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Ask Slashdot: Stepping Down From an Office Server To NAS-Only?
First time accepted submitter rawket.scientist writes "I'm a full time lawyer and part time nerd doing most of the IT support for my small (~10 person) firm. We make heavy use of our old Windows Server 2003 machine for networked storage, and we use it as a DNS server (by choice, not necessity), but we don't use it for our e-mail, web hosting, productivity or software licensing. No Sharepoint, no Exchange, etc. Now old faithful is giving signs of giving out, and I'm seriously considering replacing it with a NAS device like the Synology DS1512+ or Dell PowerVault NX200. Am I penny-wise but pound foolish here? And is it overambitious for someone who's only dabbled in networking 101 to think of setting up a satisfactory, secure VPN or FTP server on one of these? We've had outside consultants and support in the past, but I always get the first 'Why is it doing this?' call, and I like to have the answer, especially if I was the one who recommended the hardware."
I just did the same for a client who had downsized. We moved from a rackmount Xserve and RAID solution down to a Mac mini server (for DNS and few other tasks) and a Synology NAS. It was my first Synology, but I was very pleased. It was fairly easy to configure, and has been trouble free so far. It offers excellent outside access via web interface, and has a built in SSL VPN. The largest issue I had with it was configuring a rotating backup. I ended up using the Mac mini for the backup. The client's been very pleased with the solution, which sits on a desk. The server room has been cleared out.
My experiences with a QNAP TS-459U-SP+ are quite good. With the QPKG-Extensions, you even get non-standard services installed.
I would still recommend to have a small 19 inch rack (on wheels) for noise protection and to have some space for expansion.
I recently installed a small DS212+ for a small office of 5 using around 1tb of data. The NAS was chosen as a low cost option but after running it for a few weeks it's actually better than a windows box for this use case, mostly because of its excellent software and ease of use. It has a built in VPN server and access to a host of 3rd party apps. Highly recommended.
If you just want networked storage, anything will do. Don't forget backups (several of those, some offline, some in a safe place), access control, intrusion detection... Probably get RAID too (RAID is *NOT* a backup) for higher availability and uptime.
You mention stuff your server doesn't do. Does it mean you'd like to do it ? Are you doing it another way ?
If you work in a law office (you said you're a lawyer, not that you're in a law office ?) are there specific legal requirements regarding auditing, security, confidentiality ... ?
Are you OK with people making backups of files and leaving with them when they are fired or resign ? ...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
You're barely using the capabilities of the machine you have now and you don't have any reason to keep the server. Get a decent VPN-capable router or pay $20/year for LogMeIn Hamachi if that's a need and combine it with a Synology or QNAP NAS. Those have firmware that's relatively straightforward to support and if there's ever a need for more advanced file services, they're already baked into the device.
Do make sure you buy decent disk drives for it. "Green" or "Eco" drives from WD or Seagate work for shit in disk arrays.
This really won't be a downgrade for you. It will actually probably make your life easier.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
If you have any expectations of maintaining confidentiality for yourselves or your clients, a cloud service is not for you. All cloud providers make claims as to the privacy of your data - when put to the test they'll hand it over to the wrong people in a heartbeat.
// -- http://www.BRAD-X.com/ --
Do you have an Active Directory domain? Domain users and groups are much easier to manage for file access than a bunch of local accounts. I'd keep using a full server just for that, but that depends on your security model.
Find out what you need to do, first, I just spent a disastrous contract job with a company that said "get us bids, then we'll write the specs". And all the groundwork that was necessary for *whichiver bid they accepted*, including storage integration cleanup and getting formerly neglected projects onto backup, met tooth and nail resistance and insistent project review from the current IT staff who had *no idea* and couldn't be bothered to know what their current system did, they were "too busy". They had enough time to complain bitterly about how their old debris was better, when it didn't meet the most basic requirements of reliable backup, recoverability, or supportable technologies.
For someone being paid hourly and who was smart enough to write in the inevitable support calls as billable time, it made me a lot of money, but they made themselves unhappy because they acted like Java programmers. There's an unstated, unstable, never documented API, and they'd just throw it over the wall in one of their endless meetings of people who have nothing to do with the work, to someone in their group who didn't get to go to the meeting, and toss it out to me. "And Then A Miracle Occurs." And boy, did I make miracles occur behind the scenes!!! I'm looking forward like hell to when these clowns go to the Cloud. I am going to make *so much money* translating their last rounds of ill-conceived fractureware practices into the sort of large-scale, but limited API features that the Cloud is actually good at.
In your case, if I had time to take on the job, I'd separate security functions such as VPN from the storage system. Assess if you're an all CIFS storage shop, how much you need, and what your backup and archival storage requirements are. (In a law firm, that archival storage requirement is critical.) Assess your database and email storage backup requirements. (Again, as a law firm, your email storage requirements are important.) And assess ease of recovery of lost data versus the risk of having material your clients would prefer did not show up in a subpoena. (Lawyer/client privilege is vital, so is having only *half* the material show up in the subpoena, the half that makes your client look guilty, without the evidence that clears them.)
