ZoneMinder Forums

Right so im building a server for our site but i was wondering if its going to be up to the challenge.

Our site needs a new server to store important files, and lots of them.
The server will also serve DHCP, DNS, VPN once in a while and a mail server handling possibly 200 emails a day, including virus scanning.

We would then want it to handle 4 analogue cameras connected to an input card and perhaps record at just 5fps if they were triggered.

Also in the future we are likely to need it to route our internal phones (maximum of about 10) using Asterisk.

Buget isnt the biggest in the world but her it is...
The server im thinking of is as follows:

AMD Sempron 64bit 2800+
Asus motherboard with sata raid
CRUCIAL 1GB DDR PC3200 RAM (maybe 2gb)?
2 x Seagate ST3250823AS 250MB SATA hard drives mirrored

This gives us enough storage and leaves easilly 100gb for the cctv storage.

So what do you think? not powerful enough?

Should i really consider building a seperate cctv server even though i need to build a file server with mirrored drives?

Thanks,
Tim

perosnally i would seperate them your specs seem light for the ultimate aim of the business server ( i use an fx-53, 2 gig ram and 800 Gb mirrored array for file/print/email serving, domain controller, pbx for 2 isdn lines and a few other things, and i have a sempron 2600+ with 6 cams on it with 320 Gb and the sempron struggles (i also have a megapixel ip cam). I used to have lower powered servers doing mail serving seperate pbx etc but moved to one)

You also from a management point of view keep your main server as simple as possible, the more complex it is the harder it is to fix at 8:31 am with your md hopping behind you!!

James

the main thing i want to avoid is ending up with two mirrored arrays on two seperate servers, just seems a bit of a shame.

Could i have the cctv server save the recordings onto the file server? or will i then be slowing down everything a hell of a lot?

Tim

no you could use the file server to store your cctv footage but to be fair which data is more important to you, business data or cctv. You could always backup the data from your 'unmirrored' cctv onto your main server. but do remeber hd are dirt cheap these days so i wouldnt worry too much if you really want to mirror your cctv data

i suppose when i can buy a 250MB sata drive for £75, it makes it quite cheap to have it mirrored.

Its all for my fathers business so i only have to pursuade him and it should be ok. we've got Seagate drives all over our site (some nearly 6 years old i think) and have never even had a problem with any of them, but thats no reason to not be careful. I wouldnt buy any other make of drive.

He has asked for a way for the system to backup without having to change disks and things, since people forget to do it. When his business was less computer based it would all fit on a zip disk, and there was one for every day of the week. Nowadays there is about 5Gb of invoices, accounting and payroll data that would cost the business a hell of a lot if it was lost.

Any ideas or suggestions?

There is no safe way that i can see for backup where no human interaction is needed. A lightening strike could wipe out the whole lot.

Apart from the dvd backups that get done sometimes....

Tim

this main server is it going to be linux?
backup is an opinion thing and tape is usally used. If noone can be bothered to change tapes and stuff the data isnt that valuable. I dont use tape, I backup daily to an internal drive then daily i backup to 2 seperate computers on the lan and once a month dvd's are burnt and stored. Plus every 6 months the internal backup drive is replaced and the old one stored and taken of site (caddied). I dont use tape purly because of the expense of the drives and small capacity (id need an auto changer i backup over 200Gb a night.

yeah the main server will be linux, our windows 2000 server hasnt been too bad but needs rebooting every few days and sometimes plays up, which is great when i get a call at 8am after a heavy night out asking why they cant find their documents.

At the moment we just copy the files to another computer on the LAN. We have also always been worried that somebody could just clear us out and steal all the computers and we would be left with nothing.

It automatically copies the files at 3am every morning, and have only had to use it once when somebody managed to mess up a the whole accounting database. I was frantically trying to stop the 3am backup from rewriting over the previous days backup which was fun.

Tim

im a big linux fan but i dont know enough about it to run it as our main server. I hated windows 2000 server and think its nearly as bad as 9x but i tried 2003 and i have to say its awesome. Rock solid easy to use and quite cheap for the small business (less than 75 users) version. I nearly abonded ms on the server but glad i didnt. All my other servers are linux though but i will struggle when the have a problem (my personal web server currently has an uptime of 211 days)

I concur with James, de separate the CCTV from the other functions.

The reason?
Mail with virus scanning is a storage and CPU intensive task. Even if your requirements are light now, demands may rapidly grow in the future. If you mix in CCTV, you'll cut your scalability short.

