Re: why have a server?...advice needed

Frankly, I would NOT even allocate ONE person to this at 50% of the time. For a business your size that is NOT overly complicated, I would expect you should be looking at $10,000-20,000 in annual IT support costs. For 20-22 users and 30 machines, with a QUALIFIED IT Consultant, that amounts to about 5-12 hours per month of IT support and in my opinion, if the network is installed properly with little change other than adding a computer and a user periodically, there should be no real need for more. One client I have who does commercial construction and custom cabinetry employs 20 people in the main office and a total of about 10 in 3 satellite offices of various sizes. Had I charged them my full $150/hour rate, I believe they would have been billed a total of roughly $10,000 last year, and that includes an emergency rebuild/replacement of their server when the old hardware died.

I don't know what the IT costs are or what the EXACT business needs you have are, but from what I'm understanding, I don't think the IT support costs should be more than what I stated above. And it'll be a waste in my opinion to hire a "jack of all trades" person as an employee who has 50% other responsibilities. The GOOD "jack of all trades" people will not want to do the other 50% of the work. But the GOOD ones can be hired as consultants and one person handle the MINOR stuff you need around the office. Stuff like adding a new user when necessary (SBS is DESIGNED to be day-to-day managed by the NON-Technical person. Though to be an effective system, you DO need to make sure its setup properly).

Best of luck - I envy you a little... I often find myself picking out the wastes in business processes and looking towards IT for solutions that can increase productivity. In some respects, I would love to be in your position right now.

-Lee

Greg Peterson wrote:
Hello again. Just some closing remarks:
1. This is not a startup. This is 3-5 people buying an already existing, 25-person company that is losing money. I will be one of the owners, responsible mainly for the SG&A costs (the other buyers will be overseeing plant operations and engineering). We have analyzed the company's books and their SG&A (which includes IT) is excessively high, which is contributing to their loss. You can tell from my questions that I am not an IT expert.
2. There is not enough money allowed to hire a full time IT person, but rather we'd have to allocate 50% of a person's time to IT (the other 50% would be, say, logistics).
3. The website hosting is an afterthought. Virtually none of the business will be attracted via the website, so whoever can host a plain vanilla website for $20/year is fine.
4. The stats on the T-1 line are appreciated. When it comes time to pricing out the data line, we'll consider the bandwidth of the calls and the data usage (I am sure I can get some real data for the data usage that is currently happening).
5. The comments on planning for growth are also appreciated. We do intend to grow the company once the losses are stabilized, and having multiple sites (even in different US states) would mean good IT / server planning now will pay off later.

Thanks again.

"leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:47eeab52$0$25038$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx
Greg Peterson wrote:
Thanks again for taking the time to reply. This is exactly the dialogue I was hoping for. See my replies below.

"leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:47edb592$0$5611$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx
Greg Peterson wrote:
Very good points, but allow me to respond....
Quick question - what is it this business does? Is it a real estate agency? A sales office? What? I don't need to know EXACT SPECIFIC DETAILS, but I'm being forced to generalize because I know nothing of what the business will do, other than it will have 20-30 users and many with laptops.

It's a light manufacturing company. About 20 office people (design engineers, purchasing, HR, accounting, etc.) and about 8 people in the plant (of which only 2 people in shipping & receiving have computers).

Earlier, you said that your web site would be receiving minimal traffic, so it would be hosted elsewhere... see, to me, that's when it makes the MOST sense for YOU to host it yourself. If your web site were BUSY, THEN you want it hosted on a reliable system in a data center somewhere where they have emergency generators and multiple connections to the internet in case one fails.

Most new businesses don't start out this big. So this isn't new, is it? Are you just walking into the environment? What do they have now? Or do they have nothing now (not a single desktop computer?) Are YOU the business owner? Or just the "trusted IT advisor" who is also an employee? If so, is your role SOLELY IT/Technical, or are you, for example, primarily a bookkeeper who is expected to handle the IT needs?

"leew [MVP]" <useContactPage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:47ed89c1$0$25019$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx
1. Single Logon. In a domain environment, you can setup your computers so that each user has a logon that can be used on ANY computer. When they change their password, the change is effective on ALL computers that are a member of the domain. In a Workgroup, you must setup a user account on EACH computer the user will log on to - or use a common logon which means you have no way of tracking who does what.

