Question

Server Consolidation - email and streaming media on same machine?

Asked by: SiF

Currently running 3 servers; fileserver, email & Website and a media server which holds CD images for access by users. we are planning to start holding video to stream to LAN users on server2003 but need some extra space. My 2 older servers are now very old so I was thinking of combining the roles onto a new dual processor server, would the load of exchange2003, plus website plus CDimages and streaming media be too much for a single server?

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Asked On
2005-07-18 at 09:00:05ID21495328
Topic

Miscellaneous Networking

Participating Experts
2
Points
50
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: sreeraoPosted on 2005-07-18 at 09:26:17ID: 14467741

Hi SiF,
The quick answer would be yes, IF the users are say 10-15.
But the quick answer would be NO, IF it is a large user-base say 500+.
But there are good articles on MSDN that would provide you with the server design guidelines. Processing power wise, it should be fine but remember, streaming media is a time sensitive application and for exchange u need good redundancy and resiliency (in other words the requirements are contradictory).
If you have RAID 5 on streaming media server (which is necessary for Exchange for obvious reasons), the response will be affected.

Just my thoughts.
-Sree

 

by: curlybenPosted on 2005-07-18 at 16:18:43ID: 14471174

IMO I would consolidate to 2 new Dualie servers.
1 for file/email/website and the other for your streaming media.
Make sure that BOTH have dual gigabit ethernet and make sure that your routers can handle this size bandwidth.

This way the speed/bandwidth of the streaming media will be unaffected by any other traffic.

I quite happily run mail/file/print/web on a dual 3Ghz server with dual/reduntant everything for a domain of 120+ users and it runs sweeeeeeet.

 

by: SiFPosted on 2005-07-19 at 03:08:53ID: 14473659

Thanks Sree an Curlyben, i have around 250 users so fall between the 2 scenarios. I may look at the budget and try to go for 2 new servers.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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