Benefits of Windows Server 2012 for Business

Introduction –

A domain-based network service provider company “Universal crop” wanted to extend its business to Use IT equipment more effectively. Some new services they planning to offer their customers, for this, they need to use new applications that will fulfill their business needs. The major task of the now to perform is to set up a data center for adding new IT equipment, servers to extend their business. The second task is to look for the server room, and plan about the setting up new server with IT equipment’s.

In this assignment, I am going to discuss how windows server 2012 will be helpful for universal corp as per their requirements. With the new features in it they can manage different settings from one place and as it is multiple user many different user can manage it and others can see it and use that in their personal systems. Also how warm site is beneficial for the universal corp with its features and cost which also helps universal corp to  maintain and save their servers and equipment from high temperature heat. Will explain in details how the standards takes place and how important it is to have standards and concern for data center. Also, few important tools for networking such as nmap,putty, etc which they can use it for their security purpose.

Task 1 –

As the Universal Corp’s need to expand their data center and wants to setup new servers in their company windows server 2012 would be best for the company as they have come up with new features in it.”It is the server version of Windows 8 and succeeds Windows Server 2008 R2. Two pre-release versions, a developer preview and a beta version, were released during development.” (wikipedia, n.d.) Windows Server 2012 has many new features that are available for great functionality of OS. Microsoft has improved many features. Few of the  features and roles added in windows server 2012 are

Work Folders – It gives the function same as Dropbox to the corporate or big company servers. It allows users fully functional and also secure file replication service to use. Work Folders keep the copy of files on server and client.

Storage Tiering – It is one of the best feature available in windows server 2012. In storage tiering one can easily move chunks (stored data) from different classes of storage. It uses heat-map algorithm to check which chunks are most active and moves at its own.

Write Back Cache – When user create new storage they gets option to enable write back cache. It is the feature where write cache helps the physical storage to smooth out ups and down of input/output. Cache stops the pauses created by overwhelmed storage subsystem.

(Ferrill, 2013) 

Roles

Active Directory Certificate Service –

It will provide universal corp’s server to build public key infrastructure and also provide pkc( public key cryptography), digital certificate for the organization.

Active Directory Domain Services –

It will allow network user to create scalable , secure infrastructure and also provide the support to users for directory-enabled application.

Application Server –

It will help organization for integrated environment to deploy and run server based application.

Networking –

It will help networking team to understand about the products and features for designing, deploying and maintain the windows server 2012. (Garvis, 2013)(Microsoft, n.d.)

Task 2

Universal Corp is already running a domain-based network so they know how each and every item of assets plays an important role in the market. It looks like a basic concept that all business follows but assets inventory management has become a hot issue for the organization. The 5 best practices for its assets inventory which universal corp should consider before adopting new servers and expanding their company are

1)Take the time to define any and all assets –

Assets are defined in terms of systems such as networks, production, etc. There are different types of levels available that are managed by assets. At some level assets are managed and viewed individually.

2)Rethink and/or establish your processing and fulfillment practices –

Revenue is represented by the number of orders in any organization. But as we know universal corp don’t have proper systems to handle, process and fulfill the customer’s orders. As in every business it is necessary or the best thing is to create tasks list needs to be completed.

3)Before implementing software, ensure that you are starting with clean data –

 The organization surely import the old data to the new asset inventory management software before creating any new data. After finishing the process one realizes the inconsistencies in products, better before moving to it if the organization has taken time to sort the data and clean it up they would have to get to know the discrepancies in that process and would have saved their time and money.

4)Apply cost-effective management techniques –

Universal corp has to check whether their assets are managed in a proactive or reactive way? As in some cases, proactive management is more costly compared to reactive management. It is best practice because sometimes when organization repair or replace the product they can manage cost-effectively during asset life-cycle.

5)Set safety lock levels – and re-evaluate as business changes –

Nowadays inventory software is available easily on the internet from where one can download as per need. Also, the organization can set a safety lock as per the department divided for the work. It is important because when the stock is going to be finished it sends an alert to the team.  (Stazzone, 2019)

Task 3 –

As universal corp is expanding for the infrastructure it is necessary to have some standards for data center and some concerns are also been taken for safety. All IT shops are not set up in state of art but data center standards should create Tier-3 certified buildings and racks for server.

Few of them which includes in standard and concern are

1)      Temperature Control –

It is necessary to concern about heat which may affect the data center threats. Researchers have found that high temperature does not fail the server necessarily but an increase in heat can cause energy consumption attached to cooling equipment.

2)      Humidity Control –

“Data centers work hard to combat heat.” They use CRAC units for airflow which streams in the room. If the humidity level increase can there is risk for servers hardware and other equipment in room.

3)      Static Electricity Monitoring –

The biggest threats in data center is static electricity. If the electricity is less than 25 volts then it can fry up the sensitive components or can it easily damage the equipments. It is important to install such equipments in place where potential of charges are high.

