The O.S.
I been so busy lately I have ended up kind of neglecting the blog - NO excuse of course but then it does happen and I'm happy to say I am back again!
Since I have spoken about selecting hardware and then DNS I think its only fair to pay some attention to your Windows Server Operating system Deployment.
Yes, this is a pretty mundane topic and I know all we ever do it click next, next, next then hurry up and wait! But there are some reasonable considerations which need to be made when planning the deployment and deploying the Operating System, which could help with the future performance & security of your servers.
The redundancy factor - how many HDD's available, what RAID to use
Regardless what anyone out there tells you or says, you should NEVER install anything on a server if it is not protected by some form of redundancy on the storage level. Why? Well the hard disks on a server are always the first to fail and by far the most common hardware failure on any network. Now ask yourself, what happens if the system partition hard disk crashed? Answer: D/R = sleepless nights, 72hr shifts etc. not fun!
Disk Space & Logical Drives
Now in the ideal server scenario, you would look at this in a slightly different way. Some basic best practices, no matter how big the disks or what your raid configuration, are to keep the System Partition size down to the smallest necessary size. (In most cases 20-30G
Keep in mind that the system partition is not meant to hold any growing data such as databases, log files etc. It is precisely what its name says, a system partition, holding only the windows system files and program files for any application you are running, and possibly one page file of max size 2GB.
You should consider creating separate partitions at both the Hardware RAID and OS level for each of the following: Additional Page File, AD Database (NTDit), AD Logs, Print spoolers, File Server Shares, Exchange Databases, SQL Databases etc. Remember, each drive need only be big enough to hold the required data and have enough free space to perform maintenance should it be required.
All your disks should be formated in NTFS and properly labeled or named. (I like to change the drive letter of the CD-ROM so that all my disks are lettered sequentially, its up to you if you want to do that or not.
The O.S. Installation
There is not really much to say here, except the more attention you pay to "fixing" the small things during setup, such as time, keyboard, locale, etc the less time you spend configuring these later.
Once setup is complete, it is always a good practice to apply all service packs and patches you have available, then install and update anti virus software and finally connect to the internet and check windows update for any new patches/updates which may be available before installing any additional services, or reconfiguring the server.
With all updates / patches and service packs applied and anti-virus running on your server, you may now begin setting it up. Start with creating the additional disk partitions which you need, then additional page files and move onto installing any services which are going to be required by the server to perform its function on the network. Finally install A/D or Join the Domain and install the application software or publish the services its offering.
Since I have spoken about selecting hardware and then DNS I think its only fair to pay some attention to your Windows Server Operating system Deployment.
Yes, this is a pretty mundane topic and I know all we ever do it click next, next, next then hurry up and wait! But there are some reasonable considerations which need to be made when planning the deployment and deploying the Operating System, which could help with the future performance & security of your servers.
The redundancy factor - how many HDD's available, what RAID to use
Regardless what anyone out there tells you or says, you should NEVER install anything on a server if it is not protected by some form of redundancy on the storage level. Why? Well the hard disks on a server are always the first to fail and by far the most common hardware failure on any network. Now ask yourself, what happens if the system partition hard disk crashed? Answer: D/R = sleepless nights, 72hr shifts etc. not fun!
Disk Space & Logical Drives
Now in the ideal server scenario, you would look at this in a slightly different way. Some basic best practices, no matter how big the disks or what your raid configuration, are to keep the System Partition size down to the smallest necessary size. (In most cases 20-30G
Keep in mind that the system partition is not meant to hold any growing data such as databases, log files etc. It is precisely what its name says, a system partition, holding only the windows system files and program files for any application you are running, and possibly one page file of max size 2GB.
You should consider creating separate partitions at both the Hardware RAID and OS level for each of the following: Additional Page File, AD Database (NTDit), AD Logs, Print spoolers, File Server Shares, Exchange Databases, SQL Databases etc. Remember, each drive need only be big enough to hold the required data and have enough free space to perform maintenance should it be required.
All your disks should be formated in NTFS and properly labeled or named. (I like to change the drive letter of the CD-ROM so that all my disks are lettered sequentially, its up to you if you want to do that or not.
The O.S. Installation
There is not really much to say here, except the more attention you pay to "fixing" the small things during setup, such as time, keyboard, locale, etc the less time you spend configuring these later.
Once setup is complete, it is always a good practice to apply all service packs and patches you have available, then install and update anti virus software and finally connect to the internet and check windows update for any new patches/updates which may be available before installing any additional services, or reconfiguring the server.
With all updates / patches and service packs applied and anti-virus running on your server, you may now begin setting it up. Start with creating the additional disk partitions which you need, then additional page files and move onto installing any services which are going to be required by the server to perform its function on the network. Finally install A/D or Join the Domain and install the application software or publish the services its offering.
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