NAS's work very well: most of them are Samba behind the scenes, and many of them do NFS as well as CIFS. Don't do that: the privileges for CIFS access and NFS access are very, very different and had to resolve in real life. NAS's also work great for off-site backup: simply swap backup storage devices and take one offsite, then swap regularly.
Think hard about that VPN technology. All Windows boxes support PPTP built-in, and despite the great cries of "oooohhhh, IPSEC is so much better" I've seen no reliable reports that there's a genuine performance or security improvment. The big risks are that the software won't work (which is extremely common with IPSEC and peculiar Windows flavors still in use), and that people will leave themselves logged in with their screens unlocked or their remote systems rootkitted. (VPN's do nothing to address this: good firewall management of the VPN connection does, and this has *nothing to do* with the underlying VPN technology.) IPSEC supports lots of expensive RSA key technologies that you can spend a lot of money for, and which most clients *HATE, HATE, HATE* because they lose those damn funky keychain fobs, which could have been designed better by a bunch of random number generators taking a Java garbage collection break from writing Hamlet.
Since you want to be the IT admin guy off the side of your desk, the short answer is - can you manage it on a NAS? If not then stick with what you know and focus on your day job - the first time you have to spend 2 days fixing or configuring something that's new you'll have blown any cost savings from getting a server anyway. I run what you're describing, though I let the router handle VPN access. If you stick with Windows Server, everything you want to try and do will have a solution you can find in 2 mins on Google, if you go onto a proprietary NAS you will end up working around a lot of things to get them how you need them - Offline files for your users will be a little bit cranky, how you do backups will be limited to the NAS' interface, if you want your security settings 'just-so' (presumably important in your industry) you'll need to make sure the NAS software can cope with that.
For your own safety and piece of mind, do not do this. As a part-time support person in a small environment, you don't have the time to master the subtleties of effectively rootkitting a commercial server and maintaining special, out-of-band, non-vendor supported services on it. It's likely to break down at unpredictable times with basic system updates and network firewall changes associated with the NAS services themselves.
Strongly, strongly consider fragmenting the functions. A VPN and firewall box, running on a small physical applicance, is generally much safer to expose to the Internet than a Windows server that will requirely monthly major updates and possible reboots and possibly daily vital security updates that are too late to salvage the system from what it's _already_ been exposed to.
Oh, yes. Lose the FTP server, unless it's only for upload from your clients and there is no "browsing" function for the files already uploaded. FTP packets are sniffed on a frequent basis on poorly manged, publicly exposed routers and network switches for login names and passwords. It exposes you and your clients to all sorts of security issues if they're using their Windows login names and passwords for FTP access. There are numerous ways to do this better: gather your requirements first, and you can assess whether HTTPS, SFTP, FTPS, or something else might be better. The only reasons to use FTP now are obsolete clients that cannot be upgraded, technical people who refuse to be educated, and publicly accessible download sites with anonymous access.
I completely agree with the idea of breaking this up into multiple machines. Keeping everything together on the same machine is often referred to as a busybox and means that any security holes in the pieces may be used together to compromise the machine and once that machine is compromised the attacker has full control over the family jewels.
I'd keep the router, VPN, DHCP, and DNS functions on its own box. I went with a barebones Supermicro box for around $300 bought from Newegg and installed the pfSense router/firewall on it. Once you get past some learning curve it is very easy to administer through the web interface and the entire config is saved to one file and easy to keep a copy of, so if things go horribly wrong you can rebuild it easily and quickly.
We also went through this a while ago, but the other way around. After kitting out a small office network, the one purchase we really regretted was the NAS (a Cisco-branded device, which in fact is a rebadged QNAP).
The hardware has not failed and supports hot-swapping drives if necessary, but those are about the only good things I have to say about this unit. It is in all other respects just a very limited and relatively expensive Linux server, where essential operations like scheduling regular, secure off-site back-ups are absurdly difficult, and where you can't easily install other server software (e-mail, calendars, DHCP, RADIUS, whatever) unless whoever supplied your NAS happens to make some sort of plug-in available for their particular style of firmware. Even Cisco gave up trying to provide any meaningful support in this area within a few months of the device launching, eventually just providing a mechanism for people to upgrade their firmware to QNAP's own.
When we were investigating options for a new device earlier this year, it looked like more recent NAS devices from other suppliers were little better, maybe differing in some of the details but essentially still the same old story.
My conclusion: NAS devices are for non-technical home users who want to plug in and go. If you're running a real business with serious requirements, and you have moderate Linux skills and/or a modest budget to bring in someone who does when you need them, then buy a real server with a specification suitable for your requirements. There is absolutely no advantage to buying a NAS for someone in that position, IME.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Don't know about client-attorney privilege, but anything medical is a HIPAA no-no. We actually used a "cloud" vendor who we caught using our info for their marketing purposes. We called them on the carpet about it, but they denied all such use, and they had the balls to threaten us with slander lawsuits. The doctors decided that they couldn't afford to make a big stink about it, but we immediately stopped using them.