On the other side, CCTV is also storage and CPU intensive. So, mixing in mail with virus scanning with bust the performace and reliability of your system.

You dont wanna look bad in family related projects. You'll never hear the end of it!

Now, for backup purposes, CCTV and Mail applications have different backup requirements, and thus different strategies are used.

On CCTV applications you usually want the most recent recordings readily available (online), and older recordings stored away for reference (offline). For this you need a big disk array to keep a long enough (arbitrary) period of recent recordings. For older recordings, most people just burn data onto CD's or DVD's and then purge the corresponding recordings from the disk array.

On Mail and other applications as you describe, you need ALL of the data readily available. Believe me, users always want to look for that 2-year-old mail with ultra-important information on it. So you'll also need a big disk array, but now you have to focus on safeguarding all the data; no purging older stuff here. For this, DVD's are becoming a popular backup method, but Tape backup is still king.

If you want unattended, large capacity backup that will not break the bank account you can use an Exabyte VXA-2 or VXA-320 Packet Loader. These offer 172Gb and 320Gb storage capacity per cartridge respectively. The autoloaders hold up to 10 cartridges, so you do the math! With some creative scripting (I can provide you my scripts if you want) and tape rotation it can take care of backups for up to 1 month!! The VXA-2 retails in the US for $1,839.95, the VXA-320 is pricier but is faster and has more capacity. Both are larger than a pizza box and, since they are meant for racks, you can get an external enclosure for an extra price.

Regards,
Jose.

I concur with Jose just wish i could afford one of those autoloaders lol

Well, as autoloaders come, this one is a definite bargain compared to others like DLT and LTO. My brother, also a sysadimn, bought an IBM autoloader with capacity for 16 LTO-2 cartidges for $22,000.

The key for the VXA's being so cheap is that they use helical scanning/recording, just like VCR's. The other technologies like DLT and LTO use linear scanning/recording technology, requiring super-expensive tape alignment mechanisms. Also the VXA's can operate at variable speeds, which virtually eliminates tape buffing (the head spins faster than the tape goes by, thus buffing and wearing the tape).

Anyhoo, I think there are a couple cheaper solutions for automating backups... I'll dig around.

Jose.

There is nothing that i have found that we cant do on a linux server that we do on win2k.

Yeah, the time its going to take me to set up samba as a domain controller with roaming profiles, setup the mail server, setup all the networking stuff, i could easilly just buy 2k3 server and be done with it, but what i learn can be duplicated if the need be. and also i would struggle to find anything near as good as ZM and asterisk for windows.

We will still keep all our windows clients. All currently running windows 2000 pro. Looked at XP and its ~£90(ex vat) per licence for the professional version, and from using it at different places im not really impressed. The only thing i would like it for is for ClearType text display. my windows 2000 computer that im working on now hasnt been rebooted in about 2 weeks and its running lovely.

I will probably go for the two servers and then in the future if ween need more storage we can add a backend server just stacked full of disks that can be used for backup.

Tim

timfishy wrote:There is nothing that i have found that we cant do on a linux server that we do on win2k.

Yeah, the time its going to take me to set up samba as a domain controller with roaming profiles, setup the mail server, setup all the networking stuff, i could easilly just buy 2k3 server and be done with it, but what i learn can be duplicated if the need be. and also i would struggle to find anything near as good as ZM and asterisk for windows.

We will still keep all our windows clients. All currently running windows 2000 pro. Looked at XP and its ~£90(ex vat) per licence for the professional version, and from using it at different places im not really impressed. The only thing i would like it for is for ClearType text display. my windows 2000 computer that im working on now hasnt been rebooted in about 2 weeks and its running lovely.

I will probably go for the two servers and then in the future if ween need more storage we can add a backend server just stacked full of disks that can be used for backup.

Tim

£90 for XP Licences?? Be wary - that sounds like OEM. Make sure you have bought qualifying hardware to entitle you to use OEM licencing and that you buy the OEM licence from a qualifying retailer - and that you buy from the retailer that you bought the qualifying hardware from as the licence keys are tagged with the OEM vendor ID.

If you were looking to use XP on a domain, it would have to be XP Pro - OEM costs around £100 and Retail costs a staggering £250!!

Buying retail gives peace of mind and will allow you to transfer your licence to a new system in the event of a system change. OEM's are non-transferable, so when you chuck out your PC with the OEM, that goes too - £100 down the dunnie!!!

I'm speccing Retail on everything at work - bit more expensive, but in the long term, more cost effective.