One of the advantages of internal management vs. hosting is that "massive overkill" on hardware isn't a lot more expensive, in the scheme of things, than "barely good enough." What are those Dells going to cost, maybe $6000US each if you stretch it? An "adequate" server would only save you $2000US. And you want something that's going to last 3-5 years so you're talking about a difference of $400-$600/yr.
You and your team probably make a lot more than that annually, so the difference is not worth quibbling over. If you're committed to bringing the servers inside, which it sounds like you are, I vote for massive overkill. Make them twice as powerful, even. Matt On 1/29/09 11:10 PM, "JonathanC at ag.nsw.gov.au" <JonathanC at ag.nsw.gov.au> wrote: [Sorry if you receive this twice. I sent it 24 hours ago but it still hasn't appeared.] I'm the website manager at a mid-sized art museum (220 full-time staff, 1.35 million physical visitors pa) in Sydney, Australia. Currently we host our websites externally (in a hosting facility in the USA, for cost reasons) but it is clear that our server is now underpowered. So, we are considering hosting internally on TWO, more powerful servers, one for the application and one for the database. The company that provides support for our content management system (Squiz.net) also manages our server in the USA remotely, so they could continue to do that. We would just need to upgrade our Internet connection. The question I have is this: How powerful a system do we need? Squiz.net have quoted for 2 quad-core dual-Xeon commercial-grade servers, running at 2.0 GHz (detailed specs below). Our network manager believes this is "MASSIVE overkill". I COULD ask Squiz.net to provide details of other, comparable organisations and THEIR web server specs, but since they'd probably all be their clients too, this may not be a strong argument for management. So, I would actually appreciate answers to ANY of the following 3 questions: 1. From your own experience, do these specs seem reasonable, allowing for some room to grow? 2. If your institution and/or websites are comparable to ours, what are your server specs... and are they adequate? 3. If your hosting setup is similar to what we were recommended, how big is your website (or websites)? To give you a better idea of our needs, here's what we have now: * Total web traffic: approx. 150-200 GB per month * 1 main website + 8 smaller, CMS-driven websites + 9 static HTML websites * 2 content management systems (1 phasing out the other) + collection management system customised web interface * Monthly email newsletter: approx. 150,000 subscribers * Online video: New content (~ 25 minutes, 55 MB) weekly, currently hosted on internal server * Online audio: currently 2 audio-tours, but set to expand, currently hosted on internal server And here are the detailed specs we were recommended for each server: Dell PowerEdge 2950 Dual Xeon Commercial grade server Dual Xeon 2.0 GHz (1333MHz Bus) Quad Core (8 Cores Total) Memory: ECC Registered DDR 8GB * Application server: 2 x 73 GB SAS/SCSI Hard Disk - RAID 1 * Database server: 6 x 73 GB SAS/SCSI Hard Disk - RAID 1+0 Intel 10/100Mb Network Card Intel 10/100/1000mbps TX Network Card Red Hat Enterprise Linux Thanks. Regards, Jonathan Cooper Manager of Information / Website Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney, Australia http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au - - - Please consider the environment before printing my email - - - This e-mail message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information which may be confidential. If you are not the intended recipient please advise the sender by return email, do not use or disclose the contents, and delete the message and any attachments from your system. Unless specifically indicated, this email does not constitute formal advice or commitment by the sender or the Art Gallery of NSW (ABN 24 934 492 575) or its related entities. _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l The MCN-L archives can be found at: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/pipermail/mcn-l/