Frequently Asked Question

1. New Network infrastructure
2. Server P2V
3. Cluster Hypervisor
4. Papercut Upgrade
5. 1st Floor 3rd Floor New WiFi
6. Bandwidth managing
7. New users import features

1) Network infrastructure
The new network infrastructure is relying on Mikrotik HW router. This is a big reliability enhancement respect the previous configuration relying on a software firewall VM (pfSense).
Managed switches have been installed in the strategic points to build the wiring diagram of your infrastructure, manage VLANs and other advanced features.

2) Server P2V and lightning
has requested us a lot of time and trials, but its benefit in terms of IT resiliency worth all those efforts.
Virtualization makes the server functionality able to survive the change of the physical hardware. It also simplifies backups and snapshots.
Snapshot is a fundamental Virtualization feature, it allows to take a quick image of the server while it is running, making easy to come back to a certain point of time (and configuration). I've just used this features to implement Papercut upgrade in the safest way.
To make possible and effective all the virtualization features, the server has been cleaned from any unneeded file. It has been misused in the past as a NAS. The original server disk occupation was about 500 GB, now it's just 50 GB.
This will also make easier to take advantage of virtualization cluster features.
Please Note make a user edit directly into the server console will be no more possible but it will be available by remote desktop technology.

3) Proxmox Cluster Hypervisor
The server software has been virtualized and transferred to the little Dell computer over the Rack.
This has made possible to take profit of the server hardware to implement a Proxmox cluster.
This will allow to migrate easily Virtual Machines depending on resource availability or to get high availability of the server VM to make it survive a hardware failure of one of the two hypervisors.
The VM engine (hypervisor) is PROXMOX these are its features:
https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/features

4) Papercut Upgrade
Papercut has been finally upgraded to its current version, importing all the data and settings.
The upgrade from version 6 to 18 has been done following Papercut support advice, passing by versions 10 and 15. For any of this steps, we took a server "snapshot" making us able to come back at any time in case of problems.
The new Papercut brings the exciting feature of BYOD printing, we could study and implement it soon.

5) The new network infrastructure has allowed us to implement a new, coherent and more efficient WIFI based on Ubiquiti Unifi. This system is able to diagnose issues and monitor system performance and usability. A great enhancement respect the previous system completely blind and unmanageable.
https://dl.ubnt.com/product_sheets/UniFi_Overview_Product_Sheet.pdf

6) The new Mikrotik router allows "bandwidth shaping". This feature has been implemented recently to avoid internet usage saturation.

7) A New, easier procedure to import Papercut users has been implemented.
It's important to know and use the new google drive template to communicate users data to us.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fZ-1qFrru3DUtvwP75eDFDYK4MRHzcqLo8555ySoJWU/edit?usp=sharing

Future improvement areas

• Network diagram
• 4th floor new WIFI
• Secure network design (VLANs)
• Software / Hardware / Traffic monitoring
• Internet connections load balancing and failover
• Cluster implementation
• BYOD printing