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Thread: Server help

  1. #1
    ERU
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    Server help

    Hi all,
    I’m looking for some advice and guidance as we contract ‘in’ a local IT company to sort IT issues.
    Recently the server: had a single raid HDD failure, but when the ‘new’ HDD was put in to rebuild, it seems the Domain Controller (catalogue of all PCs and users accounts) also packed in… The server is setup with x2 HDD drives for a (raid) Windows Server OS and x2 HDD drives for (raid) data/virtual servers. The IT techs said they would let us know if the Domain Controller becomes usable again! Thereafter, the Domain Controller restore didn’t work...
    They were unable to unable to fix the Domain Controller. As such, they suggested a new Domain must be created, all (200 ish) user accounts recreated, all PC and laptops visited manually and joined to the new Domain and everyone’s user data moved to their new accounts.
    By now we were on the fourth day of ‘day rate’… We had no choice but to agree, as people couldn’t work.
    The above was setup onto their loan server, where they managed to restore the data back from the other single working HDD. They could browse through the data etc, but the restore, and subsequent turning on of the Virtual server produced a lot of errors - so potentially the odd file might not open / behave unexpectedly.
    The latest is these two quotes, for a new server we now apparently need (despite buying a bespoke one from another IT company about 3 years ago)… I guess they are claiming the raid controller isn’t working? As a Domain Controller is just software?

    Quote 1 (2 servers recommended by IT company - one for redundancy):
    -HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10 Performance - tower - Xeon Silver 4110 2.1 GHz - 16 GB (1,422.00 x 2 = £2,844.00)
    -HPE SmartMemory - DDR4 - 16 GB (211.14 x 2 = £422.28)
    -HPE Midline - hard drive - 1 TB - SATA 6Gb/s (121.99 x 8 = £975.92)
    -Microsoft®WindowsServerSTDCORE 2016 Sngl Academic OLP 16Licenses NoLevel CoreLic (196.55 x 2 = £393.10)
    @ £5576.76

    Quote 2 (possibly best with some sort of cloud based service?):
    -HPE ProLiant ML110 Gen10 Performance - tower - Xeon Silver 4110 2.1 GHz - 16 GB (1,422.00 x 1 = £1,422.00)
    -HPE SmartMemory - DDR4 - 16 GB (211.14 x 1 = £211.14)
    -HPE Midline - hard drive - 1 TB - SATA 6Gb/s (121.99 x 4 = £487.96)
    -Microsoft®WindowsServerSTDCORE 2016 Sngl Academic OLP 16Licenses NoLevel CoreLic (196.55 x 1 = £196.55)
    @ £2795.58
    What should I be worried about? If anything?

  2. #2
    Goron goron Kumagoro's Avatar
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    Re: Server help

    Have you thought about using certified refurb stuff. You can get a lot more for quite a bit less than new.

    At least it will give you
    some comparison.

    https://www.serversource.co.uk

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    ERU
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    Re: Server help

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    Have you thought about using certified refurb stuff. You can get a lot more for quite a bit less than new.

    At least it will give you
    some comparison.

    https://www.serversource.co.uk
    Thanks - I'll take a look. We are a VA org., so all savings are NEEDED.

    I guess my immediate concern is the 'worry' about being held to ransom, over something that shouldn't have happened. Latest suggest the backup was a backup (in another building) of the 'broken' array.

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    Re: Server help

    The latest blurb I've recieved:

    “In theory we can reuse the old server, but need to double check if we need to replace any parts in it. It may be that it is not useable or to replace the components it is not cost effective.

    The old server could be used as an Active Directory and file replication partner. This would ensure there is a copy of the Domain if one of the servers fails – rebuilding the domain is what took 2 days.

    Just a note, there is absolutely no guarantee the old server wont fail again in the near future though. You cannot make a copy of the domain and then restore the server away. Bringing it back online will cause serious issues to the domain, defeating the purpose of a replica.

    Using the old server as a replication partner is a possibility but with limitations as mentioned.

    Having a 2 new servers as partners is a much safer and reliable idea, plus they are covered for the next 3 years as well with a hardware warranty.

