[ubuntu-us-mi] Ubuntu Small Business Server CPU split

[Rick Harding]

On Fri, 02 Jan 2009, Mark wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>   As a small business owner, I have appreciated the benefits of Linux. 
> Alas, I have also been a bit envious of Microsoft's Small Business
> Server.  The idea of having everything rolled into one
> distro/install...  I know of a couple of basic ones for Linux, i.e.,
> SME.  However, this is a pretty basic one.  I was thinking of one with a
> bit more complex apps, i.e. LDAP, Samba, OpenGroupware and VTiger CRM 
> all on one CD/DVD. 
> 
> At this point, the existing offerings, including Microsoft's, is doing a
> one-box solution for firewall, DHCP, DNS and all of the network
> utilities ALONG WITH the business apps, apache, etc.  I am wondering if
> a 2 box solution wouldn't be better; one to handle the network admin and
> the other to handle the business apps; not sure where I would put LDAP
> in the mix.
> 
> Is one box really powerful enough to handle everything?  If not, how
> would you distribute the software between a Network
> Server/Firewall/Gateway and a Business Server.  Is putting all of the
> networking services on the same box as a the firewall a good idea?  I
> don't want a 12 box solution but how do we divvy everything up keeping a
> reasonable speed and security?

This is just me, I think you might get a couple different answers, but I'd
have two boxes. One would be a light box that ran your dns, dhcp, firewall,
etc. This can be done easily with many of the firewall distros out there.
I'm a fan of the endian firewall package myself. 

Then I'd have a real server, redundant storage, etc for the real work in
the business. You can put whatever you want on here, and I'd include ldap
in that. 

So let's call it 1.5 servers :)

Rick