[K12OSN] Which option do you recommend for increased server capability?

[Barry R Cisna]

Hi Joseph,

Sounds like you are getting all your ducks in a row on this gig. Good
deal. As everyone has already stated here, when you start going to those
numbers of TC's . a GigE backbone at least is a must. 4 gig of ram in
your server should be decent. Also what I think you need to think ahead
on is how are you going to boot all these older machines? floppies. rom
chipped pci nics? If these machines are that old I would suggest an easy
out option and just do eb_on_hd. It's a no brainer 2 step process that
installs etherboot onto the existing hd of each of your machines. The
only caveat, just to get eb_on_hd  installed you will have to
temporarily hang a floppy off of each on the machines to do the install
so there will be a little legwork involved. It takes 5 mins to do a
machine, FYI.
 The upside is this will breathe new life into an otherwise dumpster
bound PC. These older machines will be plenty adequate for 95% of your
users,,,but be prepared. You will always hear." These machines are old
and junk". Maybe spray paint them all black,and they'll never know the
difference:-) 
>From my experience at the school I am at, kids will tear up new $900
pc's just as easy as the older ones,bottom line.
Sounds like you'll have plenty of spares lying around so in case a PS
dies or whatever you can just pitch the old, in with new...kinda:-)
 One other thought, if the higher ups,do not want to pop for new server
iron, if you have another decent older server to use,would be to run two
k12ltsp servers in parallel  on your network for failover,as well as
load balancing. This would illeviate you doing all the nic bonding stuff
as well. You would of course have to set up a homes folder config on one
or the other with this setup. This setup at least gives you two pipes
going to x number of TC's versus only one pipe. Downside, a little more
maintenance on your part.
Just some thoughts. Good Luck.

Barry Cisna