Everyone will have one computer, and there will not be any need to use one another's computer. So I guess the Single Logon does not matter here.
Sorry, but in my experience, there's always a need, especially when you have 20-30 users. Even for you or your support people.
Still not convinced we'd be using one another's computer. In the 3 businesses I've worked in (all fairly large companies), I've never been asked to use someone else's computer, nor has someone else used mine.
In the small businesses I've worked with, I've had one REALLY small business find it REALLY great when I told one of the owners when his computer died he could just sit right down in front of someone else's computer and log on, having access to everything he needed. He didn't realize this is how he was setup (even though I know I told both partners when I set them up this would be one of the advantages).

As I mentioned, there's a cramped office I work with and they can sit ANYWHERE without issues... if this company grows and there isn't room in the office for everyone, this may become something of an issue... maybe not. But without a server, this gets very complicated.

There's no guarantee anyone will ever need to use someone else's computer... but wouldn't it be nice if you could say to the boss(es) if and when his/her computer dies, all they need to do is sit down in front of another and log on and INSTANTLY, without doing anything else, they will have access to their information?


2. Centralized Management - you can control system settings on ALL systems from one system. For example, SBS will allow you to redirect everyone's My Documents and Desktop folders to a folder on the server. This is called folder redirection.

This is a good point, but what is the purpose of collecting everyone's "My Documents" and desktop folders? Is it for backup purposes? If so, why not use an online backup tool for each computer (e.g. www.carbonite.com). Cost is about $50/year per computer.
Ok... $50/computer/year... that's $1000 per year. How much data will you have? How fast will your internet connection be? Folder Redirection is also used when users move around. At one of my clients, they are packed in like sardines and by redirecting their folders, they can sit at ANY unused computer and when they log on, they have complete access to all their files without having to do anything. But that's not the only form of centralized management.

That's right. $1000/year for safe, secure backup with unlimited storage. Regardless of the backup solution, we will pay for a T-1 (to ensure Skype has sufficient bandwidth), and do the backups at night. To compare with what my present employer does, we paid several thousand $ for a server & tape backup system, and pay $750/MONTH for Iron Mountain data storage to come onsite every morning to pickup our tapes and store them offsite. You can see how $1000/year quickly got my attention.
First, a T1 is NOT fast. It's generally RELIABLE, but it's not fast. IT's OFTEN the fastest UPLOAD you can get for anything resembling a reasonable price for a small business, but it's NOT fast. Download wise, most ISPs I've seen (and this DOES depend where you are based) offer speeds AT LEAST twice as fast download - even DSL, if you were close by is up to 6 to 10x faster (DSL 6x, DSL2 10x) and is typically CHEAPER than a T1. (DSL Upload is USUALLY half T1). Cable can vary widely. Some cable internet companies max upload at 1 Mb, and have download speeds anywhere from 1.5 Mb (T1) to 30 Mb. My own cable internet provider gives my little data center 30 Mb download and 5 Mb upload for $80/month with almost the same reliability as a T1).

Second, CALLS take more bandwidth than you might think. A VoIP call TYPICALLY takes 80-100 Kb... that means a MAXIMUM of 15 calls - but when you factor other traffic in - like people reloading gmail every time they change a web page and downloading attachments, that could EASILY drop to 5 to 10 calls... and at peak times, say when two people are downloading a 5 MB attachment and someone else is downloading something else that maybe they shouldn't be, you could end up with dropped calls or call quality that sounds worse than a cell phone with 1 bar of signal. Most businesses that utilize VoIP will want MORE THAN ENOUGH bandwidth (like a business your size with a cable internet that has my capabilities) or a separate connection just for their phones. One company I'm familiar with will put ONLY 12 calls on a data T1 and they reserve that bandwidth to ensure data doesn't interfere with the calls. (A standard voice T1 holds 24 calls).

I don't believe Backup is that black and white either. For example, for my clients, I recommend using online backup services for CRITICAL data - like the database that is vital to the company and the accounting data. Other things typically get backed up to an external hard drive that is rotated off site once per week to someone's home. Now, this isn't IDEAL for everyone. It fits my clients. But for clients/companies that face certain regulatory requirements, it's necessary to use tape and a company like IRON MOUNTAIN.

Most of my clients pay about $500 for the backup system - 3 external hard drives with no monthly fees for off-site storage. But again, backup REALLY needs to be customized (I've HEARD of carbonite, obviously, but I've not used them nor contacted them. Consider this, if it really is $50/computer... then what if you ran EVERYTHING off the server... and JUST backed up the server... for $50. That ALONE would pay for the server in 3-5 years. (Check this - their licensing may prohibit it, but I couldn't quickly and easily find anything that said that).
I assume you'll be getting Microsoft Office for this company? Or perhaps an Antivirus program? Both office and Antivirus can be deployed using Active Directory. Do you want to go around to each machine and install office manually? Or would you like to copy the source CD to the network, define the package, and then the next time each computer is booted, office and the antivirus program and possible other software is automatically installed. Ok... so you buy office with the computer... fine... what about upgrades?

