[K12OSN] Re: Networking a new school for K12LTSP?

[Steven Santos]

> I would VERY MUCH prefer to use only 1 server for the entire building
> -- I am still very much a novice at this and the complexities of
> setting up multiple servers or splitting into application & /home with
> LAPD sounds rather daunting.

With all due respect, in the end I think your really going to regret this.

The SMBLDAP scripts included with K12LTSP make this kind of 3 server setup
fairly easy.  I honestly think that in the short term a 3 server setup
(auth/home, TS1 and TS2) would be a lot easier to figure out than setting up
1 server with nic bonding, and working out the bugs/ghosts that can come
with it.

Long term, I would say this is an even bigger mistake.  The more
workstations that get added to the building (and it WILL grow), the more
difficulties you will have dealing with it on one server. On the other hand,
if you start off with a 3 server setup, adding to this becomes really easy.
With a 3 server setup its fairly easy to turn around and add more terminal
servers, fat linux/unix workstations, windows boxes, mac boxes, or specific
services boxes (mail, SQL, WWW, etc) to your network.  Without this kind of
a setup, this is a lot harder to do (and its more than likely that
eventually you WILL want to do this)

You should also factor cost into this.  I think when you price this all out,
a 3 server setup is likely going to cost you less than your single box
setup, especially when you factor the larger switches and your setup time
into it.  Long term your administration will be easier with a 3 server setup
as well.  You will be able to add, remove, replace or upgrade servers as
needed, and without down time, which you won't get with a single machine
setup.

I hope you think long and hard about this.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Santos
Director, Simply Circus, Inc.
Email: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
 Mail: 14 Pierrepont Road
       Newton, MA 02462
Phone: 617-527-0667
  Web: www.SimplyCircus.com