I agree with Al. For a site of the size you describe, why sweat the server
administration when you can get an account to handle that for $25/mo or
less? Seem a waste of resources. Let a datacenter/ISP handle all the
sysadmin stuff. You handle the website administration.
Have you explored any ISP's yet? I can recommend a couple of good ones if
you like.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Al Musella, DPM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Server" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2002 2:33 PM
Subject: Re: Web server advice
I went through this a few times also.. the first suggestion would be to
reconsider the idea of running your own webserver.
You have a very nice website, but it might be overkill to spend so much
money on hosting that web site. You will be spending way more money than
you have to. You could probably get hosting and the email stuff on a fast
reliable server (no mickey mouse stuff) for $50-100/month, and you can
basically forget about the server. Compare that to the cost of putting
everything together. Keep in mind, you probably will upgrade to a new
server every year or 2, and the costs of upgrading to each new version of
cf, sql server, mail server, etc. It gets expensive, plus the cost of your
DSL line.
Doing it yourself is a pain in the butt. You (or whoever runs it) has
to be on call around the clock, and when problems pop up, they can waste a
lot of your time. You have to now read all of the security updates and
patch the machine at least once a week.
Also - if you aren't familiar with running a server, you have to add in
the time to learn about it - really fast.
If you still want to do it:
I would use a desktop machine as someone suggested. Don't bother with
the fastest processor - usually 1 down from the top speed is just as fast
and can save a few hundred dollars. 1 gig should be fine. My server has
sql server, IIS, CF5 and usually shows 400 megs free out of the 1 gig
ram. Having 2 gigs wouldn't do anything extra for you.
I would also set up a second desktop machine the exact same way (with a
different IP address), and back up the data to that second machine a few
times a day. You can then backup the data from this second machine to a CD
or DVD frequently. (Avoid burning a cd on the live server:) Before you
upload anything to the server, test it on this second machine. Also - when
the server dies, you just have to change the ip address on this second
machine and use it to replace the web server.
I would use mirroring with fast IDE drives. That saved my neck recently,
and is much cheaper and just as fast or faster than the SCSI drives.
I would probably go with cf5 instead of MX. Unless you really need some MX
features now. I haven't had much luck with mx yet.
You also didn't mention intrusion detection / firewall. I use blackice
defender for server. It picks up and stops a LOT of hack attempts every
day.
Al Musella
World Wide Websites
a1webs.com
>I need advice regarding a simple, low-volume webserver.
>
>Our society is bringing our web hosting in-house and I need to purchase my
>hardware shortly. It's a relatively low-volume site, serving up +/- 20,000
>or so sessions in a month (our society membership is < 9,000, so there's
not
>a lot of traffic to the site most days). What I'm looking at is:
>
>- Windows 2000 w/ IIS (I know, I know, but I don't know command one of *nix
>and really don't have time to play and learn)
>- mostly static-content .cfm, with some data-driven pages (directories &
>such)
>- CFMX
>- some mail server program (leaning towards iMail, but open for
suggestions,
>though must be easy to setup and maintain) for serving our office (a dozen
>accounts) plus possibly other accounts for officers (so should have
>POP/SMTP/whatever else)
>- Dell server (I've had only great experiences with their hard
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