Server Crashed - help please?

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Pielansberg

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Hello

Our webserver recently crashed and im looking for some assistance in finding out why and how we can rebuild using best practice implementing raid, etc.

Can someone please suggest who we could use for this work? We are in Cresta, JHB.

Kind regards
Gareth
 
Is this a hardware issue or software issue or both?

You mention RAID which is (obviously) a hardware issue, but you're posting in the Software & Web Development Forum. Do you also want to rebuild/design/re-develop your web site, which you've perhaps lost now that your server has crashed?
 
Hi,

What operating system did you use and did you keep backups?

What is the server used for?
 
I suppose it depends on the size of your company.


Data should sit on a file server which had Raid and backups .. the Webserver should just serve data.. throught a network share ?

Unless you have an all in one solution if so I would recommend a RAid 1 confid.. as it is simple.. but remember raid 1 is for redundance not in leiu of backups
 
Hi

Yes its a hardware issue...its a windows server 2008 box and yes we have all the back ups. We are running on our back-up server so our site it up and working - albeit very slow :)

We are basically looking to contract an expert to help us understand why this happened and to help us re-build the primary with best practice...to include raid for redundancy, etc.

G
 
Pielansberg said:
Hi

Yes its a hardware issue...its a windows server 2008 box and yes we have all the back ups. We are running on our back-up server so our site it up and working - albeit very slow :)

We are basically looking to contract an expert to help us understand why this happened and to help us re-build the primary with best practice...to include raid for redundancy, etc.

G
Click to expand...

Maybe ask a mod to move this thread to the hardware forum, you'll get more airtime there, guys like Conrad will be able to help you.
 
Pielansberg said:
Hi

Yes its a hardware issue...its a windows server 2008 box and yes we have all the back ups. We are running on our back-up server so our site it up and working - albeit very slow :)

We are basically looking to contract an expert to help us understand why this happened and to help us re-build the primary with best practice...to include raid for redundancy, etc.

G
Click to expand...

RAID 5. At least 4 HDD's. Shell out for a decent RAID controller card.

Daily (I do hourly) backups on databases/files (files daily, databases hourly)

And a decent CPU and decent RAM.

*why* your server crashed is a different matter. Quite possibly just hardware failure (which happens).

I'd pop in a 1U with dual (hot swopable) PSU's including dual quad core xeon intels with hotswoppable hard drives. Get the 2nd PSU on a different power circuit.

Make sure your enviroment is dust free (or close to). Server should be in a server cabinet, closed and locked.

Servers has a tendency to build up dust very quickly (which causes hardware failure) if not stored/taken care of properly.

Make sure the server is not in an enviroment where an idjit can come along and **** it up

My spelling sucks I know.
 
Hi Dequadin

how do request this from a moderator...im brandnew to this forum?

Thanks
G
 
I think you "Send a Message" (PM) to either BTTB or bwana and they'll do it for you.

Looks like you're getting some good replies none the less :p
 
Just came back from a meeting? Did you get my PM, bit rushed I was running and typing :)

Some more information would be good. If you had 4 disks and a decent RAID controller, then rather look at RAID10, as apposed to RAID5. You can get better performance depending on the server, and the type of IO. How many users does this server host? Is it just a Web server? What type of server Dell/HP/Whitebox? SAS/SATA disks? Is it a very important server, or just a support (intranet server)??
 
Conradl said:
Just came back from a meeting? Did you get my PM, bit rushed I was running and typing :)

Some more information would be good. If you had 4 disks and a decent RAID controller, then rather look at RAID10, as apposed to RAID5. You can get better performance depending on the server, and the type of IO. How many users does this server host? Is it just a Web server? What type of server Dell/HP/Whitebox? SAS/SATA disks? Is it a very important server, or just a support (intranet server)??
Click to expand...

Oh yea, sorry, RAID 5 was kneejerk, I meant to say RAID 10. Should be the best performance for you
 
I think what has to be decided first is what kind of traffic you guys experience and how important the uptime is. There is no way the business wil shell out 100K for a decent server if you're on getting 200 hits a day and is not a money generator. There has to be a happy medium between cost and performance.

Normally what I do is run RAID1 for an OS partition and RAID5 for a data partition. What is important is that the OS and DATA drives are on seperate spindles for performance. It's pointless creating a huge RAID10 set and splitting it up as the speed is bound to the one RAID container.

The ammount of traffic and how long you can be down between server failures will depend on what level of hardware you use.

More info please?

If it's a high availability server and serves 100 000's of hit a day then a front end with a hardware load balancing device like RADWare or a Cisco CSS would be best. That would connect to a SQL server on a SAN for storage.
 
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