How many hours to set up a new print/file/exchange server (hw and software) ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Al Dykes
  • Start date Start date
A

Al Dykes

Fedex drops a big box off outside your equipment room, It contains a a
midrange (2 Xeon, internal RAID) server, plus w2k/w2003 adn exchange
server media, plus all the dell server and raid management, and
Veritas backup software. You've done all the site planning. the racks
and ISP internet connection are ready.

The one hitch is that it's a dell model you are not familiar with and
all the server and raid management is new to you. There are no other
NT servers on the LAN. It's a stand-alone domain/AD server.

How many hours over how many days would you estimate to do the following;

1. Unbox, check contents against quote and packing slips
(they got it right this time)
2. bolt into the racks and hook up the console
3. install the OS
4. test the raid management (150GB raid 5)
5. demonstrate for continuity over a disk failure (raid)
6. install and test Veritas
7. demonstrate recovery from tapes on bare iron (LTO tape drive)
8. Do a fresh OS/exchange/veritas installation (to blow away any
experimentatation I've done)
9. prepare Exchange for it's first new user.
10. demonstrate Veritas ability to restore an exchange mailbox

(No printers)

I've always worked as _the_ resident admin for a small software
engineering group where everything was incremental, and we didn't run
anything that could be called production. I have no idea how many
hours I put into the setup and tailoring of a specific box. Now I'm
being asked to set up a production server, put a bow on it, awalk away
nd watch it remotely to make sure the raid and backups are running OK.

Some steps run in slow motion, like testing raid recovery and restores
but can be left to run unattended/overnight. How many hours could
someone that does this on a regular basis quote ?

Is there any server setup task I've missed ?


Thanks
 
Fedex drops a big box off outside your equipment room, It contains a a
midrange (2 Xeon, internal RAID) server, plus w2k/w2003 adn exchange
server media, plus all the dell server and raid management, and
Veritas backup software. You've done all the site planning. the racks
and ISP internet connection are ready.

The one hitch is that it's a dell model you are not familiar with and
all the server and raid management is new to you. There are no other
NT servers on the LAN. It's a stand-alone domain/AD server.

How many hours over how many days would you estimate to do the following;

1. Unbox, check contents against quote and packing slips
(they got it right this time)
2. bolt into the racks and hook up the console
3. install the OS
4. test the raid management (150GB raid 5)
5. demonstrate for continuity over a disk failure (raid)
6. install and test Veritas
7. demonstrate recovery from tapes on bare iron (LTO tape drive)
8. Do a fresh OS/exchange/veritas installation (to blow away any
experimentatation I've done)
9. prepare Exchange for it's first new user.
10. demonstrate Veritas ability to restore an exchange mailbox

(No printers)

I've always worked as _the_ resident admin for a small software
engineering group where everything was incremental, and we didn't run
anything that could be called production. I have no idea how many
hours I put into the setup and tailoring of a specific box. Now I'm
being asked to set up a production server, put a bow on it, awalk away
nd watch it remotely to make sure the raid and backups are running OK.

Some steps run in slow motion, like testing raid recovery and restores
but can be left to run unattended/overnight. How many hours could
someone that does this on a regular basis quote ?

Is there any server setup task I've missed ?
Click to expand...

I forgot to add applying security patches as a task. silly me.
 
Hi Al,

For what it's worth, I have the same problem! Plus of course how to get
all the old data, apps, and website from the old NT4 box onto this one
AND keep the same computer name. Then there's whether the old NTFS
permissions will make sense on the new box and re-creating all the share
points.

I'd be interested to know how you will test failover? You can't exactly
stick a screwdriver into one of the drives and see if the hot spare
takes over?

I'm allowing at least a month to do mine.
 
Hi Al,

For what it's worth, I have the same problem! Plus of course how to get
all the old data, apps, and website from the old NT4 box onto this one
AND keep the same computer name. Then there's whether the old NTFS
permissions will make sense on the new box and re-creating all the share
points.

I'd be interested to know how you will test failover? You can't exactly
stick a screwdriver into one of the drives and see if the hot spare
takes over?
Click to expand...

testing failover is indeed interesting. I just set up a Dell server
with IDE raid, mirrored. To test I yanked the power connector from
one of the disks and watched the alarm system light up. Then I
rebooted to make sure i could reboot from half a mirror set. When
that worked I shut the system down, plugged the power cable back in
brought the system up and watched it remirror, I figure the worst
I could to is destroy the IDE disk. Not real big bucks.

If the raid disks are hot-swapable I would have no hesitation
to yank one out while the system is running,

To be kind to the hardware I idle all the applications before
I pull a plug.


Re: your project; your's is _much_ harder to estimate and sounds
like real work to me.
 
testing failover is indeed interesting. I just set up a Dell server
with IDE raid, mirrored. To test I yanked the power connector from
one of the disks and watched the alarm system light up.
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable, but see below.
brought the system up and watched it remirror, I figure the worst
I could to is destroy the IDE disk. Not real big bucks.
Click to expand...

Mine are high-end SCSI! I'd be in a lot of trouble if I broke one:)
If the raid disks are hot-swapable I would have no hesitation
to yank one out while the system is running,
Click to expand...

Yes, mine are hot swap, BUT as far as I know this isn't a good idea and
perhaps does not represent a real-life crash? Is it not the case that
you're supposed to only remove a drive when the "light" is on? If you
pull one out at random, I imagine (?) data corruption could occur on the
other disks. It does raise an interesting point though which is "what
would happen if one of the disks really does crash?"
Re: your project; your's is _much_ harder to estimate and sounds
like real work to me.
Click to expand...

Grrr, don't say that!
 
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