[WEB4LIB]

[Andrew Mutch]

Ruth,

You can do all of the things that you want to do. Theoretically, you can do
all of these on the same server too. However, you probably don't want to do
that for both technical and security reasons. I generally try to avoid
trying to run everything on the same server. First, it puts all of your eggs
in one basket and if the server goes down for whatever reason, you lose
everything. Also, server prices are getting to be so affordable these days
that you can purchase a number of low-end servers and use them for a single
or limited number of duties. You can them tweak them to be optimized for the
duty they perform. With rack-mounted or blade servers, you can house all of
these single-function servers in a relatively compact area. Security is a
huge issue too. Servers used for internal uses should not be accessible to
outside users and ideally, they would be protected behind a firewall. If you
are not behind a firewall, I would keep servers that outside users access,
even just for web access, completed segregated from the rest of your network
resources. This means that you don't join them to your Windows domain and if
you can physically separate them on a separate network, even better.

Here's a possible setup just so that you can see how this plays out with the
hardware and software.

Remote Access Server
You didn't specify if this was for databases that your institution hosts or
for databases provided by remote vendors. If you just want to provide remote
access to vendor-provided websites, this can be done with EZProxy. It runs
on either Windows or Linux but your best bet would be to put it on a Linux
box. As your users need to be able to access this server, it is best placed
outside your firewall's DMZ (assuming you are using a firewall). Depending
upon your level of traffic, you could run this on a low-end server or a web
appliance. This model from Dell starts at around $1200 and would be perfect
for this role:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp?customer_id=04&keycode=6W463&order_code=PE350WEB

Don't skimp on items that will improve uptime like UPS. For RAID support,
you'll have to get one of the higher end servers. For this use, I would just
invest in some backup or imaging software and a spare HD. If you lose the
hard drive, use those to get yourself back up.  If you no longer need the
CD-ROM server for that role, it could probably meet this need. You could run
EZProxy on NT4/SP6 too.

Database driven Intranet
While you could run this on your File Server with IIS or some other web
server installed, I would favor putting this on its own server.
Database-driven web sites tend to be more processor and memory intensive and
you might run into performance issues with your file server. Plus, web
services always have a measure of instability associated with them and I
would want to avoid that problem with my file server. I'm assuming this
would only be for internal access and would sit behind your firewall.

How much of a server you need for your Intranet depends on how large you
expect it to be, how many people would be using it and how much
functionality would be available through the server. The main things I would
focus on with this server would be processors and RAM. The more RAM, the
better and if this would be heavily used, you might want more than one
processor. The software choices are pretty wide-open here. Here's just a few
potential combinations:

Windows
Windows 2000 Server - OS
IIS or Apache - web server
ASP or PHP - scripting for dynamic pages
Access or SQL or mySQL - database

Linux
Linux - OS
Apache  - web server
PHP  - scripting for dynamic pages
mySQL - database

Again, you don't need a massive server, especially if this server is going
to be just handling the Intranet.

Hope all that helps!

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI



Ruth Harrison wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm evaluating the possibility of providing remote access to some of our
> databases and creating a database driven web site or intranet. I don't
> understand the hardware requirements. My question is this. If we decided
> to do both of these, how many physical servers are we talking about? Are
> these things that can be run from one box? Can I successfully add these
> technologies to an existing server?
>
> Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.
>
> Currently we have the three servers below.
>
> File Server - =20
>
>         Compaq 3000, dual PIII-500, 2gb RAM, Windows 2000 Server, SP3,
> 6x18gb drives (2x18 RAID1 OS, 4x18 RAID5 data).
>
> Web server-
>         Compaq 3000, PIII-500, IIS 5.0, Windows 2000 Advanced server
>         We are part of a WAN. The webserver is shared with several
> agencies. The state agency that maintains the webserver will not allow
> us to do anything to this server.
>
> Cdrom server-
>         PII-350, 128 mb RAM, Windows NT4 server,SP, 2x9gb drives
>
> Ruth Harrison
> Texas State Law Library
> P O Box 12367
> Austin TX 78711-2367
> 512.463.1724
> 512.463.1728 Fax
> 512.463.1722 Circ/Ref
> http://www.sll.state.tx.us
> ruth.harrison at sll.state.tx.us
>
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