The aim of the project
The commercial company's goal was to build a reliable, scalable and fault-tolerant IT infrastructure capable of serving all the services required for the business: Windows servers, file server, print server, SQL database and the web store engine. The system had to ensure continuous availability, even in the event of hardware failure.
Infrastructure components
| COMPONENTS | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|
| Server #1 | Dell PowerEdge R750, 2x Intel Xeon, 128 GB RAM |
| Server #2 | Dell PowerEdge R750, same configuration |
| Storage | Dell EMC Unity XT 380, 10 TB SSD RAID10 |
| Virtualisation | VMware vSphere 8.0 + vCenter Server |
| Cluster | VMware HA + DRS + vSAN (Storage is not vSAN based, but managed in an integrated way) |
System design and deployment
1. VMware Cluster configuration
The two physical servers act as VMware ESXi hosts.
The storage connects to both hosts via iSCSI.
Using VMware vCenter, we created the cluster, enabled HA (High Availability) and DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler).
2) Virtual machines and services
Windows servers: AD, DNS, DHCP services in separate VMs.
File server: With DFS replication and quota management.
Print server: Centralised print management with GPO integration.
SQL Server: Microsoft SQL Server 2022, with Always On configuration.
Webshop: Linux-based LAMP stack, on a separate VM, with reverse proxy and CDN integration.
3.)Failover logic
VMware HA automatically restarts VMs on the other host in case of hardware failure.
Storage is always available to both hosts, so there is no data loss.
SQL Server Always On provides redundancy at the database level.
Safety and rescue
Snapshot-based backup: daily VM snapshots.
Acronis Backup & Replication: backup to an external backup server.
Firewall and VLAN segmentation: separate network layers for administration, client traffic and database.
Results and business benefits
| MUTATÓ | BEFORE EXPOSURE | AFTER EXPOSURE |
|---|---|---|
| System downtime risk | High | Low |
| Chances of data loss | Significant | Practically 0 |
| Webshop contact details | 95% | 99.99% |
| IT maintenance time | 4 hours per week | <1 hour per week |
| Number of customer complaints | High | Significantly reduced |
Lessons and suggestions
The combination of VMware HA and DRS is ideal for building a fault-tolerant infrastructure in small and medium business environments.
Storage redundancy is key: RAID10 and snapshot backups together ensure data security.
Separating services into separate VMs increases scalability and ease of troubleshooting.