Here you bring up a genuine advantage. I can see the pain/time required of going around to each machine to do updates. But so far, that seems to be one of the few concrete benefits of using a server.

Do you think you might want to be able to restrict what people do online? Servers can help you do that more effectively and administered all from a remote location. What happens if you have a custom software program that needs an update on each computer... with a small script, you can push that update to everyone's systems with about 20 minutes of work.

We may need to restrict what they do online, but isn't that possible using a fairly sophisticated router? As for the custom software program you asked about, so far I foresee us only using over-the-counter software.
To an extent, yes, but sophisticated routers tend to cost far more than servers.
Perhaps you'd like to TRY to prevent your systems from getting infected with malware... well, you CAN go to each computer and implement policies manually - or you can setup one or more policies and apply them to all workstations from the server simply by placing the workstation or policy on the appropriate object in Active Directory.

Another genuine advantage. I'll think this one over, but see my point below about malware.

How about setting up printers? Is everyone going to have their own? That seems like a waste... do you want to know who prints what? Maybe give someone priority so their print jobs ALWAYS print first (bosses usually like that). Maybe you want to add a printer to the network... Well, with a server, add the printer to an SBS system and the next time the workstation user logs on, they have access the printer... OR you could go around and spend 5 minutes on each computer configuring the printer manually... or instruct your users how to do it, I suppose...

My current employer leases a very heavy use printer/copier/fax for about $500/month that serves all employees. If someone ahead of you has a 500-page file printing, the touch screen on the printer allows you to change the priority of the queue. As for adding the printer, this is a one-time setup on all computers, so I would just e-mail out the 5-step process for each person to set up the printer. I see no real advantage here of having a server.
I really hope you don't have employees like my clients do. Half of them can follow the instructions... the other half... you'll be helping. And only ONE printer/copier? It obviously depends on EXACTLY what kind of printing needs you have, but that cramped company client of mine has 10 printers or varying kings (they do have varying needs), but several are just plain b&w laser printers and they all get used by MOST people there.

3. I've used Gmail for an organization I'm in. I love google... but I HATE gmail. I've gotten so many important messages flagged as SPAM it's not funny. Maybe it was a config error on our administrators part, but I also don't like that I can't create (easily, if at all) sub folders. I would strongly advise against using the gmail facility at this time (I'm sure I'm in the minority).

Point taken.

4. Centralized backup. With Folder redirection, mentioned in #2,
you can backup virtually all user data without concern by backing up JUST the server. (Your network, ideally, will be setup so that your users can use ANY workstation (or almost any workstation) and if one fails, it really won't matter; they can sit at another employee's desk and pick up right where they left off).

See my response to point #2 above. If someone's computer fails, there will of course be some downtime given the time to reconfigure their computer and retrieve their backup, but that should be somewhat rare.
It should be - until they get infected with malware once a month (or more often) because that new employee likes to tweak EVERYTHING and downloads software illegally or maybe "stumbles" onto a porno web site with malware embedded in it.

Maybe I'm underestimating the danger of malware. Isn't Vista supposed to be much more "resistant" to malware? Can't a good firewall at the router prevent most types of malware. Again, I do not see how having a server is the only solution here.
I'd drop the "much". The "much" is more of a Microsoft word, I feel. Yes, it's more resistant... but it's still Windows, the #1 target BY FAR in the world. And nowadays, hackers aren't actually looking for you to find them. Botnets are prevalent even in MAJOR companies with supposedly FANTASTIC routers and firewalls and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPSs) and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs).

Good equipment can protect you better than not-so good equipment. But I setup a computer at a company slightly bigger than yours (35 people) and a BRAND NEW SYSTEM, with a nicely configured sonic wall firewall, was infected within a week so deeply it took me 3 hours to clear out the infection - probably should have reinstalled (I wanted to learn this malware, so I billed for 2 hours and spent the early evening figuring out how to get rid of it) until I finally did. And they were infected so badly because the user ran with administrator privileges.

