GreenField Server 2008 R2 x64
I gotta be honest; I outsourced this server build.
What I did was go to the Dell.com clearance rack and found a refurbished PowerEdge 300 with the Quad-Core Xeon 2.8 gHz, 8 gb RAM and two 250 gb hard drives for less than $1000
I got my tech guy to install Server 2008 R2 x64 and Sql Server 2008 x64. This software cost me $1750 through my local reseller. The install took a week (I was out of town) and I bought dinner him dinner at The Pit in exchange for the effort. You might think that was a deal but he’s actually a family of four and the BBQ there beat Bobby Flay on the Food Network.
Though the T300 is no longer available but you can find similar deals here on Dell.Com’s Deals space.
So let’s just say I got here under my previously stated budget of $3K. I did not get the cool $150 monitor though I wish I had. Continuing with this honesty thing, can we really have enough flat screen monitors? In many respects, I think the flat-screen, more than just about anything else (besides Flash) made geeks cool. If you disagree, think about what dorks we’d look like staring at those big monster, sterilizer CRTs all day.
So I’ve got this machine and it’s hooked to my router at home. I have static IP DSL through AT&T. On Server 2008, you get this “Initial Configuration Tasks” page where you get links to Configure Networking, Add Roles, and Enable Remote Control.
On networking, I added the machine’s local IP addresses, default gateway and DNS servers to the two connections.
The Add Roles link points to the Add Roles Wizard. This will allow you to check the Application Server, File Services, Hyper-V, and Web Server (IIS) roles that we’ll need. Check them and click through the wizard.
The Enable Remote Desktop link points to the Remote tab of the system properties where you can check allow connections…
On my router, on the Port Forwarding tab, I point port 3389 to one of the IP addresses. Now, I can access my new server from anywhere on the internet.
The only thing I can’t do is connect to shares on other LAN computers. I’m not running a domain so when I get prompted for user name and password, nothing I enter allows me to connect. These other computers are a mix of XP and Server 2000 and connecting from them to this server seems to work just fine. Frustrating but I’m not sure this is a priority.
So with all this in place, let mess it all up. Stay tuned…
-robot
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