Intranet Server

[nitz]

Hello,

I need to set up a new intranet server for a small company (20 users) It will be used to host a copy of our website, and our email server. Maybe in the future it will be used to host a few Filemaker databases but that remains to be seen. I would also occasionaly use it as a test server for learning MySQL.

Right now I have the chance to get a brand new eMac for a decent price. My question is whether or not it would be sufficient for this purpose. It has all the basic server software we would need on it; Apache, php, mysql. I know it is on the low end of the totem pole as far a power is concerned, but its just for in-house use. Any thoughts or alternative suggestions?

Nitz

 

[iJon]

Re: Intranet Server

Originally posted by nitz
Hello,

I need to set up a new intranet server for a small company (20 users) It will be used to host a copy of our website, and our email server. Maybe in the future it will be used to host a few Filemaker databases but that remains to be seen. I would also occasionaly use it as a test server for learning MySQL.

Right now I have the chance to get a brand new eMac for a decent price. My question is whether or not it would be sufficient for this purpose. It has all the basic server software we would need on it; Apache, php, mysql. I know it is on the low end of the totem pole as far a power is concerned, but its just for in-house use. Any thoughts or alternative suggestions?

Nitz

personally i think you could do it with an old imac. i think you will be just fine. other people may differ though so wait for some more responses.

iJon

 

[gbojim]

I have a customer running a B&W G3 350 for a mail server and web front end to a database for 50 users. No Problem.

 

[nitz]

Thanks. Just wanted to check

 

[conceptdev]

I personally would not recommend this at all.

The emac while being a great little machine was never intended to this sort of thing. It runs a client OS and has no room for expansion.

Buy a refurb powermac and if you can a copy of OSX server. Save a lot of money and put together a cheaper x86 box and run Linux on it.

I can see your plan working in theory but I would never recommend this to a client (one of the reasons being they would laugh at me) but I would be more than happy if you proved me wrong.

 

[zimv20]

Re: Re: Intranet Server

Originally posted by iJon
personally i think you could do it with an old imac. i think you will be just fine.

i agree. none of the uses mentioned are very intensive. i run my band's website and ftp server off a 266 MHz g3 running jaguar (client). it's painful to sit at and use but its serving speed is great.

 

[jaguarx]

Want old? (not mac).
A while back we were using a Pentium 133 running Windows 2000 Advanced Server (with Active Directory enabled) for website testing.

 

[iJon]

Originally posted by conceptdev
I personally would not recommend this at all.

The emac while being a great little machine was never intended to this sort of thing. It runs a client OS and has no room for expansion.

Buy a refurb powermac and if you can a copy of OSX server. Save a lot of money and put together a cheaper x86 box and run Linux on it.

I can see your plan working in theory but I would never recommend this to a client (one of the reasons being they would laugh at me) but I would be more than happy if you proved me wrong.

what are you talking about. the mac is just fine. we have our whole mail server, web page, and filemaker pro server all running on a combination of xserves and imacs. we used to run everything on an old mac classic for about 15 years. we knew it was outdated but it did what it was suppose to and never crashed. linux in my opinion would be harder to set up then a mac with jaguar server. the only thing i would really recommend the powermac for would be so you can have gigabit ethernet.

iJon

 

[conceptdev]

The emac was never designed to do this sort of work or have 24/24 uptime.

The powermac and the xserve are - the only reason to use an emac in an implementation like this instead of a powermac or xserve is to cut costs in a way that is a false economy. The money saved on buying on cheaper hardware will eventually be lost in downtime and its negative effects on productivity - the total cost of ownership will end up in favor of a higher initial cost in an instance like this. Now if initial costing is still an important issue but you remain sensitive to the TCO you can get a Linux machine with a server architecture at low prices relative to apple hardware.

I am not saying apple hardware is inadequte for enterprise tasks, there is the right hardware out there from apple but it doesn't seem to fit this persons price range. The emac might pull this off - but thats in theory and is not guaranteed plus it has no room to grow. That is why I do not recommend it.

 

[caveman_uk]

Much as I love macs I'd say get a mini-itx x86 motherboard, a fast drive and case (barely bigger than an ibook but about twice as thick) and run linux on it. It'll cost you about half what a classic imac would cost you.

Try www.mini-itx.com ...No connection but I have used them in the past. Indeed I have a machine like the one I described.

 

[nitz]

We don't plan to have the machine up 24/7 just 12/5. Our needs are pretty small. Right now we are using my personal work machine (G4 400) on 9 using websharing. I usually have no problems. The reason we are switching is that I would like to just have my harddrive back

 

[gbojim]

Originally posted by conceptdev
The emac was never designed to do this sort of work or have 24/24 uptime.

The powermac and the xserve are - the only reason to use an emac in an implementation like this instead of a powermac or xserve is to cut costs in a way that is a false economy. The money saved on buying on cheaper hardware will eventually be lost in downtime and its negative effects on productivity - the total cost of ownership will end up in favor of a higher initial cost in an instance like this. Now if initial costing is still an important issue but you remain sensitive to the TCO you can get a Linux machine with a server architecture at low prices relative to apple hardware.

I am not saying apple hardware is inadequte for enterprise tasks, there is the right hardware out there from apple but it doesn't seem to fit this persons price range. The emac might pull this off - but thats in theory and is not guaranteed plus it has no room to grow. That is why I do not recommend it.

Although a lot of what you are saying is true, one key element missing is all the variables in nitz's environment that actually allows you to determine TCO.

For example, how soon might the Filemaker databases be hosted - not going to happen on Linux. Does someone at nitz's organization know how to set up and maintain a Linux server - easy for people that know how but pretty intimidating for those who don't.

All I'm saying is don't dismiss a potential solution without knowing all of the requirements.