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Advice on new server at 2nd site

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meader83

meader83

Free Member
May 20, 2008
37
0
Beckenham, Kent
Hi

We currently have a Windows SBS 2008 Server in our office (OFFICE 1) which serves around 25-30 users. It serves as a domain controller, file server and exchange server and works great.

We have recently opened up a second office (OFFICE 2) approx 60 miles away and the have linked the office via a static VPN

All users at our second office (OFFICE 2) log in by accessing our SBS server (OFFICE 2). There are currently 10 users but this is expecting to double. Users also move between both sites

This can be very slow when it comes to logging in, accessing folder shares and downloading exchange emails in outlook.

What would be the best Server solution to get around this problem?

Should we get another SBS2008 server and set up replication or certain features like Active Directory etc


Any advice would be greatly received
 
It sounds like the possible issue is with your internest connection speed, do you have some figures on actual speed and upstream/downstream loads (ie how much data you are transfering)?
 
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There are a few questions that you would probably need to ask yourself here.

For example, with DFS on a Windows Server, you can sync files between two servers and that does indeed help in scenarios such as yours. However, are there files that would be critical to remain in perfect sync between the sites (a good example is a Sage Accounts database that needs to be accessed by users at each site - we wouldn't recommend using DFS for that...). Or are the files that need to be accessed less critical (documents, spreadsheets, etc.)


I suppose the main questions are;
- how much data needs to be accessible between sites and kept in sync?
- what is the internet connection speed at each site?
- what sort of files will need to be kept in sync?


Those are a few that I can think of off the top of my head. I'd be happy to have a chat with you if you like to see what we could recommend.
 
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Hi

There are no critical files that would need to be synced it is mainly only speadsheets, word docs etc and obviously user profiles too.

each site has 1mb up speed and 20mb down ADSL2+

othellotech: How is your office connected to all the users ? what do you mean by this? All users are connected through cabled LAN in each office and at SITE 2 they access the server over WAN through the VPN that has been set up
 
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meader83 said:
Hi

There are no critical files that would need to be synced it is mainly only speadsheets, word docs etc and obviously user profiles too.

each site has 1mb up speed and 20mb down ADSL2+

othellotech: How is your office connected to all the users ? what do you mean by this? All users are connected through cabled LAN in each office and at SITE 2 they access the server over WAN through the VPN that has been set up
Click to expand...


OK so if you have 35 users and 50% of them are trying to work on files on the other server they all have to share the 20MB up and 1Mb down (are these real speeds or quoted?) the being the case the beast each user will get is 1.1MB down and 0.057MB (57kB) up. Given you are writing to files over this network I am guessing the writing a file is V slow. You probably need to upgrade your internet connection to higher speed either by using a bonded line (ie more than 1 ASDL connection in parralell) or getting a fiber optic line ..... as this is now hedding away from my experiance I will leave it to others to suggest a faster internet connection solution.
 
Last edited:
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Hi yes this is why rather than looking at adding a local server rather than having to read/write files over the broadband line

We cannot get fibre in our area so thats not an option.

I understand you can set a time for DFS replication so this can be done at non critical times, but im trying to work out a recommeded overall setup.

Do i need this second server to be a domain controller, active directory, exchange, etc
 
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I think you will not be able to ensure both sets of files are the same without reciving transmitting the data over the ASDL live (same for terminal services) at the end of the day the ASDL will be the bottle neck.

I would check your real speed - try here http://www.speedtest.net/, Your router may also record av speed for you although the site above will give your somthing for your PC on the network.

Probably the way forward is to get a Bonded ASDL line this uses more than one ASDL for communication so increasing the speed, speek to your ISP.
 
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ok thanks

so bonded broadband looks to be part of the solution but again i'm still trying to find out more about the server setup rather than broadband speed.

Are you saying if i have a bonded line i would have no need for a new server at site 2.

I am things to be as fast as possibel for local users to log in and access their files
 
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As far as I understand it you want to hold any files that people at both sites will work on in one place, ie on one server. It is always a good idea to back up files so a second server at the other site would be a good place to back up. As a server solution, just for file serving you could use Network Area Storage - basically a set of drives that are part of a small file server (NAS)- I have a 2TB set running RAID (therefore 1TB avalible) for our set up, but theres only 2 of us. It does its own auto backup etc and you can set it up for a range of access options including VPN, it cost about £250 and has the capacity to take more. How much data needs to be avalible - ie how much space do you need, does it need to be encrypted? encryption can be done by hardware on NAS faster for read/write but more expensive.
 
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Hi

No i want the files that people want to access to be stored within their LAN for them to access.

