Any Microsoft Server experts here?

Onefast99gsx · 08-22-2008

Hey guys- we're FINALLY dumping our Novell Netware servers at the bank and moving to Microsoft Server 2008. The project just got approved today. We have other microsoft servers for general items but our main server is Novell. Its been awhile since I built a server and I wanted to ask you gurus some best practices questions. With this 2008 project I'm also building a Windows 2003 web edition server. When installing the OS, how big do you guys make your boot partitions AND do you make everything all NTFS?

I did a bunch of searching today where some people make the boot partition 12, 15 some people 20GB. Then I read where alot of people wished they made it larger. When you start adding software later on, updates, etc.. you can run into trouble if your partition is too small. This is a RAID 5 server i'm building. Partitioning software can be $$$$. So I rather just avoid any future issues later on down the road.

I'm using 3- 146GB SCSI drives. With RAID 5, you lose a drive. To tell you the truth, I'd rather just make it all one large NTFS C: drive and not individual partitions/drives. If I remember it right, it was roughly 138GB if I do max partition.

What do you guys think?
Thanks.

**cmspaz** · 08-22-2008

Yeah, everything should be NTFS, just to remove all of FAT's limitations. That 4GB file size limit could be a huge issue with databases.

I've never used the Vista-based Winserv 2k8, but I'd say 8GB at least for the OS (if that's what you mean by boot partition) if they didn't massively downsize it from Vista.

Partitioning software can be acquired in the form of a Linux LiveCD. Nothing expensive about that.

Onefast99gsx · 08-22-2008

HI cmspaz- here's the deal. Today I created the server(Window 2003 web edition server) and I used 12GB as the boot partition size. I was installing one of the applications that's going on that server as it said Not enough disk space. I forgot about the partition size. Basically my C: drive only had about 5GB left after installing the OS, updates&patches, etc. because the C: was only 12GB to start with. So I went into Disk Management under control panel and saw the rest of the disk array unpartitioned. Basically I can partition the remainder but as a different drive letter such as D: I just really don't want to do that. I've done that before with PC's having multiple drives/drive letters and having applications scattered between different drives and it can be a nightmare.

I've built numerous servers before but I was just wondering how everyone else does it. One big C: drive/ single partition?

**scheides** · 08-23-2008

Make your C: drive BIG. like 50Gb or more. You'll be crying later if you don't, plain and simple. Best practices say to keep datafiles and other services locked down in other partitions, but in all honesty, I've been doing flat c: drives for the last year or so, it is just too much of a PITA to rebuild a box because I ran out of space on one of the partitions. Just silly.

Windows directory permissions are better than they were five years ago.

tpunx99GSX · 08-23-2008

at my work we have our boot at 12, it was set up that way when i took over as IT admin, I would have definatly made it much bigger, mainly because on our domain controller when we run out of space due to temp files or logs or programs that got installed on the c but should not have, first thing windows does is erase all of our server licenses. (Smart fucking thinking Microsoft) so it basically brings our entire network down until i can get in there and load the licenses.
I actually like windows 2003 server a lot, and its great on the admin side.
In december we will be moving to new servers running windows 2008 with HyperV, and honestly i cannot wait, server 2008 with hyper v is sweet, i have it loaded on a test environment and the admin and roles work like a dream, and hyper v is pretty cool. (not to mencion install of server 2008 took all of 15 minutes.)
Dont leave everything on the C: that would be a horrible decision. only the OS should go on C: offload everything else to another partition including the sql servers. are you using the windows 2003 as a domain controller? if thats the case best practice states that domain controllers should stand alone with no other programs, then build an app server for all the other programs such as CRM, databases, accounting software and such.

Onefast99gsx · 08-26-2008

Hey guys- Thanks for your expertise here on this. I spoke to my boss yesterday in a meeting and we agreed that partitioning is the best way to go. We will do 2 partitions C: (OS) and E: (DATA). I looked at a couple of our general purpose Win2003 machines that were built before my time there to get an idea how much space was used for the OS & Data combined. Our terminal server had about 16G used up and that's with several applications. So I'm gonna go about 20G for the OS partition. Wait...before you say something... Yesterday I 'aquired' for testing purposes, Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0. This software is EXCELLENT and very easy to use. I did a test and went from 20G down to 15G and then back 20G. Worked perfect! I've used Partition Magic before but that was just on home PC's. I was unsure how all this would work on a RAID 5 array. No problem. So keep that in mind if you guys ever get in a jam.

To answer your question, tpunx99gsx... No the Win2003 server won't be used as a PDC. It's used as a Patch Mgmt, Joomla Intranet & a few other smaller applicatons for our bank. The Win2008 that I will also be building will be the PDC. I will have to think what we will use for the BDC. I know you said it should be stand alone but our budget is so tight right now I'm lucky to even be doing 2 additional servers the way it is. My boss & upper mgmt will stick gobs of money into our AS/400 iseries system but when it comes to the PC file server network it's a whole different story. It sucks! Right now our Novell 6.5 server serves as a shitload of purposes. When it's done, that Netware server will go from 1 server to a span of 3 servers but in a Win2003 & 2008 mix so that's surely a step up.

For the most part, our network is pretty simple. Our PC's don't use any DHCP addressing. We use static IP's... and the DNS IP's to get to the internet are manually entered in the network configuration of the PC. This was how it was done before I got there. The PC's are currently in a Workgroup. Going to a Domain controller will be nice!

