Firewall / Load Balancing / SQL Mirroring Solutions

Firewall / VPN Solution for Dedicated Windows Servers

Firewall / VPN

A reliable firewall is the hallmark of a secure network. Networks support sensitive, crucial applications and processes, and provide a common infrastructure for converged data, voice, and video services; firewall security is a primary concern. Instead of providing only point products that set a base level of security, Cisco embeds firewall security throughout the network and integrates security services in all of its products. Firewall security becomes a transparent, scalable, and manageable aspect of the business infrastructure.

Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances are easy-to-deploy solutions that integrate world-class firewall, Unified Communications (voice/video) security, SSL and IPsec VPN, intrusion prevention (IPS), and content security services in a flexible, modular product family.

Solution:

• Use Cisco ASA5505 as firewall.
• Customer can setup site-to-site VPN or remote access VPN to access the servers

Diagram:

Price:

#	Item	Description	One Time Fee	Monthly Fee	Note
1	Cisco ASA5505 Firewall	Includes 10-user license, 8-port Fast Ethernet switch, stateful firewall, 10 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN peers, 3DES/AES license, and 1 expansion slot	$0.00	$49.00
2	Dedicated Server	1u Supermicro Super Server Quad-Core Xeon E3-1230v2 CPU 32GB RAM 2x480GB SSD RAID 1 + 1TB SATA Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition x64	$0.00	$299.00
	Total		$0.00	$348.00

Useful Resources

• Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances Documents

SQL Server Mirroring Solution For Dedicated Windows Servers

SQL Server Mirroring

Database mirroring is a new SQL Server technology available for review for increasing database availability. Database mirroring transfers transaction log records directly from one server to another and can quickly fail over to the standby server. You can code client applications to automatically redirect their connection information, and in the event of a failover, automatically connect to the standby server and database. Fast failover with minimal data loss has traditionally involved higher hardware cost and greater software complexity. Database mirroring, however, can fail over quickly with no loss of committed data, does not require proprietary hardware, and is easy to set up and manage.

Solution

• Configure database server 1 and 2 to use SQL Server mirroring
• SQL Server 1 as principal server
• SQL Server 2 as mirroring server
• Use our shared SQL Server 3 as witness server for free
• Automatic failover
• Only need one SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition license

Diagram

Price

#	Item	Description	One Time Fee	Monthly Fee	Note
1	ASA5505	Includes 10-user license, 8-port Fast Ethernet switch, stateful firewall, 10 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN peers, 3DES/AES license, and 1 expansion slot	$0.00	$99.00
2	SQL Server 1 & 2	1u Supermicro Super Server Quad-Core Xeon E3-1230v2 CPU 32GB RAM 2x480GB SSD RAID 1 + 1TB SATA Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition x64	$0.00	$598.00	$299.00/each
3	SQL Server License	SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition x64		$299.00
	Total		$0.00	$996.00

Related Resources

• Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2008 R2
• Database Mirroring Best Practices and Performance Considerations
• How to setup Database Mirroring in SQL Server 2005 using T-SQL

Network Load Balancing (NLB) Solution For Dedicated Windows Servers

Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB)

Network Load Balancing is a clustering technology offered by Microsoft as part of all Windows Server family operating systems. NLB uses a distributed algorithm to load balance network traffic across a number of hosts, helping to enhance the scalability and availability of mission critical, IP-based services, such as Web, Virtual Private Networking, Streaming Media, Terminal Services, Proxy, etc. It also provides high availability by detecting host failures and automatically redistributing traffic to operational hosts.

Network Load Balancing servers (also called hosts) in a cluster communicate among themselves to provide key benefits, including:

• Scalability. Network Load Balancing scales the performance of a server-based program, such as a Web server, by distributing its client requests across multiple servers within the cluster. As traffic increases, additional servers can be added to the cluster, with up to 32 servers possible in any one cluster.
• High availability. Network Load Balancing provides high availability by automatically detecting the failure of a server and repartitioning client traffic among the remaining servers within ten seconds, while providing users with continuous service.

Solution:

• Configure web server 1 and web server 2 as Windows Load Balancing servers.

Diagram:

Price:

#	Item	Description	One Time Fee	Monthly Fee	Note
1	ASA5505	Includes 10-user license, 8-port Fast Ethernet switch, stateful firewall, 10 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN peers, 3DES/AES license, and 1 expansion slot	$0.00	$99.00
2	Web Server 1 & 2	1u Supermicro Super Server Quad-Core Xeon E3-1230v2 CPU 32GB RAM 2x480GB SSD RAID 1 + 1TB SATA Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition x64	$0.00	$598.00	$299.00/each
	Total		$0.00	$697.00

Useful Resources

• Web Farming with the Network Load Balancing Service in Windows Server 2003: When a single Web Server machine isn’t enough to handle the traffic on your Web site it’s time to look into building a Web Farm that uses multiple machines on the network acting as a single server. In this article Rick looks at the Windows Load Balancing Service and the new interface it sports in Windows Server 2003, which makes creating a Web Farm quick and easy and – gasp –even an affordable solution.
• Deploying Network Load Banancing
• Setting Up a Front-End NLB Cluster
• Web Server Clustering
• MS Windows Load Balancing Server: Issues with Switching and Routing

Network Load Balancing and SQL Server Mirroring Solution For Dedicated Windows Servers

Solution:

• Configure web server 1 and web server 2 as Windows Load Balancing servers.
• Configure database server 1 and 2 to use SQL Server mirroring
• Database server 1 as principal server
• Database server 2 as mirroring server
• Web server 1 as witness server (SQL Server 2014 Express Edition)
• Automatic failover
• Only need one SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition license

Diagram:

Price:

#	Item	Description	One Time Fee	Monthly Fee	Note
1	ASA5505	Includes 10-user license, 8-port Fast Ethernet switch, stateful firewall, 10 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN peers, 3DES/AES license, and 1 expansion slot	$0.00	$99.00
2	Web Server 1 & 2	1u Supermicro Super Server Quad-Core Xeon X5570 CPU 16GB RAM 2x240GB SSD RAID 1 + 500GB SATA Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard x64	$0.00	$398.00	$199.00/each
3	Database Server 1 & 2	1u Supermicro Super Server Quad-Core Xeon E3-1230v2 CPU 32GB RAM 2x480GB SSD RAID 1 + 1TB SATA Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard x64	$0.00	$598.00	$299.00/each
4	SQL Server License	SQL Server 2014 Standard Edition x64		$299.00
	Total		$0.00	$1444.00