Building a Server Platform for Growth

You're considering a new server for your small business. Perhaps you already have a server, but your needs have exceeded its capacity, or perhaps you're implementing one for the first time. Either way, you already know that just buying a server for today's needs isn't the answer. After all, your business is projected to grow (hopefully), even if the server functions you require remain the same.

But first, let's talk about those functions. What small business operators tend to think about first are what the industry calls 'file and print servers.' These are servers that provide a place on the network for storing common files, and in some cases providing a location for a central database, such as a customer or order database. 

The primary requirement for a file and print server is plenty of disk space for users, so they have a place to store their files where others can find them, and so that they are backed up. Be aware, though, that such servers rarely perform any printing functions, because today's printers almost always contain their own dedicated servers.

Email servers are also common, although as cloud-based services (such as Microsoft Office 365) become more widespread, dedicated email servers are starting to phase out. You still may need  a server to hold your email files and archives, though, and in some cases, you may have a legal requirement to store those files for long periods of time.

Starting off basic

File sharing means that you're going to need space for all of the common files your organization depends on, plus all of the files each user will need to share with others, plus the files each user decides to copy to the server for backup, plus extra space, because some applications make extra copies of files while they're working, plus space for growth. You'll need to do this calculation for each user who will be storing data on the server, plus you'll need to account for new employees, plus growth, because file storage tends to be additive -- meaning your users probably won't be deleting much.

If you're planning to run your own email service on your own server, then you'll need to account for the space required for all of the messages for all of your users, too. But email can be tricky. In some businesses, you can just assign a specific amount of email space per user. Unfortunately, there are businesses that have a requirement to retain all email for a set period of time, perhaps several years. Whether you store old emails in an archive or in each user's mail file, it requires space. And don't forget attachments! If the same file was forwarded to five employees, you have five copies of it in your email archives. You'll need to get an idea of how much space your email is taking up now to get an idea.

Once you've done all of this, you'll need to estimate how much growth you can expect per year. One common metric is  40 percent year over year. 

Performing these calculations will lead to the conclusion that you need several terabytes of storage. A good rule of thumb is to assume you'll need at least twice as much as your best estimate so you can support RAID mirroring. 

Fortunately, storage is cheap. When you're ordering your server, pick the highest capacity available. This flies in the face of many of the old approaches to storage calculations that figured an annualized cost of buying storage, but hard disks aren't expensive anymore.

In reality, the best approach is to choose your server according to how much storage it can support, with room to expand. A good example is the Dell EMC PowerEdge T440, which can support up to eight 3.5-inch hard drives. You can also have it shipped with fewer drives and add more with time. 

Beyond the basics

Nearly every business is going to have a website these days, and with that comes a web server. There's no reason you can't host your own web server, but there are a lot of reasons why you may not want to. The biggest reason is security, since hosting a public web server means letting the public into your network. There are hosting companies that can do this better than you can.

More-specialized servers, such as domain controllers, Active Directory servers, or Windows Update servers may be part of your setup, but they aren't necessary for most small businesses. If you go that route, be aware that they add to the administrative workload, so you may need a full-time admin to manage them.

Some types of servers, such as compute servers used by image processing companies, require very specialized hardware with lots of CPU or even GPU capacity. These also require specific expertise, and you'll probably need to hire some outside help to choose and operate them.

The management question

An important part of planning for growth is making sure that your server management needs stay manageable. The key is to keep it simple. Unless you have an IT staff that can handle complex issues such as virtualization, it's best to avoid them. Most tasks that are likely to fall within the purview of a small business can be solved by a stand-alone server or two. Some functions may be better served by outsourcing to a third party, such as a web hosting provider. 

That leads us to cloud services. For a smaller business, it's not a no-brainer. Someone has to set up and manage the cloud service, and all of the sizing and planning issues are still there. What's different is that the cloud provider can provide flexibility, but that flexibility comes at a cost. A lot of businesses have been stunned by costs that ballooned out of control because of a poor management decision.

Instead, a small business server can generally be managed by an employee who is already comfortable with supporting the PCs. The hardware is similar, the operating systems are similar, and the management tasks are familiar. That person will need to handle things like adding and removing users, making sure backups happen as they should, and monitoring the server to find problems before they become serious.

What's critical is to remember that the server is core to your business operations, so choose hardware that's reliable and expandable, and make sure it has the level of support you need. For most companies, a day of downtime can be more expensive than even the most costly server.

Dell Technologies Advisors can help you learn about infrastructure options and services, so you can focus on growing your business. Call at 1-855-404-4427 or Chat Now.