    Perhaps it’s worth considering the current costs of this scenario vs. the cost of two servers and what that impacts this causes if this happens again.”

    I have attached both quotations for you again and can hold this pricing for 2 weeks. I may have to requote after that due to HP prices going up and down on a weekly basis. I will do my best to hold them for as long as possible though, it is normally a standard 7 days."

  5. #5
    Splash
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    Re: Server help

    What is the state of your backups? Running a single domain controller (as it sounds like you have been doing) is a stonkingly bad idea for exactly this reason, but in a worst case scenario if you have good backups there's no reason that you couldn't do an authoritative restore of AD (so long as you have the DSRM password...). Obviously a second Windows Server license and hardware means extra cost, but how much has this downtime cost you?

    Active Directory is a multimaster distributed database that is really rather good at recovering from things like the failure of a DC, but you need more than one (especially if you're running multiple services on that single server). With that said: is Azure AD an option for you? Do you really need servers on-premises? If you do then... 2 DCs, possibly a fileserver too. Try to split out your Fileserver to at least another VM, and you could potentially leverage Hyper-V/vSphere replication to keep a second copy (or use DFS for file data replication), but most importantly *have backups, and test them*.

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    aka .:iGi:. Calcutter DannyM's Avatar
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    Re: Server help

    The prices you have been given are definitely marked up.

    I'm 50/50 on the cloud stuff, a lot of pros and a lot of cons.

    Any new solution you put in place I'd recommend to have it all visualised, get a small server HPE ProLiant Gen10 to store the backups on and use something like Veeam or Storagecraft or the thousands of other VM backup and replication managers.

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    Re: Server help

    If your on a tight budget I find the refurbed stuff from http://www.intelligentservers.co.uk/ are great value.

    As someone else said, might be worth looking into Microsoft Azure, if only for Active Directory if you only want 1-2 servers on site.
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    Re: Server help

    I used to work for a company limited by guarantee in Birmingham that had an external IT support contract, and we had a very similar experience when things went awry - they basically failed to deliver any decent kind of support at all (at which point we killed their contract and moved the server support in house).

    Non-validating backups can be a massive problem (something else I've had experience of, sadly), but obviously it's very time-consuming to test restore backups on a regular basis.

    The sad reality is that most external support companies do take the michael out of smaller customers, and really the choice here is whether your organisation can find a way to get that IT function brought in-house or if you're going to have to continue contracting in. If it's the latter then you probably want to start talking to some other local IT support companies to get some competing quotes - and always make sure that any contract specifies the maximum timescales for replacing/rebuilding existing services, and the liabilities and penalties that come from failing to meet those requirements. You might end up payoing more for the contract, but if that's all laid out up front you won't get held over a barrel later...

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  10. #9
    ERU
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    Re: Server help

    Thanks for all the help. The "powers to be" dicatated we went for 'option 1' in the end...

  11. #10
    Splash
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    Re: Server help

    That's a real shame: did you at least get a second Domain Controller and some form of backups setup out of this?

    (This support company sound like cowboys, but it does seem like they have you somewhat over a barrel)

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    Re: Server help

    Quote Originally Posted by Splash View Post
    That's a real shame: did you at least get a second Domain Controller and some form of backups setup out of this?

    (This support company sound like cowboys, but it does seem like they have you somewhat over a barrel)
    Agreed

    In all likelihood, they probably pay the support company peanuts. Monkeyism is pretty much guaranteed if that's the case.
    "In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."

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    HEXUS.timelord. Zak33's Avatar
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    Re: Server help

    Quote Originally Posted by badass View Post
    Agreed

    In all likelihood, they probably pay the support company peanuts. Monkeyism is pretty much guaranteed if that's the case.
    lol... i hope for your sake it's ok

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    ERU
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    Re: Server help

    Yeah, we got the domain and data back in the end, by ripping it off the remaining HDD from the RAID. We paid for the support company to do this.

    I tried to argue that a cloud based service was the way forward but they really did have us over a barrel... The support company we hire-in is cheaper than most competitors ... but certainly NOT that cheap! (And it seems they make money back in other ways...)

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