RE: New HA server and business server strategy?

["Nigel Giddings" <nigel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul,

I started with the philosophy of separate machines from the get go...

I have MS Small Business Server (Exch, AD, IIS etc) on a separate machine
f=
rom the HA stuff. To be honest in a domestic environment you don't need a
h=
igh end PC for SBS. HW reliability was more important for me so I went for
=
RAID5, Dual PSU and generally commercial grade server chassis...

I also used the same H/W (different box) for Homeseer (HA) but as you say
t=
his is more process hungry, delayed actions are more noticeable on HA
funct=
ion IMHO. I went with resilient H/W because it seemed necessary, however,
I=
am trying to ensure all the house systems can run autonomously albeit with=
out the added functions/integration provided by Homeseer. With this in
mind=
maybe a less resilient high specification machine would be more suitable? =
Commercial boxes don't tend to support sound cards, extended IO and USB?

I have also dabbled with *@H (Asterisk) and because it's Linux it had to
be=
a completely separate PC....

My CCTV also has a dedicated PC...

I also have a dedicated PC (eventually there will be 2) to drive XLobby
wit=
h multiple soundcards... Maybe this PC could be shutdown/hibernate when
the=
house is unoccupied under the control of Homeseer?

It would be very interesting to see a study on Power consumption for the
va=
rious PC strategies... Would an all singing all dancing PC running VM or a
=
blade server chassis actually use less power than several lower specified
m=
achines?

Not much help but an interesting subject

Nigel

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Gale [mailto:groups@xxxxxxx]=20
Sent: 22 July 2006 09:55
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: [ukha_d] New HA server and business server strategy?

I've currently got the following boxes running 24/7 at home:

1)	W2K3 Server - IIS, DHCP, DNS, AD, ExchangeServer, HomeSeer + Lots of
oth=
er xAP and HA apps + MP3 server
2)	Geovision CCTV server (XP)
3)	Dell (=A3100) server running Asterisk @ Home (CentOS Linux)

The HA apps are growing and now require a fair bit of processing power and
=
are becoming more likely to impact on the server and exchange functions -
a=
nd I'm worried they may crash occasionally.

So - I want to restructure all of this, especially as I'll be moving into
a=
larger custom built Node0 early next year :-) I was originally thinking of=
adding another PC to run all the HA stuff on and separating it from the W2=
K3 server/exchange functions. However, I don't want to keep adding more
PC'=
s!!!

Could I use VM ware or something similar on one or two really powerful
boxe=
s? Does this work OK and are there any down-sides to doing this?

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,


Paul.





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