This secure, NOC-style, home network isn’t just a geek’s dream network, but a great example for small businesses. The distribution of hardware and software across several inexpensive servers (or Mac mini desktops with a few upgrades in this case) is a far better use of the small IT budgets that are typical at most small businesses I’ve worked with.

Buying the single biggest, fastest server that can be afforded may seem attractive to small business owners (who may also brag about how fast their server is later). The big problem with having only one big server is that it usually leaves no alternatives when there are conflicts between important software tools, can create contention for hardware (usually disk drive access), and a frequent need to kick everyone entirely off the system whenever a patch requires a reboot. Even for companies running on Windows Small Business Server software it’s usually cheaper both up front and, especially, in the long run to install two less expensive servers running different features from the Small Business Server package. Of course, even on a budget the one thing worth spending extra on in any server is for multiple, fast hard disks and a simple hardware RAID setup. Hard drive space is reduced, but speed and data protection is far greater with RAID.

In the cited article “Mini Network with a Big XServe Style” the author, Ken Collins, separates the most important functions of his systems on to three separate servers; with a database, web, and mail/DNS/router/everything else server. Only one change is necessary in an average business, especially when running Microsoft’s Exchange Server, the e-mail server should be on its own box because mutiple email client programs checking for mail continuously can really be hard on a server. The other important thing Ken does is to run separate internal and external networks which adds a huge level of security, plus some speed in a busy office, beyond what a non-customizable firewall (ie: Cisco Pix or similar programmable systems) provides.

The one huge shortcoming of Ken’s described system is the use of WiFi networking to connect the servers together. In a business use cabling for both security and speed (which is quite slow with this setup, since WiFi shares it’s 45mbps speed between all connected systems). With gigabit switches getting much cheaper there is no reason not to at least install a small gigabit switch just to connect the servers together - I’ve seen disk and memory usage drop on server communicating via gigabit connections because there is less data sitting in queues each time files are saved or transferred.

Article tagged: small, business, network, server, configuration, Windows, SBS, SMB

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