Quick Server 2003 Question

[Michael]

Okay... in our office we have about 18 PCs and one server (Which is running XP... webserver and some applications the clients interface with, so the XP limit of 10 connections isn't affecting us)... however it is a bit long in the tooth and is causing us a few problems now so it's about time to move on.

I've been looking at the Dell rack servers at the moment, and i'm just wondering what a realistic spec is.

It will be used for Apache/PHP/MySQL (Internal only, so load is about 40 requests a minute)... It will also be used for Sellfone which is a server based program with clients on the PCs... It is a little intensive so contributes to crippling our current system. We also have shared folders which the staff store documents in to access around the office and such.

To do this do we need CALs (I'm not sure what exactly a CAL is for, but i'm going to assumme I won't need them just to have a large-ish workgroup).

We were looking at a 3ghz dual core P4 with 2GB ram and a 76gb 10,000rpm hdd @ £1400 or so...

Any recommendations?

[Moby-Dick]

You will need CALs ( Client Access Licence ) for windows 2003 server - it just depends on how you maintain them.


you can licence per seat , or per connection , different licencing models work out cheaper depending on the number of people / servers you have.

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/licensin...e/default.mspx

these guys woudl probably be good ones to talk to

http://www.greymatter.com/Licensing/...item.asp?id=18



How critical is this server ?

can you live without it when the hard drive fails ?

if the answer to the above is no , then I'd strongly recommend you use mirrored drives.

[Michael]

What about with the Web edition of Server2k3? The only real windows function I will want to use is a couple of shared fodlers... you're saying i'm going to need to buy 20 odd CALs for that?...

We'd be better just installing XP again if thats the case? Surely not...

[Moby-Dick]

2003 web server can be used as a file server , ust not a domain controller.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...loverview.mspx
You need a CAL for every seat OR for every concurrent connection. its about £20 a seat off hand.

If costs are that tight then I'd suggest you install linux and use SAMBA shares.

[young_one]

We'd be better just installing XP again if thats the case? Surely not...

Doesnt XP have a 10 connection maximum?

Look into Microsoft Small Business Server 2000 or 2003, these may provide a better solution than Server 2003, still has the problem of CAL's though.

As Moby-Dick suggested Linux is a great alternative and can do exactly what you want it to from the description of this servers uses.

[Moby-Dick]

SBS CAL's are actually more ridgid than Server 2k3 Standard ones , it wont allow any more concurrent connections than you have licences for it , but at least you know exactly where you stand with licences as they cover the server , exchange and a copy of outlook 2003

XP will only allow 10 connectiosn to it at a time for file sharing etc ( 5 for XP Home I think )

[Bluecube]

Hardware wise you're definitely going to want at least another hard drive to mirror the one you've got speccd, perhaps two for a RAID5 configuration which will aid performance. You might also want to include a tape backup drive.