Why You Need to Upgrade Your Network Server

by Nick Tobin

There are options available for businesses that run on Microsoft Small Business Server products to run their network. A network does not need to be completely reconfigured to replace a Microsoft Server. Microsoft Servers can be migrated easily without having to ever touch any PC on your network when you take a planned approach which will save your business money.

Even in a down economy servers and computers still need to be replaced. RAM and Hard Drives still fail and monitors still fade. The equipment you use to run your business does not seem to care that the money to replace it may be in short supply.

Servers are at the center of all computer networks and if one dies everyone on the network suffers. That is why you need to pay attention to that box that sits in the back room.

Upgrading your server after a failure is always more costly than a planned replacement and it's not only the information that is important. A failed Server will need to be recovered to recover all the connections it had with the other PCs connected to the network or you will have to rebuild the network and all its associations from scratch. Recovering the data is actually a simpler process.

You need to understand what your server does for you to get an idea of what is required. Either you have to spend time recovering Active Directory or you have to restart from scratch and spend time connecting each PC on the network to the new Active Directory structure. All recent versions of Microsoft Server products utilize Active Directory to maintain the security between users, workstations and servers and their interaction with each other. Active Directory is a complex structure and is not easily restored after a catastrophic failure. The difficulty in recovering Active Directory is what increases the cost.

Servers generate a lot of heat and because they are often neglected in the closet this increased heat and friction adds to lessen their functional lives.All small business servers run on hardware that degrades and will fail over time. The most common point of failure is with the Hard Drives. Hard Drives are continually spinning and with a server running operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week their clocks are always ticking.

The practice of using a beefed up PC as a server is truly a bad idea. Server hardware is designed with redundancy to protect you from hardware failure and at very least should have Hard Drives setup in some sort of RAID array. If you do not have some sort of RAID you need to fix that immediately.

Servers typically have a 3 to 4 year useful life span and because most server hardware has a 3 year warranty we suggest you replace a server between the 3rd and 4th year. Anything over 4 years old has a much higher risk of failure and components that old are also more difficult to find if they do need to be replaced. Any server over 5 years old is on borrowed time.

The time and effort in upgrading your network server can be greatly reduced if it is done before it fails. A properly planned upgrade can be done over a weekend with no downtime to the users.

Even a Small Business Server with Exchange has options for a smooth transition to new hardware. Microsoft Small Business Server has the limitation of only allowing one Small Business Server on a network at a time which makes it impossible to do a direct migration from old server to new server which means that you will need to join all the workstations to the new Domain and Active Directory. There are options used that allow a replacement of the server without having to ever touch a workstation.

The typical process is to start the process on a Friday night and finish up sometime on Sunday and when users come in and login Monday morning nothing has changed from their perspective other than noticing a speed improvement. The process we use allows you to replace a server without ever having to logon to a client PC. All the network shares are the same, the server name is the same and even Microsoft Exchange functions exactly the same as it did before the upgrade.

The process saves time and money by removing the need to change anything on the workstations. The workstations se no change in the server or its settings.

It is not a requirement to get the latest version to run on the new server and if money is tight it is a viable option to reuse the software to save money. Depending on the licensing of the OS you could also use the same software on the new server and save that expense too. Because of the benefit of not having to train users and not spending the time going to all the PCs you save a huge expense.

Being better informed and having all the options and planning for the upgrade is the best choice and will save lots of money in the long run. Saving money by proactively replacing the server and reusing the server software is a great choice if you are cash strapped.

About the Author:

Nick Tobin has been installing and maintaining business networks for almost two decades. C-Net Systems is committed to helping our clients with their server upgrade, server migration and new server installs. C-Net Systems also offers Remote Support for any Server or computer issues through the internet with www.ExpertSupportNow.com