers in NZ are getting in on it too, specially as part of FlexPod deployments (where I used it).

Nexus 1000v however... no thanks, that's just too unreliable in my experience and q week value proposition when it was a paid product. Hardly surprising they are having to give it away now as no one wanted it when it was a paid product.

We run all UCS servers in our local DC and hosted services. I think they are great value for money compared with the HP we used to use.
Haven't gotten into their fancy switching fabric yet but one day when I need a SAN upgrade, I am going to look at it.

We have been using WestconGroup for presales. So far so good.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

timmmay

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#1114095 23-Aug-2014 14:54

Don't forget DNS propagation time.

lchiu7

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#1114111 23-Aug-2014 15:26

timmmay: Don't forget DNS propagation time.

Yes and just as importantly, MX records also. Should cover the RTO

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.