Pics of a project I've been working on...

Y

YeOldeStonecat

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A Hospice client of mine..they built a really nice multi-million dollar office, moved them into it this past weekend. A 60x node network, on an 8 meg (burstable to 20 megs) internet pipe from Comcast.

Still tidying up a few things (yeah some of those looser patch cables will get neatened up in a few days when I'm finalized with my arrangement)....but it's a fun project. Got my own server room, desk, etc. :D

Comm rack on the left, APC Netshelter on the right.
hosp1.jpg



hosp2.jpg


Closeup of the Comm rack...spare Linksys/Cisco RV082 up top as backup router, pair of HP Procurve switches for their main LAN, 24x gigabit ports, managed, the SMC gateway, a DLink 1228p PoE gigabit web managed switch which manages their thin client access points, and lower priority LAN devices plugged into it such as networked printers, and on the bottom..the Juniper SSL VPN appliance
hosp3.jpg


NetShelter opened up...
hosp4.jpg


Untangle linux distro firewall up top on the Compaq Evo business desktop, P4 2.4 with a gig of RAM, HP MSA1000 SAN unit, HP Proliant DL360 quad core Xeon as their Small Business Server, pair of HP Proliant DL320s...Terminal Server, and BlackBaud server.
hosp5.jpg


Avocent KVM monitor, a pair of Dell PowerEdge 1600SC servers..one for their primary application database, the other as their second DC, file storage, and print server. Three APC 3000 units to power them.

With the Avocent KVM monitor opened up..some of the Untangle router rack components on the screen.
hosp6.jpg


hosp7.jpg
 
a couple of Dell 1600SC servers. What spec are they?

Also why do you need 3 APC 3000 units!! thats a lot of power. I have a DL380 2 x DL320's 2 x 1600SC and 1 cisco 2900 and thats only 50% of 1 APC Smart-UPS 2200VA
 
Jay_oasis said:
a couple of Dell 1600SC servers. What spec are they?

Also why do you need 3 APC 3000 units!! thats a lot of power. I have a DL380 2 x DL320's 2 x 1600SC and 1 cisco 2900 and thats only 50% of 1 APC Smart-UPS 2200VA
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Old servers the prior consultant had installed...I'll be retiring them over time.
Both are 2.4 Xeons I think (foggy head at the moment), the file storage/print server is running a gig of RAM, the second one is their primary database server for their application "Suncoast"..runs on the Progress engine. Dual 2.4 Xeons, 4 gigs of RAM.

Both servers have 4x 33 gig drives, RAID 10....however a few moths ago the database server started running low on space....so I added a QLogic fiber 4 gig NIC to the HP SAN and moved the database engine over to that.

Based on bad experiences with electrical and power outages in their old office...the boss there wanted some beefy battery units for better runtime. Yeah..currently not even 1x green light on the "load" row of LEDs. LOL.
 
looks good.

quick question, why have you left 1U of space between all the items in the equipment cabinet?..
 
Concentric said:
If there's space in the rack, why not? Better for cooling i imagine.
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Yea you do it for cooling.


60 nodes on an sbs box? How well is it handling them? Generaly I try not to use sbs for something that big.
 
Liquidkristal said:
looks good.

quick question, why have you left 1U of space between all the items in the equipment cabinet?..
Click to expand...

Ease of access, service, cooling...they will not be adding...so I don't have to worry about conserving space. Actually they'll be gaining space soon as I retired those 2x old Dells and replace with 1x new DL360 and we start to VMWare them.
 
swatbat said:
Yea you do it for cooling.


60 nodes on an sbs box? How well is it handling them? Generaly I try not to use sbs for something that big.
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She does fine...the quad core humms. Using for RWW, sharepoint, and only about 20x Exchange mailboxes. I have the file sharing, as well as print sharing, done from one of the Dells...so that relieves that load. Also that other Dell runs as a DC. They assured me they will not be growing anymore staff wise (in case the limits of SBS licensing are in your sights)
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
She does fine...the quad core humms. Using for RWW, sharepoint, and only about 20x Exchange mailboxes. I have the file sharing, as well as print sharing, done from one of the Dells...so that relieves that load. Also that other Dell runs as a DC. They assured me they will not be growing anymore staff wise (in case the limits of SBS licensing are in your sights)
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Yea the user limits were one thing I was wondering about. Usualy with that many users I prefer to give exchange its own server but if you are only running 20 or so mailboxes it is not a big deal.
 