5. Exchange Server, included with SBS, will provide shared and group calendars, e-mail, tasks, and contacts.

I have been using Gmail's group calendar and contacts and find them both very good.
I haven't used them so I can't specifically comment on them... but consider this - IF you buy a server, the obvious choice is Small Business Server (SBS). SBS is CHEAPER than a "Standard" copy of server AND it INCLUDES Exchange Server... so you might as well put it to good use. The capabilities of exchange are impressive (and occasionally frustrating -- but you can say about virtually any groupware solution).
6. One of the best features of SBS (and Windows Server 2003 and later) is Volume Shadow Copy, not typically offered by any CHEAP NAS. This feature takes automatic, periodic backups that users can easily restore themselves by right clicking on a folder and reviewing the history of the backups. EXPENSIVE NAS units typically offer this "snapshot" feature, but they typically cost AT LEAST $5,000 - usually more like $10K plus.

The NAS would be used only for file sharing, not for taking backup images. An online tool like Carbonite would be used. Storing the data online (and offsite) makes sense in that it protects from fire, floods, etc.
Volume Shadow Copy is NOT the same thing. I assume Carbonite would run nightly? Volume shadow copy, as I configure it for most of my clients, runs every 3 hours from 7am to 7pm. At which point you can go back to any of the backup points - 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, or 7pm on a given day. And it's instantaneous (as instantaneous as a file copy).

The more frequent backup points are nice, but we're not running a nuclear reactor here : ). Simply turning back the clock to the previous night's backup would sufficient for most. If they are working on something crucial, they should back it up to flash drive throughout the day.
Neither are my clients... but it has come in hand more than once... a few months ago, their accounting file got corrupt... we were able to step back in blocks of 3 years to find a good one. And just yesterday we quickly recovered an entire deleted folder off a server from earlier that morning.

Relying on users to do backups is the best way to lose information. How often do you backup your system? Even if you're one of the FEW who can HONESTLY say they backup their home computers often, ask your friends. Most people don't reliably backup their own important information... they aren't going to reliably backup yours, even when they are working on it.

Otherwise, in general, you are correct. Except that this is dependent upon your internet connection to some extent and the recovery time would be longer.
To put in some perspective, with a T1, your recovery speed - assuming NO CALLS and NO OTHER INTERNET USE, this is what you get:

Restore:
1 MB 5.3 seconds
10 MB 53 seconds
100 MB 8.9 minutes
1 GB 1 hour 28.9 minutes
10 GB 14.8 Hours
100 GB 6+ DAYS. Imagine if your NAS went down and you ONLY had Carbonite backups. No data for a week. No Calls, Internet, or e-mail for a week (or you don't get the data for more than a week).

I'm not sure what exactly your design engineers will be doing, but at one company I do work for they have a couple of CAD developers and in less than a year, they've got 3+ GB of data. That alone would be 4.5 hours to restore with your backup plan and internet connection.

Also, how are you backing up the NAS device? What happens if it fails? Especially if you end up setting up a significant configuration, this could be HOURS of tedious work getting a NAS to replace it.

The NAS would also be backed up to Carbonite. Right now, I'm looking at the Droboshare, which has received widespread praise for it's simplicity and idiot-proof concept.
http://www.drobo.com/products_droboshare.aspx
Interesting concept - I hadn't heard of them before. BUT, I don't like using technologies that don't explain how they do things. This device apparently DOES do redundancy (a REQUIREMENT in my opinion) BUT, it's not clear how. It does not appear to use a "standard RAID" style of redundancy so in the unlikely event that more than one drive failed, I'd be concerned about how you could recover data - even with a data recovery service. I'd consider it fine for anything not truly critical, but otherwise, I tend to be more conservative and doubt I'd be using it in your instance.

7. Remote access options with SBS include Remote Web Workplace, Sharepoint, and VPN.

This is a very good point, but with laptops being issued to many employees who travel, and using Gmail for e-mail and calendar features, I see the remote logon being less important. The only thing they'd need remote access to would be the local NAS, which we would probably set up with an FTP or something.
I hope you wouldn't use FTP. That's just inviting people to steal your data. FTP is an insecure protocol, user names and passwords are transmitted in clear text, meaning anyone who can catch a packet can determine how to access your files. This is not exactly difficult for a hacker.
Good point. Could we circumvent this risk by using SSL?
If you can find appropriate clients that use SSL and can setup that as a feature on your network. Does the Drobo device support SSL FTP? SOMETHING has to.

Sharepoint, included free with Windows Server would seem like an ideal document sharing platform for you.

What about accounting systems? Or maintenance?

