14.2. Conducting a Site Survey

After the completing the needs analysis, you should conduct a site survey to assess the customer's facility. A site survey is a review of the facility and an evaluation of its suitability for the proposed IT environment. Factors to consider include the following.

• Site/facility suitability Server room size, layout, limitations, and interference

• Site services/utilities Power delivery, fire suppression, and environmental controls

• Physical security Key locks and card access

• IT integration Existing computing infrastructure

• Applications/software Loads and availability

• Human resources Ownership, internal or external support

• Projected growth Computer, employee, and business expansion

To evaluate these factors, you can use survey questions like the following:

• How large is the facility?

• Does the facility currently have any radio frequency interference (RFI) problems?

• Is there any extra space?

• Will an existing space need to be modified?

• Are adequate utility outlets available in the proposed space?

• Is the electrical circuit of sufficient capacity?

• Is the electrical circuit shared or isolated?

• Are there extra electrical circuits available in the facility?

• What type of fire-suppression system is in place (if any)?

• If overhead sprinklers are installed, are they water- or halon-based?

• Is there adequate ventilation for the space?

• Is extra cooling capacity available?

• Is the proposed space in the interior of the building or does it have an outside window?

• Does the facility already use keypads, card readers, or other physical security devices to control access?

• How many workstations does the company have now?

• How many servers are in use?

• Is a recent inventory of company IT assets available?

• If there is an existing network, what is its topology?

• What kinds of IT equipment purchases are planned for the next 12 months?

• What kinds of software are used regularly?

• Is the software workstation- or server-based?

• What software purchases are planned for the next 12 months?

• How are IT support issues currently handled?

• Who is responsible for IT issues at the company?

• Will any IT staff be added?

• How many other employees will be added in the next 12 months?

• Does the company plan to open other offices in the next 12 months?

This is not a complete list, but is a guide to generate other questions pertinent to a particular environment. It also helps identify existing resources, such as network capacity or an inventory of IT assets, which are crucial to determining what additional resources to make available for the transition from old to new environment.

The availability of resources also affects the implementation timeline. For instance, if no network cabling exists in the facility, the plan must include time to install the wires. Although the plan can recommend simultaneous tasks, it is inefficient to have servers and workstations in place waiting for interconnectivity to complete their configuration. The number of hours needed to set up the server and the amount of time needed to address dependencies must be determined.

14.2.1 Applying the Site Survey Data to Server Selection

The information you have gathered during the site survey will be used to narrow down the choices for the server or servers that you will recommend to the customer.

Every server has storage, but factors for deciding on a RAID or non-RAID configuration are cost, storage availability, and fault tolerance. For a file and print server, a non-RAID configuration leaves data vulnerable to disk failure or data corruption. This would be less important to a firewall server, the focus of which is network-centric.

Depending on the existing network topology or the decision for a new topology, server networking capabilities must also be determined. Current corporate networks are at least 100Mb/s (Fast Ethernet), although corporate backbones can exceed 1Gb/s (Gigabit Ethernet) at the same time that remote offices are still at 10Mb/s (Ethernet).

Memory and processor technology components are equally important. Fault-tolerant memory or redundant processors are less crucial to a file and print server than they are to a database server, which primarily performs computations and requires temporary storage.

Determining the relative importance of server technologies, in conjunction with the server's projected role, will help narrow the focus to a server with the required capabilities.

The choice of operating system also has a direct effect on server components. As a general rule, the more recent (and thus more advanced) the operating system, the greater its demands will be on system hardware. This rule generally holds true for Microsoft products, but less so for Linux.

Linux has gained market share in both the corporate and consumer segments in recent years because of its open-source nature and lower demand on system resources. This allows organizations to save money by running an operating system that is available essentially free of charge on cheaper, less-powerful computers.

Certain operating system features can also steer the decision to a particular vendor. For example, the tight integration of the Microsoft Active Directory network structure in Windows Server 2003 makes it more attractive to those organizations that need that feature. As a result, however, potential server purchases must be made based upon careful consideration for meeting or exceeding the higher minimum system requirements.