What kind of system works best?

[A.G. Russell IV]

Ben, just as a thought, why not attack this as a High Availiblity
problem, much cheaper than fault-tolerant...   Most fault-tolerant
solutions that I have seen, (Compaq/Tandem,Sequent,Digital) will run
in the neighborhood of $100,000.00 USD or more.  

With Linux and little scripting you could have 2 solid servers, and a
fail-over solution that could meet your needs.

I am not conversent with Dell, but I know that there are servers with
raid 5, for around $5000.00 and a pair would give you a 
High Availiblity answer.

If you like we can take this offline...

A.G.

"Benjamin Suto wrote..."
> If any of you recall, I sent a message before regarding issues with a
> 100 client-based Samba server.  After speaking with the company I'm
> working with and showing them some of the replies, they are enthusiastic
> about the system, and we're all looking forward to seeing it working.
>  
> Thank you for all your replies and for your help.  There were quite a
> few replies, and I can't get a chance to reply to all of them.  All this
> help I'm getting really makes me want to try and contribute back however
> I can.  The support on this mailing list is remarkable.
>  
> One last question, I promise. :-)  They're willing to spend around
> $10000 USD for the system, as they want the best system, since this will
> be a mission-critical part of their corporation.  I figure that the
> amount is probably overkill, but I'd like to spend the money in getting
> the most fault-tolerant and reliable system they can get.  We're also
> looking for a good disk subsystem with a lot of storage.
>  
> They use Dell as a vendor for most of their systems.  Is a Dell
> Poweredge server shipped with no OS installed and RAID a good buy?  Will
> the hardware work with Linux?  They're looking to have a RAID 5 based
> array.  There are too many options with those systems, and I'm not sure
> what all of it means.
>  
> Dell is their preferred vendor.  If there is another vendor that would
> make a system that works better, and it's a compelling difference, I'm
> sure they would go along with it.
>  
> If you have any experiences with hardware for a powerful fault-tolerant
> redundant RAID system on the budget of $10000 or less, I'd be interested
> in finding out what kind of hardware you got and whether you have any
> problems with it.
> 
> Thanks for your help,
> 
> Ben


_______________________________________________________________________________
A.G. Russell IV  KC5KFD        High Order Software        e-mail:   ag4 at hos.net
Phone 512-834-1145
          These are my views, on anyone else they would look silly.
       When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed by tomorrow...
                          United States Marine Corps
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