Inexpensive Network Servers? 45
Linuxthess asks: "I work in a small company with only 20 or so employees. Being the most tech-savvy of them I find myself doing less work as a salesman, and more as their non-paid tech support. I was asked for a solution to create a domain for login authentication, a DHCP server, a webserver, file & printer services, and e-mail. I found three such companies with an inexpensive, yet solid products aimed at what we need: one is Celestix with their Aries and Taurus products; there is a company in Chicago called Dartek which sell a custom-built box called iMass which comes in three flavors; and lastly a company in Canada named Net Integration Technologies Inc who has a box named Net Integrator that is available in various flavors. Does anyone have experience in regard to these solutions? I think we will go along with the Taurus, but I want to hear a little more regarding the quality of doing this job inexpensively (these things start from $800 and go until $3000). I spoke with a tech-support guy, and he told me customers buy a couple of these since they're so cheap for redundancy, and clustering."
Get a used one. (Score:3, Insightful)
Start them off right.... (Score:1)
Re:Start them off right.... (Score:1)
simplicity? (Score:2)
just grab an old workstation, install Slackware(or whatever flavor you like) and you're golden.
plus as time goes on, you can upgrade to your heart's content with off the shelf components.
Samba... (Score:1)
This has the advantage of costing only whatever you spend on the PC and your time setting it up (Linux/BSD & the associated programs listed above are all freely available), but unfortunately you would be on your own to admin and support it. In the end I think that it would balance out in the company's favor though, as well as providing relatively easy upgrade paths for the future.
Re:Before anyone opens their damned mouth (Score:1)
This would be capable of acting as your mail/dhcp/domain auth server in the same way as a *NIX box like the ones described by myself and others above, and would save the cost (money, equipment and time) of admining two machines.
Before anyone starts flaming or modding me down for mentioning the W-Word, a properly secured W2K or NT box (disable all unneded services, ditch IIS) is secure enough for most environments as long as the admin keeps up with service packs and security fixes. There's a windows update link on the start menu - USE IT.
Re:Before anyone opens their damned mouth (Score:1)
packs break your software. For example,
Win2k's SP2 broke Microsoft Exchange. It
doesn't do you much good to have a "secure"
(in the very limited sense of 'no exploits known
to microsoft which they have been both willing
to admit to and able to release a fix for) "secure"
server, if it doesn't SERVE!
Re:Before anyone opens their damned mouth (Score:2)
Flamebait AND Troll (Score:2)
My company uses Linux extensively, and was just given $25million in 2nd round VC. So take that, troll. Just because you can't explain how Linux fits into the overall picture, doesn't mean that everyone else can't either.
That's great. (Score:1)
Re:That's great. (Score:2, Insightful)
I used to work with people like you every day. We had a Compaq Prolient that served as a RAS server in our office. When it came time to replace it, I convinced the management to let me install a cheap box, running Freesco. I replaced a Pentium III - 800 box with 2 - 9 gig SCSI drives and 512M ram, with a P75 with 16meg RAM, no HD, and it did the job just fine. The NT Admin wanted to go out and by a brand-new Win2K server with all the trimmings, and refused to believe I could accomplish the same feat on a machine, I bought for $20.
If he is going to get support, why does it matter if he runs, Windows or Linux? Is the Linux support worse than that provided by MS?
Vertical
Mitel SME Server (Score:4, Informative)
Installation and maintenance is a no brainer.
I think Mandrake and Suse also makes similar products.
Re:Mitel SME Server (Score:1)
Very newbie friendly.
Very featureful. Does all the original poster asked for and more.
Try it for free and then buy support later if you need it.
Re:Mitel SME Server (Score:2)
Cobalt? (Score:1)
Very very easy (Score:1)
Check it out.
www.freesco.org
Solaris + PCNetlink (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solaris + PCNetlink (Score:1)
As long as you're comfortable with a System V based UNIX, this is a VERY nice option.
Comodity and ease (Score:2, Interesting)
do you have linux experience?, BSD?
i would suggest that if you are, that you go with comodity hardware, only the best equipment, and dont confuse highest quality with top of the line.
AMD chips have proven themself very reliable and very fast for the price.
Get a good ASUS,Soltek,Soyo,Abit, or Tyan motherboard and an AthlonXP 1500+, this is all you should need for a small office like you have, in fact prob. a little more.
get crucial, corsair, or mushkin DDR memory. Some others are fine to but GET GOOD RAM!
you can build a modest server for $600-$800 and run a Linux or BSD. You choise of distro but some are easier than others. For a super easy distro, mandrake8 has everything you need including samba, DHCP, and email servers on the disk, and it can be downloaded for free OR a version with some tech support can be had on the cheap from mandrakesoft.
Also, Redhat offers setup and tech support for a good price on servers. They would come and set your system up for you and get you started, make your life easy for not too much $$. And RedHat is a very solid distro.
Debian is GREAT, but hard to set up if your not a "guru"
you can make a VERY good performing comodity PC function just fine for you until your company grows to need a higher end system.
Re:Comodity and ease (Score:1)
But I would go with Red Hat unless you try Debian at home first. Red Hat is MUCH easier to install.
Nice job everyone (Score:1)
I just went to that iMass website that was presented as a link in the post and I got a cute little banner advertising to all slashdot visitors. So now that everyone has done their trolling and flaming and even got some targeted advertising do we feel better? It's amazing how we have the epitamy of the web all bundled up into facad of a discussion.
