[OT] Server choices?

[Jepri]

On 2003.01.16 11:26 Rob Shugg wrote:

> What I would like to know is, what do you really get when you fork out
> for a
> server as opposed to a standard pc? and what are the main questions
> you need
> to ask yourself in specifying one?


Given the pez nature of your current server you probably aren't going 
to appreciate being told about things like Suns, where the low end 
ultras cost about $30,000.  But they are really worth it.  As others 
mentioned, you get performance, reliability and good I/O (Suns do 
pretty good I/O).  Native 64-bit really helps servers a lot too.  And 
the service engineers are *great*.

Back on the cheap side, clustering and load balancing cheapo 
workstations can work very well, depending on exactly what is running 
and where it stores it's data.  But that would need a full time system 
administrator to set it up, and a fair bit of ongoing work as well.