Question for you guys. Reverting back to partitioning. Is it best to keep the partitions as Basic drives or is best practice to convert them to Dynamic.

Thanks again.

tpunx99GSX · 08-27-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Onefast99gsx

To answer your question, tpunx99gsx... No the Win2003 server won't be used as a PDC. It's used as a Patch Mgmt, Joomla Intranet & a few other smaller applicatons for our bank. The Win2008 that I will also be building will be the PDC. I will have to think what we will use for the BDC. I know you said it should be stand alone but our budget is so tight right now I'm lucky to even be doing 2 additional servers the way it is. My boss & upper mgmt will stick gobs of money into our AS/400 iseries system but when it comes to the PC file server network it's a whole different story. It sucks! Right now our Novell 6.5 server serves as a shitload of purposes. When it's done, that Netware server will go from 1 server to a span of 3 servers but in a Win2003 & 2008 mix so that's surely a step up.

For the most part, our network is pretty simple. Our PC's don't use any DHCP addressing. We use static IP's... and the DNS IP's to get to the internet are manually entered in the network configuration of the PC. This was how it was done before I got there. The PC's are currently in a Workgroup. Going to a Domain controller will be nice!

Question for you guys. Reverting back to partitioning. Is it best to keep the partitions as Basic drives or is best practice to convert them to Dynamic.

Thanks again.

On the PDC. If you plan on going with Windows 2008 i would def get Hyper V then create a virtual server for the applications, and a different one for the DC. That would work perfect and should fit within your budget. I know how the whole tight budget works, i think im over my IT budget by a lot this year. But oh well, we got alot for it, so it works out.
On Partitioning i have had some problems before with dynamic, but i am pretty sure it had to do with my home PC when i switched to linux. I would research the dynamic partitions before implementing it.
On the DHCP. Do you currently have a Domain Controller? Setting them all as static sounds like a managment nightmare. I use DHCP Pools that our users automatically pull from. It basically does the same thing that your static method does but it allows the server to control all of your addressing needs, and you can just set the users to Obtain automatically.

Onefast99gsx · 09-20-2008

Hey guys, been plugging away at configuring Server 2008. So much to learn. I've been doing Novell too long. Have a question for you guys. Until we're ready to go live, We currently use Zenworks for Desktops to do remote desktop support. With Zenworks, I can remote to a users desktop and see everything as if I was there, No only that, they can see exactly what I'm doing as well when I'm fixing something, much like webex.

When we're on Server 2008, then what? I've tested Remote Desktop Connection and it works but when I remote to the end users desktop, it locks their screen during my connection to their computer. I don't want it to do this. Can this be tweaked? I want them to see what i'm doing as I do it. I don't really want to go around and install VNC on everyones desktop.

Thanks for any info.

Matt D. · 09-20-2008

You need to look into a third party application for remote desktop support with Windows. We use LANDesk where I work and of everything I've used it is really nice. Regardless of what you choose to do you are going to have to touch each computer, whether it's to have the computer log into the new domain you've just set up, or to install a piece of client-side software that will allow you to remote control that computer.

www.landesk.com

VNC is nice in that it is simple, but allows you no feedback, it just sits there and you can't find out that computer's name or IP address without you knowing it first.

Onefast99gsx · 09-20-2008

Thanks Matt. I will bring this up to my boss on Monday to let him know our options. Either way, we have to do something. We are somewhat under budget with the project so we'll see what happens. We currently use VNC for the servers only. When we're ready to go live I have to goto every computer anyways to uninstall the Netware client, join the new domain and some other things. It's going to be one long ass weekend when the time comes.

Jed · 09-21-2008

This is my favorite new tool at work:

http://www.bozteck.com/vncscan/

It has saved me hours already. It can populate a list of machines on the network and you can select all that you want to install VNC on and push it
out giving it the settings I designate in a preset profile. I could go on and on
but I'll let you look at it.

Onefast99gsx · 09-21-2008

Dam.. that software looks nice. I like the fact that you can push it out to the desktop. It's $59 per admin. Or it's $995 for a full site license with 2 years of support. So if it's just the boss & I that manage the network, I assume we would just need 2 per-admin licenses for $118. Did you guys do a per-admin license or buy the full site license???

Thanks!!!

License Types:

Per-Admin: Each administrator at each site must have a license if you choose this mode. One year of free maintenance upgrades is included.

Site License: Every administrator at your site is covered in this licensing mode and you are entitled to two years of free upgrades with premium support

Jed · 09-21-2008

We just bought 3 per-admin licenses. There's only 3 of us that would really use it at work.

**scheides** · 09-21-2008

Screw both of these options, you HAVE to try out this app. As long as the domain controller (or other machine on a local subnet, for that matter) has network access to the machine you want to support, you HAVE to try out Dameware Mini Remote Control. Full domain authenticated desktop access in seconds, no stupid scrolly windows if there are screen resolution discrepancies or weird line-scan-refresh issues with VNC, and you can connect to non-domain computers if you have the credentials.

http://www.dameware.com/products/dmrc/

And uh, it's $89. Would be better if it was free, but damn it works good for the money.

Onefast99gsx · 09-21-2008

I'm going to look into both options. The VNC option looks to be $59 per admin with unlimited end nodes which is very cost effective. The Dameware option says $89 a single user license. A 50 user license is $3,149. I'm confused. Do you need a single license for every node you have? If so, that would be alot of $$. $6300 in our case.