Question

Photo of DJ Grick

1

Server Recomendations

4

Okay so this is Rock related but not really one that will get a single right answer. 

We are looking into setting up our own server rather than hosting. What does everyone recommend? We are a church of >5000. 

(Note: i am aware of what Rock's Requirements are . I am looking for recommendations from happy customers not a list of specs.) :-) 

 

  • Photo of Jeremy Hoff

    2

    I concur with Jim that virtualization is the way to go.  This has the huge benefit of abstracting the hardware away from the OS/software, which means you can "throw more iron" at it to speed it up if need be.

    5,000 records is not /that/ many . .. but I suspect if you have 5K average weekly attendance (AWT) then you probably have around 15K records, unless you are an old church and stockpile records leaving you with around 40K of them.  :-)  Even still, for the purpose of roladex information this is pretty small and any modern hardware will perform very well. Just add memory so that your DB is fully memory-resident.

    If you plan to have RockRMS drive your public-facing website, then you will want something a little beefier since the public-facing experience is very important.  Again, most modern hardware will perform well for the typical megachurch traffic.  Disk speed helps the web server stay fast, as does more RAM.  Bonus points for having virtual servers for both SQL and IIS.

    At some point this becomes a business decision.  HP (what we use) or Dell (what Jim uses) or Lenovo (I agree their stuff looks nice) is, in my view, less important than your church leadership's tolerance for things like downtime and cost.  The question that will help me most is your plan for RockRMS -- will it drive your public facing website?  Do you intend to have a self-service website for your congregation?  Tell me about the growth of the church and the forecast for the next couple years.

    I hope that helps. :-)

  • Photo of Jim Michael

    0

    We've had good luck with Dell servers (R710 or thereabouts) the past decade or so. Many are feeling that Dell is (or has) gone downhill but I haven't really seen a problem when I (rarely) need support from them. Used to be a fan of HP servers but they have started charging for firmware unless you're under warranty or have a service contract, and they have less bang-for-buck factor... so those are no-go for us. When it comes time to refresh our hosts, believe it or not I might be taking a look at Lenovo. They make some really nice stuff that's attractively priced.

    All that said, the last thing I would want to do in 2014 is buy a server and run SQL/Rock directly on it. There are so many advantages to virtualizing your servers that the reasons for not doing so are far and few between. Hyper-V is free. There's an edition of ESXi that's free. Sure, there's management/IT overhead in learning your virtualization tool but it's well worth it. Just one tiny example of what virtualization can do for you: Say you're ready to upgrade to a new version of Rock. Or SQL Server. Or install Win updates. With a single click you can snap-shot the virtual machines and "roll back" to that point with another couple of clicks if things go bad. Doing that with "hardware" is just not possible. Backing up virtual machines is also a lot easier (with the right tool) vs. hardware.

    That's my .02.

  • Photo of DJ Grick

    0

    To give some more context we are a church running about 500 in average attendance. We "re-launched" a little over 5 years ago with 40 people and have been consistently growing since then. We currently have about 1500 records in our old database. 

    For some reason my original post didn't show what I typed correctly. I put >5000 (Just in case: Less than 5000). That number was only used because that was the breaking point in the manual and not intended to be a true indication of our church's size. 

    Right now the plan is to run the website off of Rock also but I am nervous about not having enough bandwidth to handle it well if we internally host. The plan is to get everything else with Rock operational before the website so we can test it and see if it will give a good end user experience. 

    The main thing driving our consideration of getting a server is Children's check-in. Right now our ISP has decided 10:15 or 10:30 Sunday mornings is the best time to do their network upgrades. So once every month or two children's check-in will be down at the busiest point in the morning. We had discussed that having an internally hosted system could eliminate  that problem but we are also in the process of switching ISP's (unfortunately, the only other ISP in our area doesn’t appear to be much better).  

    I have debated back and forth in my mind trying to decided if a server is overkill for us but have been leaning towards setting one up since we have the kids school clothes shopping philosophy "let's buy a size or two bigger then we need now since it looks like we will grow into it quick anyway". 

    Let me know if this helps in recomendations. 

     

    • Jim Michael

      Jim Michael

      While it sounds like hosted might be the better way to go, given your size (you didn't mention if there is dedicated IT support on staff, volunteer support, or none at all), it also sounds like the decision has been made for you: If your connection to the Internet can't be reasonably guaranteed to be operational when you need check-in to occur (those are really crazy upgrade times, by the way... the norm is more like 2am) then your only option is to host the ChMS locally so you can accomplish ministry. Realistically, for the record set / church size you describe you're not going to need crazy fast hardware. You'll probably even be able to run SQL Server Express.

    • Photo of Jeremy Hoff

      0

      Jim's correct - SQL Server Express will save some money, and your performance won't likely suffer.  In the unlikely event that it does suffer for it, Techsoup has great prices on microsoft software, including full blown SQL Server software.

      Your server needs will be quite modest.  Any new hardware you find will have ample performance.

      Is there /any/ chance you can change ISPs?  Is there /any/ chance the ISP can adjust their maintenance window?