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Configuring multiple servers

A

AstroGuardian

Senior member
Hello friends,

I need some advice or a link to a website where i can read about the following.

I have these servers: Active Directory, File Server, MS SQL 2005 Server, Exchange 2003 server. I have only two physical machines available.

I need advice or link to a website where i can read about the best combination. Whether i should install (Active directory + Exchange + File server) + (SQL server) or maybe (Active directory + Exchange) + (SQL server + File server).

(server No.1) + (Server No.2) to be more clear.

Thanks,

 
The fileserver can be shared with pretty much anything as long as you're sure you have enough disk space and bandwidth. But IIRC it's not recommended to mix Exchange with anything else, especially a DC, unless you're using SBS.

So if I had to guess I'd probably try Exchange by itself and everything else on the other box first.
 
I don't know the specifics since I'm not really a Windows guy but I just know that for some reason they don't recommend putting them together unless you're running SBS since MS already put them together there.
 
the issues with Exchange + DC usually come from when you need to expand and/or move to a new hardware. Disaster recovery is also a lot more complicated. Personally I would install CentOS (minimal, cli-only to save resources) on both boxes, install VMWare Server on that and create 4 virtual machines: 1 for AD DC, 1 for Exchange, 1 for MySQL, and 1 for file server. You can monitor resource usage to see if you need to move the vms around in the future (which is trivially easy) but I would probably start with the Exchange and AD vms on one physical box and the MySQL and file server vms on the other physical box.

If you do not want to use virtual machines, I would agree Exchange on one box and everything else on the other.

edit: oops, just realized you said MSSQL, not MySQL. I admin both and I abhor our vendors who refuse to support anything other than the abomination that is MSSQL.
 
The interdependencies between Exchange and AD can give you issues when running them on the same OS. I second virtualization, whether it be VMWare, Virtual Server, or the new Windows Hypervisor (available under the Server 2008 RC) you're going to be a lot better off than trying to run all the services on 2 physical servers.
 
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