- Hardware specification for server and client’s compatibility
The hardware requirements specification for server and client’s compatibility will involve network adaptor which consists of hardware and software that allows communication between interface and physical network as well as operating system to communicate with the interface. PCMI card, USB or Serial devices are some of the hardware choices. The firmware and operating system driver will be needed to run card and enhance communication with the device respectively.(Wepman,2014).For 100 clients(fewer than 250 users) in this case,1 single core CPU(2.13 GHz),2Gb of RAM and 1disk at 7.2k rpm(125GB) will be needed for single server(Team Foundation server and the database engine on the same server) installed on a machine that runs one of the following operating system: Server operating system to be 64-bit version of windows server 2008R2,,64-bit windows server 2012 R2 or 64-bit RTM version 2012 R2 or Windows small withSP1 business server 2011 with SP1.Clients operating system to be 64 or 32-bit versions of windows 7 withSP1 or windows 8,64/32-bit RTM versions of windows 8.1.(hardware recommendations, 2014).
Installation and configuration of Servers and clients
Recommendation to support mobile computers
Resources are shared via users in the network. A small LAN is established to allow users share resources such as printers, documents and internet. LAN network is set up using routers, switches and Ethernet cables. There are two methods of connecting clients on the network: wired or wireless. Wireless LAN wills is via 802.11b/g/n wireless technology to facilitate mobile clients and mobile users. A network interface card and network drivers are required on the client and server side to facilitate the exchange.
- Disaster recovery
Disaster recovery is put up to restore back data, hardware and applications of business in time. First, a RAID system has to be implemented. This involves storing same data in different places preferably on hard disks. This improves performance as multiple disks increase mean time between failures. RAID-O is a non-redundant array. This type of technique has no redundancy of data but has striping (Inc, 2006). It provides the best performance with no fault tolerance. RAID-1 consists of at least two drives which replicate the storage of data. It involves no striping. Either disk can be read same time, therefore, improving performance. In a multi-user system, it provides the best fault tolerance and best performance. RAID-5 will store parity information. Parity techniques are employed to reconstruct data in the disks. It includes a rotating parity array. It includes a rotating parity array. Therefore, all read and write operations can be overlapped. It is good where performance is not critical or multi user systems that do few write operations (Wepman, 2014).Uninterruptable Power Supply, UPS, will be installed. This is electrical equipment that will provide emergency power to a machine just in case of power failure. It provides an instantaneous protection and time to save information and to properly switch off the protected equipment. It will mainly be used to protect computers and other electrical equipments where electrical failures could cause data loss or business failure.Data backup tools such as cold houses and disks are considered to take over until main storage until recovery of standard ones. This can be done off-site or using dual data centres. Off-site backup and restore sites are important in case a disaster strikes the primary site. Off-site data backup and recovery houses will comprise of physical infrastructure, servers, cooling systems and power. UPS and standby power backups need to be provided in these locations.
- Implementation of network clients and servers
Implement a way for communication devices to synch and deliver sufficient communication. Some of the network protocols considered includes IP/TCP and DNS. DNS technology allows hosts on TCP/IP networks to be addressed by their names. DNS comprises of network protocol and distributed data store for lookup of names and addresses. DNS uses client/server architecture to map clients and client resources to servers. DNS servers will also act as interfaces with each other acting as clients to make provide support when required.
DSL routers connect the ISP with the organization. A firewall is erected between the DSL router and the clients to inspect and monitor traffic traversing in and out of the network. Firewall will translate valid IP addresses into correct private addresses using Network Address Translation functionalities.
Physical network resources are contained in a screened subnet and contain information technology assets such as DNS servers, Mail servers, Web servers and Network IDS sensors. Static IP addresses will be assigned to web servers, mail and DNS servers. Domain registration will allow external users to access network resources via the internet.
Install terminal services
Mail relay server will be located screened subnet to act as an intermediary between SMTP traffic and internal networks and internet. It then forwards it to preferred locations. Configure firewall to allow SMTP traffic to traverse screened subnet traffic to be transmitted from mail relay to internal servers (Scott, 1998).
Mail servers will be set up to allow mail to be forwarded from the sender via the internet to the receiver especially critical business information and deviate it to the service subnets. The server also includes hosts anti-spam application that sorts out unsolicited e-mail preventing it from reaching the clients.
