Had a client recently who had a smaller office network (they have up to 6 concurrent users) with a server to process orders from their website using a software called StoneEdge. This software is SQL-based database with a Microsoft Access front-end. It was time to upgrade their server to new hardware and cost was definitely an issue based on their size and order volume. In this case we chose to use a Synology device to act as the virtual machine host and create a new virtual server on the host. Here are some details:

Server Build Specifications

• Synology RackStation RS1221+
• Synology M2D20 – M.2 SSD Adapter Card
• 2x Synology SNV3410-400G – 400GB NVMe M.2
• 2x Synology D4ECSO-2666-16G – 16GB DDR4 2666 MHz ECC SO-DIMM Memory Module
• 4x Seagate 4TB IronWolf Pro 7200 rpm SATA III 3.5″ Internal NAS HDD

Picked the Synology based on the expandability of RAM to 32 GB, the capability to use cache drives, and storage growth over time. It also has a 4-core 2.2 Ghz Ryzen processor which was plenty based on their old servers CPU usage.

Basics of Setup

1. Assembled parts
2. Installed Synology OS
3. Setup HDDs in Synology SHR2 RAID
4. Added M.2 drives as cache
5. Installed the Virtual Machine Manager app
6. Created a VM with the max CPU available and max Memory available
7. Uploaded the ISO for the server OS
8. Installed the server OS
9. Setup the StoneEdge application
10. Migrated data

This build did not increase performance dramatically, but it did allow them to spend about half the cost of a full server to accomplish the same purpose. It also reduced costs by using the Synology for backup of the server locally and into S3 storage in the cloud for redundancy.

If your company is looking to move their servers to a virtual environment or into the cloud, then contact us to start the process