Use whats right for you at work. If it's an appliance, Linux, *BSD, UNIX(tm), or a Windows then so be it.
... in my professional opinion ... (Score:1, Informative)
I'll assume it's a small company, with small company needs, with a little room for growth. If there are different needs, you'd probably need an additional server or two for whatever your loads are.
I'll also have to assume you have a working knowlege of NT/W2K and Unix (Linux specifically). If not, this won't work very well for you. If I was hired at your place today, and told to do it, this is the way it would be done.
First off, build the servers yourself, if you know how. I would build two servers, usage to be outlined below. This would be the order to my hardware vendor. They'll work within these specs, and have the parts to me the same day.
-Fastest and most cost efficent CPU. Probably just over 1Ghz of either AMD or Intel
-*GOOD* CPU Fan (you don't want to worry about it in a year)
-Asus motherboard w/ integrated LAN & video
-Crucial memory 512Mb. is a good start.
-2 Western Digital IDE Hard drives. One smaller one (~16G) for the OS, one larger one (~100G)for any stored data.
-Case. CalPC 1U Rackmount (for rack use), or Enlight midtower if you don't have a rack. ($300 cheaper for the midtower).
Your cost should be betwen $800-$1000 per machine, depending on how bad your hardware vendor rips you off.
You probably also want to buy a CD burner for your workstation. Tapes are cool and big and the bosses like having the tapes safely tucked away in the office vault, but it sucks waiting 8 hours for a restore to roll through, just to find out it didn't store even though everything looked like it did. Have a nice little stack of CD's with all the important stuff on it, and burn new ones occasionally (monthly?). CD's are a *LOT* cheaper than tapes anyways. (less than 50 cents each in bulk).
You could save more money, buying a cheaper motherboard, or cheaper hard drives, but you'll find out it's really not worth it. Which would you prefer, having hardware that never fails, or getting a call every morning at 8am when the staff comes in and can't log in because the PDC is dead.
Now you have two nice stable affordable servers, which will never cause you hardware problems or have mysterious crashes. We build out similiar machines for workstations, since they're cheap.
If you're only doing a little file sharing, that's fine. If you're doing serious file storage, you should consider getting a RAID 5. I personally like the external IDE RAID's. It attaches to a SCSI card in the server, and has 5-6 IDE hard drives in it. There are quite a few companies that build them. IDE is a good choice, they run cool and are cheap if one fails. Because it's RAID 5, you just yank the broken one out, and stick in a new one, without doing anything (ours auto-rebuilds).
On the first machine, set up WinNT/Win2k (forgive me).. Make this your PDC (for login auth), and Print server. That's it. Nothing else. Not a workstation or anything. You *could* let it be a workstation, but the gods of security will laugh at you.
On the second machine, install Linux. I like Slackware (slackware.com). Configure dhcpd, httpd, samba, sendmail, pop3, and possibly imapd. To give you a hint of how easy it is, sendmail pop3 and imapd are already done. dhcpd takes all of about 5 lines in a conf file. httpd is already done, but you'll want to eventually customize. samba isn't all that hard, especially if you've done it before. I copy the same smb.conf around all over the place, just changing the machine's name and share specs.
I've never set up samba to be a PDC or BDC, but it is very possible. It's documented, I've just never done it. You can make the Linux machine BDC, or use a low-end spare (Pentium 166 or so), or volunteer a NT4/W2k workstation.
Honestly, you could have the slackware machine completely done in an hour.
This way is probably a better choice in the long run. Those other companies may be out of business or not supporting your box in a year, and if something needs done, you could be screwed (buy a new box from us). With this solution, you're wide open to being able to fix things yourself. Do windowsupdates on the NT server, install the patches from TechNet. Fix whatever needs fixed on the Linux box (it's easy, honest)..
Here's what it takes to do upgrades on the Linux machine.
cd
wget http://[whateverpackage]
tar xvpzf [package].tar.gz
cd [packagedir]
./configure
make
make install
You won't even have to reboot.
I apologize to anyone who thinks this is an unpopular approach, but it's worked very well in several businesses that either I've worked with or simply know someone working at. Little pieces change depending on use. Like, if you're trying to be a hosting company, you'd have multiple independent web servers.
Re:... in my professional opinion ... (Score:2)
Re:... in my professional opinion ... (Score:2, Informative)
Anyone else notice.. (Score:2)
The exact link to the pic is here [dartek.com]. Odd eh? Talk about targeted advertsing
Re:Anyone else notice.. (Score:1)
"Instant rebate offer expires 1/31/02"
When did they post that graphic? Assuming that it was in response to this article is that date a typo or is there really no rebate?
Sun Netra X1s (Score:2, Interesting)
a couple of them? (Score:1)
Tech: "Really? How many do you think *I* should get?"
Salesguy: "What's your credit card limit like?"
Netra X1's... (Score:1)
Cobalt and Celestix are both good choices. (Score:2)
I would recommend against going with a barebones, non-appliance box. The reason I recommend Cobalt/Celestix is that they are a cinch to set up. They both have web-based UIs that let you set up email lists, file shares, etc. easily. I've used the Qube3 extensively and it simply rocks. I haven't used the Celestix stuff personally, but I've heard that it is just as good as Cobalt.
Both are supported by a company that is used to supporting non-technical users, and neither require you to have a full-time Linux guru on staff.
Your other choice is to run a Windows 2000 server, which is also pretty easy to set up and maintain. The Windows server will be more flexible for the future. Still, for as small a company as you have, an appliance would be a better solution for now.