4)      Fire Suppression –

Must have featured in data center environment standards is fire suppression system. The company should monitor and test the system very frequently to avoid the risk and threats in the data center. (Bradford, 2019)

Task 4

As the universal corp wants to expand the infrastructure and they are planning to provide more IT services to users, the very first steps for them is to get the best and cheap storage for their company. It is important for them to store data electronically and provide the machine which is readable. The main reason to provide this is easy data center and reliable.

Disk Array – It has drives and cache memory for all types of data such as a file, block, and storage like hard disks drives, SSD, etc. It also includes controllers, power supply, etc to the universal corp’s. It includes Network-attached storage arrays and Storage area network arrays.

Solution for network storage is

Multiple Users – Multiple users can access the file from their computer and company don’t have to mail them separately.

Additional Storage Space – Network-attached Storage provides users to add extra storage space to network and it also doe not affect the system which is loaded on the same network.

Backup – Network-attached Storage works like a separate device so one can use it for scalable backup. It also saves time and energy.

Compatibility – Network, and data storage are compatible with centralized data storage.

Usage – NAS is used for archive, file storage, and data replication, etc.

Even though Network-attached storage is costly than Direct Attached Storage, I would recommend network attached storage for universal corp as it is simple and easy to configure and manage and also provides password protection between files and storage.

 (Arora, 2019)

Task 5

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. It is the process of improving the performance of storage data by dividing it into multiple drives. There are two types of RAID which are software and hardware RAID. (Joan, 2010)

Hardware RAID –

In hardware RAID, the drives are connected to the RAID controller card in the motherboard. It works for the same for large servers and also for desktop computers. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of hardware RAID is –

1)Better performance

2)Different types of RAID configurations are available compare to other OS.

3)Hardware RAID is compatible with different types of OS.

4)More hardware, more cost for setup

5)Hardware RAID uses flash storage arrays when certain inconsistent performance occurs.

Software RAID –

Utility Software manages the RAID configuration in operating system, which is known as a software RAID setup. Numerous operating systems support configuration with Apple, Microsoft, Linux and also with FreeBSD and Solaris Unix.

Some of the advantages and disadvantages of software RAID are –

1)Low cost

2)The computer can handle RAID easily as they are so powerful

3)If the user uses high hit performance it uses more complex of RAID configuration

4)User will be restricted to RAID levels

(getprostorage.com, 2018)

The benefits of using RAID for servers are

1)Superior performance

2)Lower in cost and

3)also improved resiliency

There are 2 levels of RAID which are striping and mirroring. Striping helps to increase performance for the servers. It is used for mapping data over physical drives in an array. The data gets divided in the segments. While “mirroring was the first real implementation of RAID”, which requires 2 individuals drives of same capacity. In which one is the active drive and another one is mirror drive. RAID offers a simple solution for the error occurs or any problem occurs. For example, if disk failure then RAID the controller will use the mirror drive for recovering the data and then it continues the operation. 

(pctechguide.com, n.d.) 

Task 6 –

Disaster can occur in several ways and can damage any types of things such as building, powerline, environment, workspace, etc. For example if a tsunami occurs it damages Datacenter building (eg – construction, physical infrastructure, location of entry and exit), building location (such as access route, rail lines, and airports, proximity to highways), Power protection (eg – grounding, line conditioners), Environment (eg – air conditioning, trees, heating), ), workspace(eg – furniture, lights, offices), the  Network infrastructure (eg – connectors, cables, routers, routers racks, etc.

Also in the second case if anyone hacks the whole data center it can damage the internal network and systems of the data center.

 In such cases, there should be backup plans and strategies for the recovery of data centers available with the company. Strategies such as –

1)      Strong relationships with clients or other company offices, so that it can be helpful for recovery such as they can provide alternate or temporary data center space.    

2)      It’s also important to plan a proper infrastructure documents for floors, buildings, system maps, etc.

3)      To keep a record of previous data center like how they were handled and what new things they learned during it.

4)      Vulnerabilities to the data center are one of the most serious and critical parts as it can damage whole data center systems so have to make sure if there are no outdated power systems for backup.

5) An emergency team which employer should have trained them for this type of emergencies occurs in the data center.  (Kirvan, 2011)

Task 7 –

As the universal corp is running a domain-based server, it has risks to site if its incomplete disaster recovery plan. The plan should include more for recovery and not just the backup procedures. For everyone in life whether it’s in business or individual “time is money”. Backup should contain different levels of a plan to maintain and minimize the impacts of loss. There are 3 types of Disaster recovery sites which are cold sites, hot sites, and warm sites.

Cold Site –

Where serverless related equipment is installed that data center or office is known as a cold site. The cold site as the name itself says that it helps for cooling, power and it also waits in the case where outage to the data center. Engineers and IT personnel plays important roles as the cold site requires their support to get equipment and servers which works functionally. It is also the cheapest site available for cost recovery to all businesses.