Ie if they are in the London office they access their files/emails from the London server but if they are in the Manchester office they access the manchester server

What i want is that if they move from one office to the other they can still log on quickly with one set of log in details and still have access to their files and exchange emails. For example i spend 3 days in London and 2 in Manchester.

What i am trying to eliminate is the need for users to need to access files/emails over the WAN which can be very slow if there are lots of concurrent users logged on at once.

Does that make sense?
 
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Yep sorry, I think I got lost in the the whole ASDL issue...

I suggest two file servers (2 NAS) for example - one at each site, then set them to back eachother up at night. So each night a mirror of each is created at both sites. they can then open their files at the other sites lan and find them on their local lan the next day.....

set the backup to look for an back up only changed files.

this will be a problem if the files can be multi user files, then I think you have no choice but to serve live.
 
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ok thanks thats what i was hoping for. And the backup option makes good sense

As i said before we are using Windows SBS 2008

What about things like login/exchange? Im sure we can replicate Active Directory can we also do this with exchange
 
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Or adopt a cloud system for accessing files like Office 365 (don't know how good it is though) or a hosted desktop.
 
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if you go for 2 NAS servers then you just connect them into the current network, you can then set who can see or not see, the functions will be dictated by the NAS you by. Mine is a 'small' one £250, there are smaller at lest cost and less functionality, and you can pay several £k if you want/need.

The server just connects into the LAN and then I can configure who can see what and also set up backup/mirroring functions wich at the moment are triggered from my PC.

If you dont want two NAS then you can probably set the Windows 2008 as one end and the NAS at the other. You essencially have two sites, with two seperate networks. The storage on the two networks then backs eachother up (ie generates a mirror copy) over night.

If you are not running a RAID system on the current server (need extra hardware) I would consider this as it mean that if one of the drives dies the data can be recovered.

Our back up system is: All data with small file size (some of our files are >100MB) backed up online, and any generated online data backup on our system. Any critical large files duplicated on two pcs,

all critical data backed up to the NAS, then to 2nd backup drive.

I am expecting to back this up further with backup to USB pen for active files (this is networked through the NAS) and a Fireproof Datasafe for 2nd backup drive (£1000 for safe). Our current backup comes to 176GB of data - not an amount for transfer over an ASDL line too often! (although a backup will usually only backup the files wich have changed.
 
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Got mine from misco - very helpful tech support there were happy to discuss things with me. (I was looking for hardware encryption for <£2k - err nope, but soft was fine for what I'm doing.)
 
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Vennweb said:
That still requires 35 people to access their data over a 20MB/1MB connection --> v slow
Click to expand...
Yes but at the moment, you are restricted by upload speed of 1mb. The data can't be uploaded quick enough. With a properly cloud solution, you will be restricted by the download speed of 20mb, as the upload speed of the server would far exceed this. For 35 people, you may still need a faster download speed and could probably do it with a Virgin or BT Infinity line (if available in your area).
 
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sanjiv said:
Yes but at the moment, you are restricted by upload speed of 1mb. The data can't be uploaded quick enough. With a properly cloud solution, you will be restricted by the download speed of 20mb, as the upload speed of the server would far exceed this. For 35 people, you may still need a faster download speed and could probably do it with a Virgin or BT Infinity line (if available in your area).
Click to expand...

Unless you dont connect via your IP your Upload will be throttled by the IP, if you connect direct then no internet etc .......
 
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Vennweb said:
Unless you dont connect via your IP your Upload will be throttled by the IP, if you connect direct then no internet etc .......
Click to expand...
You mean download. You would probably get two broadband lines for redundancy but you need to weigh up the costs of it too.
 
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Hi,
this shows that on-premise servers are limited, expensive to maintain and time consuming

take a look at Microsoft office 365, you can create a hybrid system while migrate to the cloud in full over time

The cloud will take over so climb aboard and save money
 
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At the end of the day the slowest point for this co is their internet connection. It doesnt matter where it connects to after the IP the LAN to IP connection is slow/overloaded.

sanjiv - a bonded asdl is not redundency but 2 lines running in parralell - so download is 40MB and upload 2MB. And I definitley mean upload, this is the major bottle neck, download of 1MBpp would be slow, but not as noticable as an upload of 57kB.
 
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Vennweb said:
At the end of the day the slowest point for this co is their internet connection. It doesnt matter where it connects to after the IP the LAN to IP connection is slow/overloaded.

sanjiv - a bonded asdl is not redundency but 2 lines running in parralell - so download is 40MB and upload 2MB. And I definitley mean upload, this is the major bottle neck, download of 1MBpp would be slow, but not as noticable as an upload of 57kB.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about bonded. I was talking about redundancy as you mentioned throttling. If one line went slow, you could easily switch to the other. I believe there is a Draytek kit that does this. Virgin and BT both do 100mb services as I mentioned earlier so this would be 3mbpp down. Virgin do 10mb up which is again enough for hosted desktop for 36 users. Most of it is download. Little upload bandwidth is required for this.

