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TACKtech Corp. > Articles > Company > TACKtech Corp.

The BIG Move (TTID #369)

Author: Travis   Views: 2,704 /  Created: August 1, 2006
The TACKtech Data Center Project started with a need to increase bandwidth and security. This move is expensive for us but in the long run we will not be limited by anything. First we needed to look at the current setup, problems, solution, and the big move.

The old setup was basically a bunch of regular case servers on a rack located in Michigan. There were 2 Web Servers, 2 Mail Servers, 2 DNS Servers, 1 SQL Server, and a firewall. We also were utilizing 1 Monitor, 3 Backup UPS's, Cisco 1750 Router, and a Modem. The old Internet Service Provider was a wireless Internet solution. The setup was a Synchronous T1. There were problems with it from the start and it should of been a sign. But we couldn't do much as our Internet bill was going to double with the previous provider. After 2 years of downtime, slow speeds, and latency which we fixed most of there problems because they were too incompetent to. Another problem is I personally took a new job in Kentucky. So for the past year I have been 6.5hrs away from the servers I administer. Which had not been easy.

Now for the solution. A lovely data center located roughly an hour from my location in Louisville, KY. A few months back I took a tour of the Peak 10 data center and talked with sales and a few technicians. The Peak 10 data center is highly secure and located on multiple separate high speed optical carrier lines. The amount of growth we can do with this company is pretty much unlimited. We can go from shared rack space to private caged area's. The amount of speed we can be provided with is just about endless. The sales team was more then willing to do anything needed to please me and answer my questions. If they couldn't answer them they would find one of there technicians that could. So that solved the problem of finding a data center. Now for fitting our server in a 10U space of rack. We needed roughly 2x 2U servers (1 Web and 1 SQL Server) and 4x 1U cases. For DNS this was a simple answer. 1U mini case that has a VIA EPIA Mini-ITX motherboard. It's small, fan-less, and powerful. As for the case I found one fairly cheap at rackmountmart.com. I ordered the case to see the quality and craftsmanship of it. I was very surprised to the quality of there products. I also was able to reach support and ask any questions on Yahoo chat and they responded within 2 minutes. The DNS Server went together very well. You ask that's only 1 DNS server. Our new data center is willing to provide backup DNS for free of charge. What a deal. With the great quality of the case I talked to them a bit more and figured out exactly what we needed. I ordered 3x RM1001 Cases with Riser cards and 300w power supplies, 2x 2U RM2003 w/300W power supplies, one with a pci/agp riser card. I also ordered 1U CPU fans for the cases. Rackmountmart.com was willing to give us a little break on price due to the large order we were placing.

Next for the big move. We first started with what I had at my location which was the DNS server and Backup Mail server. I installed and seamlessly switched us over to the new servers. Our next step was for me to travel to Michigan for a few days and endlessly work on them and switch them over to rack-mount servers and do some switching with hardware. After working long hours for 3 days straight and many 2 liters of Mountain Dew later the servers were ready for the final trip down to Louisville. As you all know the servers went offline about 11am Saturday the 22nd of July. I then proceeded to drive straight 6.5hrs to Louisville and then offloaded the equipment then install it in the rack space. The installation went great. I started to wire everything up and one of our two switches died. Just as I found that out, Bob the Technician for the night came to see how I was doing. I explained the situation and asked if there was any local store that would be open (yea right 9pm on a Saturday night). He told me to hold on a few and he came back with a switch I could use or buy. This really saved us. So I finished the wiring and started to boot up servers and reconfigure there IP's. Everything came online without any big problems. I think it was about 9:30pm our sites were back online.

In conclusion Peak 10 data centers went the extra mile to make things smooth for us. Rackmountmart.com provided great cases and quick shipping. These two companies really made things much easier on me. I have included pictures of the cases and also links to the two companies. Thank you!





http://www.tacktech.com http://www.tacktech.com



http://www.tacktech.com
RM1001 1U Case



http://www.tacktech.com
RM1007 1U 1/2 depth Mini-ITX Case



http://www.tacktech.com
RM2003 2U Case

Revision History:

08.01.2006 - Initial Article - tm
09.06.2006 - Revised and added pics - tm
09.06.2006 - Opened to Public view - tm

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