Hot Site –

Mirror of your data center is basically known as a hot site. As a cold site, the hot sites also includes power, cooling, and servers. Production environments run in main data center and that is the main feature available in the hot sites. By using it, the company can minimize the impact as it syncronizes on time. The impacted site immediately takes place when there is an outage in main data center. A hot site is costly and cost-benefit-analysis will have weighed for utilization.

Warm Site –

The middle ground disaster recovery option is warm site. It also has pre-installed server hardware and also offers office space. There is the difference between hot site and warm site and that is a hot site offers a mirror of the data center, while warm site will have only servers ready and pre-installed for a production environment. Which site to use between the hot site and warm site a CBA has also been done including downtime connected with software and configuration requirements.

For universal corp, the best site will be a warm site as it already has a pre-installed server and is also not much costly compare with the hot site. 

(Technologies, 2013) 

Task 8 –

When the problem arises in the data center there should be an option available to solve them. But before that, they should know to rectify the problem which affects the time and money of the business. Here are the top 5 common problems that might appear in the data center

1)Hard Disk usage problems –

      One can identify it if there is a sudden increase in transaction logs, error logs or application logs, etc

      If there is running out of disk space

       Data loss and bad sectors

2)CPU & Memory problem –

       If the server is running unnecessarily like a sudden increase in usage of CPU than it can crash the server

      If there is trouble in application

      The hardware is defective or unstable server

3)Server Temperature & Power

      Failure or improper cooling system

      Fan breakdown in the middle

      If the health of a generator is poor

      Server crashes frequently

4)Network Interface bottlenecks –

      If the network interface card or cable is bad connection or disconnected

      Impulsive bandwidth

      Poor application or service performance is poor

5)Virtualization Management –

      Consolidation of application is poor

      Unplanned outages

      Physical and virtual servers get complex to manage  (2010)

Task 9 –

Few of the tools used for network troubleshooting are

1)Ping –

It is the most used network tool in the market. It provides the information to the user about connectivity between the host destination and the requesting host. It can be done by Internet Control Message Protocol which sends packets to the destination and receive a response to host.

2)ifconfig –

It helps the user to find IP configuration information. On Windows “ipconfig” command is used and on Linux “ifconfig” command is used to get an output.

3)Nslookup –

It is the most commonly used tool, as we know everyone uses the internet and to use it they use domain names (for example – google.com) for unknown IP addresses. Nslookup is used to lookup for specific IP addresses assigned to that domain name.

4)PuTTY Term –

It provides the functionality of connecting different types of equipment such as SSH, telnet, serial client, etc. Alternatives of PuTTY is also available which is Tera Term and the user can use any of these tools as per their personal choice.

5)Netstat –

It provides information about the host whether it is an active network or not. It is very important to check these details in many industries. For example, when someone wants to verify the status of open ports and check which host is connected to the local host. (Sean, 2011)

References

• (n.d.). Retrieved from pctechguide.com: https://www.pctechguide.com/how-to-set-up-a-raid-array/raid-tutorial-the-benefits-of-using-raid
• (n.d.). Retrieved from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/hh831669(v%3Dws.11)
• (2010, 11 20). Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/manageengine/top-5-server-performance-problems-and-how-to-resolve-them-using-opmanager
• (2018, 3 6). Retrieved from getprostorage.com: https://getprostorage.com/blog/hardware-vs-software-raid/
• Arora, H. (2019, 4 2). Retrieved from https://www.colocationamerica.com/blog/data-storage-solutions-for-servers
• Bradford, C. (2019, june 5). Retrieved from https://blog.storagecraft.com/top-5-data-center-environmental-standards-and-concerns/
• Ferrill, P. (2013, 7 3). Retrieved from https://www.infoworld.com/article/2606748/108930-10-excellent-new-features-in-Windows-Server-2012-R2.html#slide6
• Garvis, M. (2013, 4 23). Retrieved from https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/canitpro/2013/04/23/windows-server-2012-roles-features/
• Joan, B. (2010, 1 11). Retrieved from http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-hardware-raid-and-software-raid/
• Kirvan, P. (2011, 5 18). Retrieved from https://searchdisasterrecovery.techtarget.com/feature/Recovering-from-a-disaster-A-data-center-checklist
• Sean. (2011, 7 13). Retrieved from https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/it-ops/network-troubleshooting-tools
• Stazzone, S. (2019, 9 8). Retrieved from https://www.camcode.com/asset-tags/asset-inventory-management-tips-best-practices/
• Technologies, S. (2013, 11 20). Retrieved from https://www.seguetech.com/three-stages-disaster-recovery-sites/
• wikipedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2012

Conclusion –

Universal Corp is in requirement for multiple users using multiple services like ADDS, DNS, DHCP at same time. To fullfill this needs windows server 2012 can be applicable. The windows server 2012 will provide virtual machines with remote access, multiple user access with authentication, services will be available to every user at same time. Administrator will be organizing and managing this whole structure. Windows server 2012 provides backup and recovery for all the user data as well as virtual machenies. VM has checkpoint facility to make milestone for whole virtual machine. Using windows server 2012 is the best upgrade option for universal corp.