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

[Robert Arkiletian]

On 1/29/07, Steven Santos <steven at simplycircus.com> wrote:
> > 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.

Ditto. Good advice.

-- 
Robert Arkiletian
Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada
Fl_TeacherTool http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/Fl_TeacherTool/
C++ GUI tutorial http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/