Archive for March, 2007

Cluster

March 29th, 2007

I’ve submitted my hardware requirements, pricing, and licensing. All that’s left is approval(and me crossing my fingers). I’m going with OES NetWare for both the target and initiators at this point. I’m not comfortable putting OES Linux into production due to the issues I’ve read, and OES2 will not be ready.

One node will handle file duties, one will handle GroupWise duties, and the third will handle iPrint. Each service will be able to fail over to a “living” node in the event of failure. If I get the nod for this, I hope to have the hardware in place and everything installed by the start of summer. I’ll migrate services over during the summer then and be able to roll out the afore mentioned iPrint.

I wasn’t able to get to Brainshare, but from what I’ve been reading, OES2 is shaping up to be what finally moves us away from bare metal NetWare for sure, and NetWare in general(bare metal or para). Unfortunately it’s not ready yet for this project, but I’ll be able to migrate OES2 nodes into the cluster I assume down the road, so I’m not stuck(ah the beauty of not having Windows, Exchange, and Active Directory).

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Posted in Network Operating Systems

DST, PfSense, iSCSI

March 17th, 2007

DST went by fairly smooth. There are a few standing GroupWise calender issues, but I’ll get them resolved when I have a few spare moments. One NetWare server didn’t change time, but after a reboot it fixed itself. There are a few systems out there, all unsupported Windows systems, which are not set correctly. I’ll have to do that, again, when the time is available.

The PfSense firewall cluster is running well. I’ve further clamped down on the outgoing rules. I’ll be playing with Snort shortly to start looking for attack vectors, but not blocking them, until I’m comfortable with the tool and its ‘power’.

We have been experiencing some strange NetWare abends. This has made me wish for a redundant cluster more. There is a chance I will be able to secure the funding for this project. I want to be able to cluster all of my file/print/email resources for all of the employees. I work for a public school district(k-12), so this won’t be for students right off the bat. Right now, I have faculty and staff spread out over four or five servers with no redundancy beyond the redundant hardware in the servers themselves. We’re talking then roughly 400 users of a wide ranging variety of usage from checking email to heavy usage.

As it stands, Fibre Channel SAN hardware is out due to price. Lefthand Networks sells an iSCSI based SAN which I have heard good things about. However, again, they’re priced too high.

What I’m leaning towards is the following setup:

3 Nodes(iSCSI initiators)
- Dell Poweredge 1950
- Xeon Dual Core(speed up in the air)
- 4gb RAM
- 2 36GB SAS drives in a Raid 1 setup
- 1gb copper or fibre NIC

1 “SAN”(iSCSI target)
- Dell Poweredge 2950
- Xeon Dual Core(speed up in the air)
- 4gb RAM
- ?# SAS or SATA drives, Raid 6 if possible, .5TB total space if possible.
- 1gb copper or fibre NIC

I’m looking to use Suse Enterprise Server(OES version) on all the boxes. I’m not sure what network gear I will use for the interconnect yet.

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Posted in Email, Network Operating Systems, Tools