Web Servers

I have been set an assignment to specify a system and show the costs and benefits of buying a personal web server for hosting a medium sized business website instead of using internet web hosting companies. (basically got £1500 to spend and gotta show what to buy and why)

Problem is I have no idea about the subject. I don't have a clue where to look for buying a web server or the hardware you would need to build it or whatever you have to do to set it up.

Does anyone know of any sites I could read up on, or any starting points as I'm clueless right now and my googling skills seem to have evaporated overnight?

Cheers,
An overworked B&W

A lot of it depends on your bandwidth, current setup, and all of that.

All you have to do in terms of hardware is drop an apache distribution on a computer with enough resources to handle the load, and make sure that you can keep that machine running.

It gets a bit more complex if you want redundancy built in so that if a server crashes you have it switch to another computer, or something similar.

I don't have any links, but it shouldn't be that hard if you're willing to accept the learning curve (down time, calls when the server is down at 3AM etc.)

-MBirchmeier

1500 would buy a nice set up, but you would need to manage it as well,
that would cost more.

Is it basically just buying a computer and leaving it on all the time or is there more to it than that?

Hmm, the actual cost of the computer is the cheapest part of the server purchase. I am not an expert nor have I bought a server personally. But I believe you have to buy certain licenses to run some applications (SQL server, etc....)

www.dell.com should give you a nice breakdown for a research assignment for costs.

Good luck, and post some highlights of things you find, it would be interesting to read.

Oh yeah, how about a backup process, if you have a server, you must back up the contents every so often. If you are talking gig's, a tape drive would be the best bet.

If I think of anything else I will post it.

But, I think you need to give more details of you plan to configure the server. OS, Database application, back ups...and if any of these require seperate licenses.

My old company bought a dell server, for about $7,000, and I think it was so expensive because of the license and software we needed.

hmm, the website I buy hardware from is www.pricewatch.com They're more of a re-directing website. I don't know if they have a UK site or not. I always find great deals on hardware there. For 1500 pounds (what's that in USD? $3000?) you could get a very high end computer just with the hardware and buy an operating system. Then again, if you want to save money and know how to use linux/unix you could do that. if I find any UK sites ever I'll try to remember to tell ya about them.

surely the platform will depend on the language the website in question is written in!

My personal opinion is that for that sort of sized business you would be better of getting a server with a hosting company, probably a dedicated server or at least a virtual dedicated server. Let them worry about running it, backups etc. After all that is what they do best. I think it would work out cheaper in the long run! Maybe that is the conclusion they want you to draw from this excersize! I dunno, just a thought !

RF

I agree, the hardware is the cheapest part.
software such as Windows Server 2003 is going to cost lots of
money, and in my opinion the most expansive part of hosting,
without considering backup, is the monthly fee for the ISP - high
upload speed (which is crucial for web server) cost very much, and
it's not just one-time payment. adding the backup and maintenance
stuff, you really better go with reliable hosting company.

And don't forget the cost of a high speed/volume connection. In the states it's like 400 to 1300 for a T1(can that even handle the bandwidth anymore??) and DS3 is around like 10k or something.

no doubt, maintaining hosting services cost lots of money... so it's big risk if you
don't have stable stack of clients.

Read up on web server security and make sure you keep your server protected. It's a cold cruel Internet world these days