RE: *** ADMIN: Upgrade complete (I think)

Well, my biggest concern with the server is backing it up in case of
catastrophic server failure (not disks, those are RAID, but the processor or
something). Another reason I want to get away from Windows Server is that
I'm running a development license, and I fear some day that MS will pull the
plug on it. Since I don't use SQL Server for anything, the box is really
just a big file server and Windows Server is overkill.

I also have a small old Linux box running RH5.2 that serves as my mail
server and my DNS server, and I should probably get LDAP up and running as
well. I assume I can do all that on Linux. I am planning to virtualize
that server into a VMWare machine running on the file server so that in case
of a server crash, I can just fire up the VMWare machine on my primary
workstation and everything will be fine (not particularly fast, but okay).

The file shares themselves will be backed up on redundant 7200RPM USB
drives, so again if I completely lose the file server I will be able to run,
albeit a bit more slowly.

Bringing this back on topic, I might move DNS and LDAP to my model 270.
Anybody have votes on running those sorts of services on a System i instead
of a little Linux box? I don't want to run mail, because it's potentially
moving a lot of data, but DNS and LDAP ought to be light load.

Joe

From: Pete Helgren

Is it Linux that frightens you or just the move? Linux continues to
grow on me and I am managing a few SUSE partitions on i as well as an
Intel Asterisk server running SUSE that handles my VoIP stuff. My
biggest beef is you have to run compiles to "install" many apps but the
good news there is that there is plenty of help online to get any issues
resolved.

I recently upgraded my main server hardware from a dual PIII box running
SBS2000 to a dual Xeon box running SBS2003. David's issues are simple
compared to my move. And, in case you wonder, the only reason I stuck
with SBS2003 instead of Linux was learning curve: I am not there yet
when if comes to managing multiple servers/services using Linux.

Jump in Joe! The water is fine in the Linux world.

Nice job on the move David. Thanks also for ALL the hard work you do
for midrange.com. Here's wishing you a problem free 2008 !!!

Pete Helgren