I prefer to think of it as:
"A consensus of opinion from great minds lend validity to the proposed solution." -sc From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:34 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: How would you go about this? Thanks for making my commentary superfluous, SC. :) -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Steven M. Caesare <scaes...@caesare.com> wrote: We have seem extended server life as well, for a variety of reasons, one particular of which having been a significant number of applications being deprecated, and the development effort is happening on new platforms, so there's no incentive to upgrade the old systems , as they will be EOL'ed once the user base is migrated. For boxes that may have been failing, we simply VM'ed many of them (often bumping up the resources available to them in the process). With the advent of virtualization, I see us adding/upgrading VM servers on a semi-regular basis, increasing the resources given to VM's and/or migrating the heaviest ones to the new boxes, and slowly retiring the old. The life cycle I suspect look similar to what it did for the physical boxes (3-5 yrs with some maint. Costs), but the VM's they host will likely be much more fluid... -sc > -----Original Message----- > From: Charlie Kaiser [mailto:charl...@golden-eagle.org] > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:01 AM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: RE: How would you go about this? > > +1. > While 5 or 6 years ago 3 year server replacements were the norm, that's no > longer the case. By the time you put together server cost, OS license, and > migration consulting costs, a small business is unwilling to pay $10 or so to > upgrade their SBS box or exchange server just because it's old. > We're running into many more aged hardware issues than we used to, and > some of them are ugly. > > *********************** > Charlie Kaiser > charl...@golden-eagle.org > Kingman, AZ > *********************** > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Erik Goldoff [mailto:egold...@gmail.com] > > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 6:29 AM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: RE: How would you go about this? > > > > "You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help." > > > > > > > > *or* YOU are luckily spoiled ! > > > > > > > > Yes, a 3 year lifecycle refresh is ideal, but not realistic > > budget-wise for MANY out there in the real world. Especially in the > > SMB market, I frequently run into aging servers with some of my > > consulting clients. You'd be hard pressed to convince them to replace > > a server that is currently working as expected with new hardware > > and/or new OS without proving any significant benefit in features over > > the existing systems. The biggest issue on aging servers that I see > > is drive failures, and insufficient drive space/size due to data > > growth. Data volumes can be replaced/upgraded without an entirely new > > server in many if not most cases. > > > > > > > > That said, we all know that Windows 2000 ( all flavors including > > servers ) are dropping from Microsoft support July 12th this year. So > > the lack of support, service packs, and vulnerability fixes *will* be > > a driving factor for OS upgrades which work out well with hardware > > upgrades > > > > Erik Goldoff > > > > IT Consultant > > > > Systems, Networks, & Security > > > > ' Security is an ongoing process, not a one time event ! ' > > > > From: Holstrom, Don [mailto:dholst...@nbm.org] > > Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:15 AM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: RE: How would you go about this? > > > > > > > > You get five years out of a server? I think you need the help. I was > > just looking for some help in picking up a file server. I replace all > > my workstations and servers every three years. But I only have 130 > > workstations and servers. > > > > > > > > Your growth estimate is OK as it increases here at the Museum. That is > > why I am splitting the data onto several HDs. > > Thanks for your help. > > > > > > > > From: Jonathan Link [mailto:jonathan.l...@gmail.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2010 4:18 PM > > To: NT System Admin Issues > > Subject: Re: How would you go about this? > > > > > > > > I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to pick apart > > your request. > > > > We really don't have any idea of what your rate of data growth is. > > There are two estimates we can make from the data supplied, linear > > growth or geometric growth. With linear, you're adding about 125 GB > > of data per year. With geometric you're doubling your data every ~19 > > months. So, if you expect the same growth rate, in 5 years (assumed > > life of a > > server) you're at either +625 GB of data or over 8 TB of data. > > > > Just taking a step back and looking at it from 30,000 feet, a server > > is the least of your storage concerns if you're doubling your data > > every 19 months or so. > > > > On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Holstrom, Don <dholst...@nbm.org> > > wrote: > > > > I have a file server that has gone above 1 TB. When I first came here > > to the museum a few years ago (8), they had 33 gigs of data on one > > server. I brought in file tape backups until last year when the backup > > went out of that range. > > > > I always used SCSI RAIDs but even now that is a bit high. > > > > So > > > > I have ordered a new file server with six HD openings. I am figuring a > > pair of 10,000-rpm 150 or 300 gig HDs for the OS, I can go Server 03 > > or 08, figuring on 08. I would back up one with the other. Then for > > data, two 2TBS backed up for the main data and two 1.5 or less for > > other data, also backed up. > > Then I could/would backup to external 2TB drives for longevity. > > > > What thinkist thee? Is there another way I should go? Data here will > > continue to increase at the same rate... > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