I need to find more clients like this...
My main client (Aero Space engineering firm) is the same way. It would be fun to have 4-5 clients like that though. 20h a month each... That would be awesome!
 
YeOldeStonecat, nice pictures, awesome setup! Thank you for posting them!
 
i like using those HP EVO D510s as firewall boxes too, they're solid machines and easy to find cheap ones after corporate leases are up you can pick them up for 150-200 bucks...


but i love walking into nice clean setups like these, as a consultant in much the same business as you... i find it refreshing


black patch cables? is that one of your trademarks? :p
 
goodcooper said:
black patch cables? is that one of your trademarks? :p
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Yeah....just a personal preference..it's a little more redone now..that things have settled in. Usually do the black 1 and 2 footers from the patch panel to the switches, green to the router/internet, blue for the servers, and red for the uplinks (even though crossovers are extinct now..with everything having auto MDI-X)
 
Can you guys tell me what I would have to goto to be in this line of work (currently in high school). Pretty much exactly what I want to do with my career.

Thanks
-TopGun
 
TopGun said:
Can you guys tell me what I would have to goto to be in this line of work (currently in high school). Pretty much exactly what I want to do with my career.

Thanks
-TopGun
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you can totally do it self taught...

that being said... you can also do it with certs and a degree...

for example... i've got a degree from a tech school in "Information Technologies: Network Administration and Support", whether or not this is worth it probably depends on your school, and the knowledge you have going into it.... i'd say 85% of my classmates were pretty much lost the entire time i was there...

the type of certs and classes that help you in this line of work are net+ and CCNA on the low end.... MCSE is really nice to have but not quite as easy.... A+ if you're really starting from the bottom

from there the sky is the limit... you can literally spend as much time and money as you want learning more
 
I learn a lot on my own as it is, just wondering what
kind of degree I should be going after, as it stands I was
thinking Information Systems, but i'm still unsure.
 
I hate to say it, but the reality is that it doesn't matter. I have a 4-year B.S. in IS&T (learning DBA, VB programming, and a taste of OS and Networking) and slaved away doing dorm support for my school's helpdesk my senior year.

I got an in at an investment company January of my senior year and split duty part-time for them and the HD until May. Turned out to be the best move I ever made because the small investment company moved in March from a tiny, overcrowded office whose idea of a server room was an unventilated closet and a rack was an unsturdy desk to a server room and infrastructure worth a few hundred grand. I was one of 5 doing the transition so there was a whole lot of hands-on experience that I was able to get and now I'm a Systems Admin for the same company and its been 2 years.
 
Concentric said:
If there's space in the rack, why not? Better for cooling i imagine.
Click to expand...

It's more for aesthetics, requirement, and management.

Aesthetics, it's better looking when you have a neat even spacing between all your systems.

Requirement, sometimes the amount of power provided to your cabinet would be exceeded if you used all the spaces, so you space it out so you have a fuller looking rack.

Management, it's easier to hide wires and you have a lot less of a wire mess in the back when you have some spacing between your systems.


However, it does not enhance your cooling dynamics. In fact, it could actually worsen cooling without the use of filler plates. Hot air can recirculate back towards the front of the server. This is obviously not a big issue for the OP as he doesn't exactly have a data center going there and it's rather a smaller room... also his machines aren't too high powered to worry about such heat circulating. Another thing to note is that real servers are designed for front to back cooling, not side cooling, so they do not rely on dissipating heat from the sides as much as they do from the front to the back.
 
That is a very nice installation.

The rack that we have at work is similar, minus the SAN, and a lot more messy. We have pretty much two of everything for HA.
 
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