Office 365 is web based and files are edited live so very little bandwidth is required for that also.
 
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meader83 said:
ok thanks

so bonded broadband looks to be part of the solution but again i'm still trying to find out more about the server setup rather than broadband speed.

Are you saying if i have a bonded line i would have no need for a new server at site 2.

I am things to be as fast as possibel for local users to log in and access their files
Click to expand...

if you have a bonded line you would have more upload speed for user's at site 2 to use

i would look at running each site as a seperate facility (network wise) and syncing files server- server

the problem you would potentially face is e-mail.... you'd need to setup exchange to send the other user's mail to the second server (this would introduce some latency... mail would go to server 1 and then be filtered and forwarded to server 2)

joe
 
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Get a hosted exchange or use Google Apps or Office 365 for email. Might not be as cost effective on its own though. Maybe just get a faster line and see how it goes?
 
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sanjiv said:
Get a hosted exchange or use Google Apps or Office 365 for email. Might not be as cost effective on its own though. Maybe just get a faster line and see how it goes?
Click to expand...


that might be a better idea for you....

offsite it all..... hosted exchange, hosted file server one server would then probably be sufficient for both sites

joe
 
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but surely this is getting further and further from what i have asked for

I want to keep everything local. ie No cloud.

I am simply asking what is the best setup if i add an server at site 2
 
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meader83 said:
but surely this is getting further and further from what i have asked for

I want to keep everything local. ie No cloud.

I am simply asking what is the best setup if i add an server at site 2
Click to expand...
Get a faster connection for starters. Then you could try and sync files between the two sites (potentially use Dropbox for this). For exchange, it might be best to keep that on the one server and connect to that from outlook at site 2.
 
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Why must everything be local?

Agree with the others regarding adopting the cloud - this situation is perfect for taking virtual private servers. Yes you will likely need to get another Internet connection but that is such a small cost for the benefit that a hosted cloud solution would offer.

If you absolutely must have it local for whatever reason then what Sanjiv suggested is probably best... but you may be shooting yourself in the foot with it.

Cheers

Ryan
 
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meader83 said:
but surely this is getting further and further from what i have asked for

I want to keep everything local. ie No cloud.

I am simply asking what is the best setup if i add an server at site 2
Click to expand...

Given your requirements adding a Windows 2008 R2 DC in the remote site is probably the best option in the first instance. This will speed up logons as authentication will occur locally - make sure each site has an AD subnet defined. If your Site 2 users are predominantly located in that site you could also place their home drives on this server. Similarly if there is any 'workgroup' data used mainly by them you could locate it on this server, again to reduce VPN traffic.

If the client in the second office are Windows 7 based you could also configure the new server as a BranchCache server which will reduce the amount of data sent over the VPN when accessing files on the head office SBS box.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/branchcache.aspx

Hope that helps...
 
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meader83 said:
but surely this is getting further and further from what i have asked for

I want to keep everything local. ie No cloud.

I am simply asking what is the best setup if i add an server at site 2
Click to expand...


Why do you want to keep everything locally?

option 1 is....

you upgrade both internet connections
add a server at site 2 and configure it to do what you want it to do (Exchange etc)


option 2 is.....

you use cloud exchange
Colocate the server you already have (probably in the same DC you buy your hosted exchange from)

make a few configuration changes to accomomdate for the different IP Address etc

and leave everything else as it is.....


the problem your facing is due to the way DSL works (upload is always slower than download)

if you manage to solve the problem with option 1 you will eventually outgrow it to a point where you'd need to have dark fibre run to your door (then it become's much cheaper to co-locate or even rent another server)

joe
 
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Hi
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meader83 said:
thanks for all your input i think i have enough to think over

appreciate all your help
Click to expand...


i did some work for a college some moon's ago now.. and they had 10mbs uplink (courtesy of good o'l British Telecom) specially run to the main site

even this at time's was too slow (and incredibly expensive) for what they were trying to use it for and that was with a domain controller onsite and local storage for a couple of hundred students

joe
 
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Hi,

Why not go for a 2nd member server (You can't have two SBS2008 servers on the same domain) in OFFICE2. Use this for AD, DHCP/DNS, file & print services. Then setup the Outlook clients to Outlook over HTTP (to reduce bandwidth VPN issues)

If you need to share files between the offices, use SharePoint to collaborate.

We have this setup and working well on several client sites which have broaband connections less than 4Mb/1Mb.
 
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