Which machine should HTTPD be served off?

[Jim Kruse]

In most cases you need to decide what you want are trying 
to accomplish and find the environment that fits it.

For being able to index and have search capability you want 
to try and have a single server.  Fragmenting for short 
term convenience will hurt you later.

In many cases you can build a network(Web) of servers, but 
it should be a planned Web based on what you want to 
present and how you plan to support it.

It is my opinion that you should never, unless there is no 
other way, run critical shared resources on a individuals 
workstation.

There are many Web/Internet solutions available.  Since you 
seem to have a growing environment you need to plan for the 
growth.  Unless you plan to build a lot of processing in to 
the server, indexing, high volume searching, etc, then the 
processor is not as important as the speed of access to the 
data.  Both UNIX and Windows NT provide very capable Web 
environments on relatively low end processors.  Plan for 
the ease of access for maintenance and support but use a 
HTTP server that is going to provide you with support and 
assistance, whether from a vendor or your local support 
community.

On 26 Feb 1996 Josh Huston <hust0011 at gold.tc.umn.edu> 
wrote:

> Can you help me here... we were having a major 
disputation about which
> httpd server is better in terms of reliablity, speed, CGI scripts and how
> stable the software is.  I say nay to httpd server served off the PC
> machines.  I'm currently running my server off the AIX Unix system and is
> very reliable.  However, we are encountering space problems and one of
> our information system specialists said that we should divide up some
> resources, some on the AIX and others on his PC machine.  I am totally
> opposed to the idea in terms of potential heavy traffic and it is known
> that the httpd server crash on PC machine more frequently than the more
> stable httpd software on AIX.  And also, his machine may not be
> available at some period of time while the AIX machine is available 24
> hours a day.  In short, I need to prepare a short presentation to those
> specialist about the advantage of using more stable software and server.
>  They refuse to listen to me merely because they're a college graduate
> and I'm only a student.  So please give me some input!  I will be greatly
> appreciated!  I will gather all replies and produce a summary and post it
> here.
> 
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Josh Huston                           Internet: hust0011 at gold.tc.umn..edu
> University of Minnesota Libraries               libts at gold.tc.umn.edu
> WWW Developer & CGI Programmer
> 160 Wilson Library                      Phone:   (612) 625-4343
> Minneapolis, MN 55455                   Fax:     (612) 625-3428
> 
> 
> 

Jim Kruse
Senior Computing Support Consultant
Computing Resource Services
Information Technology Division
Emory University
isjrk at emory.edu
404-727-7656
404-727-2282 FAX