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Setting up a Colo Web Farm
Currently: We have six dedicated servers, hosted with a company. We do not own the servers.
The Need: To purchase servers and additional hardware and move to a colocated environment. Servers will all be Windows 2003 Server based.
The Question: What do we need, hardware wise.
More Details: Currently, everything is setup for us. We have six dedicated servers and about 20 e-commerce sites split amoung them (with one server hosting MS SQL Server). We plan to purchase seven new servers (1 MSSQL box, 1 backup box, 1 image server, and 4 web servers). We will also be adding at least four more servers over the coming year. We know how to purchase the servers. The question that comes into play is how best to setup and secure everything.
1: For instance, the DB server should not be accessible via the internet as it stores sensitive information. So how do we go about doing this? Are the dual integrated NIC's on all the servers enough? Is there something we need router wise to accomplish having a public and private network? What about a firewall?
2: Also -- how do we go about defining how IP addresses and nameservers are handled? Right now, each of our web servers has about 20 ip address assigned to it. This would certainly need to be the case going forward, as we have multiple SSL certs and various apps that need a dedicated IP address. Are we going to need to setup our own name server, and if so, can Windows 2003 handle this, or do we need some other hardware? For instance, what happens if we need to move a website from one server to another (server 1 fails, we have a complete backup on server 2 -- we need to get that site up on server 2 asap). Do we tell the router how to redirect traffic, or is this something a dns server handles?
I would gladly pay for these answers, but after trying a couple of the "guru" sites, along with all the major web hosting forums, we've come up short handed. We get piece-meal answers to our questions, and we've even offered to pay for the help! EE, you're my last hope at getting pointed in the right direction!
I apologize if I've asked too many questions -- I'll gladly split these up into multiple questions if need be.
The Need: To purchase servers and additional hardware and move to a colocated environment. Servers will all be Windows 2003 Server based.
The Question: What do we need, hardware wise.
More Details: Currently, everything is setup for us. We have six dedicated servers and about 20 e-commerce sites split amoung them (with one server hosting MS SQL Server). We plan to purchase seven new servers (1 MSSQL box, 1 backup box, 1 image server, and 4 web servers). We will also be adding at least four more servers over the coming year. We know how to purchase the servers. The question that comes into play is how best to setup and secure everything.
1: For instance, the DB server should not be accessible via the internet as it stores sensitive information. So how do we go about doing this? Are the dual integrated NIC's on all the servers enough? Is there something we need router wise to accomplish having a public and private network? What about a firewall?
2: Also -- how do we go about defining how IP addresses and nameservers are handled? Right now, each of our web servers has about 20 ip address assigned to it. This would certainly need to be the case going forward, as we have multiple SSL certs and various apps that need a dedicated IP address. Are we going to need to setup our own name server, and if so, can Windows 2003 handle this, or do we need some other hardware? For instance, what happens if we need to move a website from one server to another (server 1 fails, we have a complete backup on server 2 -- we need to get that site up on server 2 asap). Do we tell the router how to redirect traffic, or is this something a dns server handles?
I would gladly pay for these answers, but after trying a couple of the "guru" sites, along with all the major web hosting forums, we've come up short handed. We get piece-meal answers to our questions, and we've even offered to pay for the help! EE, you're my last hope at getting pointed in the right direction!
I apologize if I've asked too many questions -- I'll gladly split these up into multiple questions if need be.
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