TECT

TECT is a large server powering many stenoweb services, as well as local infrastructure and services for Cory's home network. It currently has a 2.4GHz Xeon E5620 processor, 16 gigabytes of memory, and 12TB of usable storage. It was purchased in January, 2011 with four gigabytes of memory and a single 250GB disk for approximately $1300.

When it was new and for the first year or two of its life, TECT ran VMWare ESXi 4 and then 5. It hosted both server and desktop operating systems, and was used for various tasks. There was even a time when it hosted a Windows Server 2008 R2 server with Active Directory and file services enabled, a Solaris 10 server with the SunRay services and the uttsc Terminal Services client, and a Windows 7 desktop, which at the time, I found to be faster than flatdell.

TECT currently runs Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard directly on the hardware. SBS 2011 Standard is Windows Server 2008 R2 with several infrastructure services, Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010 all installed and pre-configured by wizards. It runs well, but SBS has a relatively low memory limit (32GB) and is not officially able to run the Hyper-V role. It is, however, supported as a guest operating system on both the free bare-metal Hyper-V server as well as the Hyper-V role on Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2.

I am currently working on a document with information and potential strategies for Migration_From_SBS2011s. This document may help dictate the future of TECT as well as the direction I take for the next server. Although, it may also just help define the next era in TECT's overall life cycle, which may see it returning to virtualization duties, along with some hardware upgrades.

The next step for TECT as a hardware system will be to finalize a configuration of Windows Server 2012R2, ideally with backups that I can restore from, and that I can restore individual VMs from. After that, I'll put the virtualized TECT system (as of this writing, that's running on finnmark) back onto TECT (now itself called "sodor") and then start building new virtual machines.

Events

• 2019-04-03: replaced disk "6" with fresh spare "B" purchased 2018-09-16.
• 2018-09-16: replaced disk "4" with a fresh spare purchased 2017-08. Purchased two new disks labeled 2018-09-16.
• 2017-12-18: replaced disk "3" with a fresh spare purchased 2017-08.
• 2017-10-17: powered down several VMs and merged snapshot states. deleted vm henry pending later rebuild.
• 2017-10-15: cleared hardware log on DRAC.
• 2017-08-20: replaced disk "5" with a fresh spare purchased 2016-11.
• 2016-06-26: moved dryaw VM to knarvik and reinstalled Windows Server 2012R2 on TECT. finnmark will move on to some Windows 10 stuff and then to Windows Server backup trials and experiments.
• 2016-06-25: created dryaw VM
• 2016-05-XX: Installed iDRAC6 Enterprise.
• 2016-03-XX: Upgraded TECT to 96GB of memory.
• 2016-01-31: After trying to install a bunch of VMs and use Hyper-V role, I found out that the system needs firmware updates. performed firmware update on DRAC and the system itself. Still need to do firmware for the PERC.
  Replaced disk "6" one of the July 2012 disks with a September 2012 spare. I need to start buying new disks now.
• 2016-01-30: Installed a test installation of Server'12R2 and the newest OMSA on TECT. I see that one of the disks is in a "rebuilding" state. Unsure if this just takes forever because it's a RAID6 or if the disk is going bad. Monitoring...
  In addition, one of the sticks of RAM needs to be replaced.
  TECT hardware is now operating under the name sodor.
• 2016-12-31: made one last backup of TECT's physical SBS 2011 Standard installation.
• 2014-11-02: Installed OpenManage Server Administrator on TECT.
• 2013-11-17: TECT has been giving memory errors whenever its memory usage reaches a certain point. There may be an error with DIMM_A3.
• 2012-09-14: Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard installed.

Upcoming Concerns

TECT needs a backup system! TECT Backup System. Although, what backup hardware and software is even appropriate may change depending on what TECT's role is at any given time.

TECT's role is something that changes pretty frequently, and especially given that I have been looking for a new stationary computer recently, it's possible that TECT will move back in the direction of virtualization in an effort both to provide a virtualized desktop environment, and to provide a space to set up new servers to migrate away from SBS 2011 Standard.

However, it may be easiest to simply keep TECT running SBS 2011 Standard as it does today until such a time that either TECT itself or SBS 2011 Standard is at the end of its lifecycle, and then migrate then.

My original plan was to put Server'12R2 Enterprise on the hardware, for that awesome unlimited VM subtending capability. Maybe I should investigate putting an SBS successor on the hardware to run the domain and figure out some other way to run Exchange/SharePoint VMs. Then, I can use a cheap SBS backup utility (such as Acronis B&R Essentials/SBS) to preserve the whole thing.

Virtual Machines

 This list was migrated from the old stenoweb wiki.

Some of these are on TECT, and some are on knarvik and finnmark.