Web server performs intranet related tasks and will not be available via internet. All the necessary ports will be closed and the server hardened to make it fail-proof. Strong s and passwords are recommended for users and policies required to sustain this policies should be made available to users. Dell Power Edge R710 is recommended for this task. It’s properties include 2.26GHz Intel Xeon Quad Core processor with a 6GB RAM as and 272 GB Hard drive (Microsoft, 2014).
Windows will be configured to communicate with services through network protocols adopted in Network Connections. To make communication access faster and reliable, reorder the protocols in the list from most to least utilized. TCP/IP is the most used protocol and in case, comes first in the list. Network connections are accessed via Start button and through control panel. Click on Advanced settings and proceed to Adapters and Bindings located in the connections group.
- Monitoring and optimizing the performance of a network OS
Terminal services enable management of user services. Terminal Services running in Remote Administration mode is designed to be handled remotely. Remote Administration in Windows does not require licensing and is limited to connections initiated by server managers such as Server operators. The service is not included in the default RDP-TCP permissions and thus cannot allow users to log on. When a user other than server administrator tries to log on an error message “You do not have sufficient rights to logon to this session” is generated.
In order to conduct remote administration for users give groups and users additional access rights. Terminal Services Configurations is available from Administrative Tools tab in the Programs field. By clicking at RDP-TCP connections and going to Properties, Action, and Permissions tab. select users to give permissions and specify their control levels to fully manage the server.
Installing Client for Microsoft Networks is essential to make sure than the clients discover and communicate with others in the network. Locate Windows Control Panel or Mt Network Places to open Network Connections. Open the Local Area Network and add Client and continue clicking OK until Client is added on the right side of the network.
Print Server Management
Print servers come with different features the same as client computers on the network. If print server is using different processor architecture different from client computers, additional drivers are installed. Client computers running 32-bit versions of Windows, for instance, need x86-based drivers for them to be compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows. Client printer Management accords user the ability to access and manage print servers.
Server Print Server Management Pack can be used to monitor the performance and availability of print servers on most Windows platforms. It is used to monitor the health of print servers and provide details of the status of print servers. Print server management tools installed will detect, alert and automatically respond to critical events and performance issues as well as indicate through logs and other output mechanism causes of errors, correction, and prevention mechanisms.
Event log analyze will collect logs from Print Servers, analyze them and generate reports on printer usages. These reports are essential for optimizing printer usage. The report can be printed to provide the following information: printer user, printer used, ID and documents printed, number of pages printed, size of the file, ports used, data and time among other analytical data. Print job report will give further details about the sensitivity of documents accessed, priority changed documents and insufficient privileged documents.
Print Management in Windows Management Console controls printer connections simultaneously on all printers. It uses email notifications and run scripts when a printer faults or requires server needs attention. Printer management console allow the user to view toner and paper levels from remote locations. Installing Print manager is through print server console available via server management console ( Server roles, 2005).
Print archiving is an application enabled by system administrator to allow management of printer language files. Installing Print Archiving assist with the conversion of printer formats such as PostScritp and PDF into images. The software is installed manually or remotely on the primary print server via console and runs automatically once installed. It will be useful for the management of privacy and data access as well as disk space implication.
Monitor and optimise performance of network OS
OS management is the platform that cumulatively allows the user to manage network resources and derive real-time output of how the system is performing. Because networks must accommodate the delicate functions of network based servers such as application servers, databases, files, DNS, DHCP and gateways among others, monitoring proactively is the first step in ensuring efficiency (Zimmerman. 1999). Network managers deploy resources to monitor CPU memory, number of instances of each process and application, start and termination of DNS, amount of memory used by each database and relation between Java applications and bandwidth. Using Operating system manager to monitors the activity of the operating system and initiate actions as required. Operating system management utilities are installed with OS and is configured manually or remotely on client computers and managed by the administrator. Access rights are exclusive to the administrator and higher management personnel alone (Terry, 2011).
Monitoring applications constantly watch over to determine page availability, thread utilization, session state and server cache utilization, discovery and communication with virtual machines, OS’s activity, printer resources and many more.
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