The New Server…

Our old server is a dual Xeon 32-bit @ 2.8ghz with 512k cache per chip. I took it from 2gb DDR to 6gb DDR ram several months ago with marginal improvements.  A SCSI Raid controller keep this server on par with some of todays modern I/O speeds – however it just can’t keep up! It debuted in 2003 as an Application, DNS and Active Directory server running a minor Access Database.

5 years later this had realized its role as not only the Active Directory DNS Server but the 17gb Primary and 50gb Secondary drives quicky began to lose storage space. Currently it sits @ 3gb on Primary and 7gb on Secondary for free space. Quite Scary! Even the PageFile doesn’t have enough breathing room! EGAD GEEK MODE ALERT!

Anyway – Last month i put together a Dual Quad Core Xeon @ 4mb of cache per chip @ 2.4ghz. (baby xeons, i know!) – however added it to a Socket 771 Asus Server board and plugged in 16gb of DDR2 Fully Buffered DIMMS.  I opted for a 4-drive RAID-0 setup twice to server as the primary and secondary drives.  This realizes us with 300gb of SAS storage on C: and 300gb of SAS storage on D: – given these drives dont get the same read times on smaller file transfers – they come in about the same for read/write scores.

In the end – using several benchmark utilities (not real world experiments) this server boasts a 300% increase in processing power which with our now 1gb+ access database means we’ll need something that might also get us started in our first stretch of SQL Server 2008.

With the GPMC snap-in for 2008 policies in our domain – we still utilize the Server 2003 as our DNS, Active Directory and Group Policy Server – which allows us a very stable environment of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 – I’ll also add we have several NT 4.0 machines successfully on our network without problems.

Everyone asks me – when we getting the new server? The new server going yet? Did you get the new server going? Hey this is still slow – still no server?  The simple answer is nope! The more realistic answer is:

You must realize we are taking a 2003/XP network and taking it to the 2008/Vista platform across the board. This may seem like an ordinary goal to accomplish, as in – buy a computer with Vista – plug it in – get back to work! However, given how we must articulate these new aquisitions in a ‘lets keep business moving’ fashion whilst ensuring that the deployment plan moves ahead despite day-to-day tackles – is one hell of a concept.I guess if you like thinking about that kind of stuff – I dont. That’s yuckmode.net