I have a few pages you might want to review to get a better understanding of the SBS product and backup in general. You should also might want to review the link on Volume Shadow Copy.

http://www.visualwin.com/VSS/
http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/sbs.asp
http://www.lwcomputing.com/tips/static/backup.asp
Thanks very much for taking the time to reply.
Couple of other tips -

Get an account rep with Dell (or some other major vendor - my preference is Dell) and for a business, stick to the OptiPlex, Latitude, Workstation, and PowerVault lines. These systems are relatively cheap, come with excellent warranties, and are GENERALLY highly reliable in my experience. EVERYONE can make a lemon... and everyone can make a BATCH of lemons... but in my experience, you have very good odds of NOT having too many lemons and when you do, getting them repaired quickly, when using Dell. (I despise HP - every time I've called their support for ANYTHING I get routed to India and get a different, lame suggestion as to how to repair something. Again, in my experience, 50/50 chance you hit the Dell India support queue... but that's a 50% better chance than you have with HP... and you can always call Dell back later.

My present employer uses Dell Latitude series and I agree they are very reliable.

When buying Laptops, get 3 year warranties AND 3 year accidental damage coverage. It's expensive (typically $400-$500 per laptop), but laptops travel MUCH more than desktops... things spill, they drop, etc. The warranty will protect against all that.

When buying a server, get a 3 year, 24x7x365 warranty with 4 hour response. MUST BE 4 hour response. The server runs the business. The desktop does not. Desktops can have 1 year warranties... but the server needs a FULL 3 year warranty.

It seems to me like you're asking "here's my network TODAY, can't this work TODAY?" and probably... if you accept some of the relatively minor inconveniences, such as manual software installation and updates. But are you really believing this company will not grow in the next few months and years? Are you really believing that the boss (or if that's you), your important team members won't come to you tomorrow and say "hey, there's this product that could boost our revenue by 10%... 20%... or more in the coming months because it will allow us to do XYZ with our data and better sell." Maybe you're not in a growth industry... but basically, you're leaving very little room for growth... for IF. IF this is a completely new business and you spend $5000-7500 now on a server that is properly implemented, you can save yourself $20,000 later on the server, plus installation/change/migration costs AND potentially lost productivity that could cost you FAR more in lost sales or worse, frustrated customers as your sales/support lines get disrupted. If you're going to have 30 employees, I can surmise that your company is AT LEAST generating (or expecting to generate) $1,000,000. We're talking about IT "back end" costs that will be less than 1% of one year's revenue but generally last at least 3 years.

Are you going to buy new PCs that max out at 2 GB of RAM because that's all Vista will NEED? Or are you going to buy new PCs that can have AT LEAST 4 GB of RAM with the option to expand to more (also meaning you'll need a 64 bit Operating System). I would HOPE you're not going to go only with what you need TODAY on the computers and I would hope you don't box yourself into a network that may work ok today... but tomorrow you find yourself spending thousands to get a big box.

Here's what I would recommend for you in the way of a Server based on what you describe:

*Dell PowerEdge 1900 (or 2950 if you have/expect to have a rack)
*Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2 with Software Assurance, providing an automatic upgrade license to SBS 2008 when that arrives.
*SINGLE Quad Core CPU with the lowest GHz rating available (you can always upgrade later and/or add a second CPU).
*4 GB RAM (max SBS can use)
*2 250 GB hard drives in a Hardware RAID 1 array
*3 500 GB hard drives in a RAID 5 array
*7x24 warranty with 4 hour response

This will be around $3000-4000 without the operating system or tape backup (and again, backup can be done to external drives, so I wouldn't be getting a $2000+ tape backup system, unless your in a business with legal requirements to archive your data OR you have over 500 GB of data).

Add in the OS (Volume license with Software Assurance) and backup system, and installation by a QUALIFIED individual, and you can expect this to run you about $6000-8000. BUT, then you don't have to tell people "we can't do that" or "we can't do that easily because we don't have a server." Instead, you can do everything you wanted to... AND if something new comes up, you can do that too with minimal effort.

Couple of other notes related to network security - two products I've recently seen presented you might want to look at:

*Fortigate products - which combine many of the network security features discussed above into one box.
*FireEye products - DOUBT you'll be getting one of these because they are EXPENSIVE, but fascinating in what they do; virtually creating a network to determine if any activity is suspicious (botnet) activity. (I saw them present at a local InfraGard meeting in February. They refused to name names, but they indicated MAJOR companies - financial, health care, and others, had compromised systems and also explained that these botnet people are not trying to be found, rather, they will instruct the software on your system to check once an hour... or even once a day for other systems to infect... so infrequently everything else ignores it.


.

Loading