NextGen Technology, Small Town Budget

When I started at the city six months ago, I was dismayed when I learned our main server was running Windows NT4 Server with no RAID and a tape backup (not kept offsite). I wasn't surprised to see NT4 still chugging along, but what threw me was the lack of redundancy and reliable backup options. To say the least, I wasn't going to be the one responsible for a total loss of data and a week of downtime trying to get the network running after a hardware failure.

I set out to find the most cost-effective and reliable technology available and was blown away at what I found. Don't get me wrong, I've been using virtualization on the desktop for several years now, but I had no idea that server technology had come so far yet is free. There were several options, but above all others stood Citrix Xen. With the ability to run multiple servers in a 'group mode' with High Availability for free, how could one go wrong.

Anyways, to make a long story short, three weekends ago I installed a new Dell server running Windows 2008 Std. on Xen (virtualized) for a total cost of around $4,000 (including licensing). With this we are now running RAID5 on 4 giving us redundancy and storing all data off-site along with images of the server which gives us minimal downtime in a disaster. The changeover went smooth, surprising even myself. In the end I can now sleep at night knowing the city is protected against whatever mother nature throws at us, and if something was to happen we could be back up and running in no time!!!