Hardware for Small Business
 

Hey guys,


I am planning to migrate our websites from a web hosting company to an internal data center as part of bigger migration. So, I need to make a proposal to purchase small business servers to acommodate our current services. Scalability is a concern, yes, but budget is a bigger consideration. Currently, we are not looking at virtualization as an option, so a typical server would do.

So, kindly share with me what hardwares are you using on your own company, probably the services that run on top of those, significant issues encountered, and whether or not you would recommend the brand/model.

I would really appreciate it if you speak from the perspective of a real-world systems administrator, not on a laboratory student trying out Linux. (but that would do as well, student always have great ides)

Services/applications are PHP, MySQL, Python, Oracle Enterprise, Samba, OpenLDAP, Sendmail, OpenSSH, Bind.


Thanks!
Lester.

The bottom line is depends on how much database load and how many visitors you expect. I would happily run a web server from a PIII box from 1995 - IFF it wasn't running a database or taking a lot of users. If you're serving a LOT of users then I would recommend a distributed scenario purely so that one server being offline or overloaded wont affect your custom as users will redirect to a less active server.

For something in the middle you need something in the middle.

Bog standard 1U server with one or two entry-level Xeons and 4GiB of RAM should be enough for most people's needs. In fact I manage a web server with multiple databases and many customers for a silicon-engineering company with a worldwide audience and it's a single two-core Xeon with 2GiB RAM and it's more than enough hardware for the job. My home boxes are SuperMicro 4U chassis with twin Xeons but even though they run everything I do they are still way over-specced for my current needs.

Dell PowerEdge is always very good hardware as is anything from SuperMicro - though there's lots more manufacturers you can go to and in each case you will have people on here say positive things and negative things.

One thing to understand: Installed services are not bloat. RUNNING services are bloat. Turn off *everything* you won't use. This advice is more appropriate to RHEL-related distributions as installation means activation. On Slackware it's quite clean from the outset. Your choice of Operating System and the way the OS is configured is almost more important than the hardware you choose as you can easily drag a beautiful box into the mud by badly configuring a bloaty OS.


Bit of a random brain-fart but hope it helps.

Thanks zordrak.

It sure helps, just a bit overwhelming for a newbie like me. I got some more emphasized and new points of consideration:
a. database load and web server load
b. distributing workloads
c. "one or two entry-level Xeons and 4GiB of RAM should be enough for most people's needs"
d. "Turn off *everything* you won't use"

I'll try to check more on these concepts.

Also, Dell might be a good option, but has anybody tried using HP Proliant line?

What's your plan if your building burns down, is struck by lightning, or someone breaks into it and steals your equipment? Bringing web servers in house is a move I would advise against for any small business, you're far to vulnerable to even a simple hardware failure or power outage.

The companies that sell servers sometimes give some very generic numbers. Like supports file sharing for 50 users. Look at the web pages for claims that are similar to your expected use. You really haven't quoted any facts. Maybe if you had run top on your current server then you might compare. What are paying for now? What machine or part of?

A normal purchase would include a today, 6 month, 1 year and 5 year assessment. It may be that a good purchase would include a bit better if you forecast growth.

Even a bare metal VM might be a choice too. A vm has some abilities to rebuild and take snapshots and such that aren't as easy on linux.

The physical infrastructure has been set and the building has been certified on local building codes. Of course, data center security and costs (space, cooling, power) have been considered as well.

Also, we have an engineering team in-house for some time now. Although it might be an overkill for the size of our company, they've been looking into ISO standards as well for contingency measures for the data center.

In business, we have something called Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). Building our own data center would really be a huge pain in the butt in terms of cost, but the return on investment is really promising.

Thanks. I think I have to research on our current workload, then dig for appropriate hardware that would allow scalabilty.