Topic: Suggestions for classroom (30+users)

[carload]

I'm preparing to set up a school computer lab. There will be 30 users in the lab plus another @30 in the remainder of the school. To act as net gateway and fileserver, considering that the 30 in the lab will be hitting the server at nearly the same time for a webpage or files...
-Would there be any advantage to having more than one 'internal' network card? (in responsiveness of web)
-Would dual (Xeon) processors give an advantage over a (faster) single AMD/P4 processor in responding to either web or file requests?
-also considering splitting the load between two servers, one servergateway, one fileserver, with half the lab & half the 'other' users on each...
Your thoughts, please.

[Boris]

One server will be good enough for this. Users will greatly benefit from caching proxy server for accessing the same page The most beneficial also will be amount of RAM and fast harddrive vs. CPU. P4 or xeon CPU would be equaly sufficient as well as single 100Mb internal NIC. Get the good one (Intel 100Mb or similar).

[carload]

Thanks for the reply. A few followup q's...
Do you think 512MB ram sufficient?
I Plan to use (2) 7200rpm drives in hardware RAID array, do you think SATA will be noticeably better performing than ultra ATA?
You don't mention AMD processor; I've had no problems using one in my home smeserver, do you have a take on AMD vs P4 for this usage?
Lastly, you mention caching proxy service, is this 'automatic' or an add-on rpm? and how to determine and configure best cache size?

Thanks for your patience & opinions.

[Anonymous]

-Would there be any advantage to having more than one 'internal' network card? (in responsiveness of web)

No. One is more than enough unless you have a monstrous pipe to the 'net.

-Would dual (Xeon) processors give an advantage over a (faster) single AMD/P4 processor in responding to either web or file requests?

Yes, but whether you could discern it at the workstation is another matter. Dual processors always help in a multi user, multi request environment.

-also considering splitting the load between two servers, one servergateway, one fileserver, with half the lab & half the 'other' users on each...

The load's nowhere near high enough to warrant this.

Do you think 512MB ram sufficient?

No. v6.x SME chews more RAM than the previous versions. Besides, the more RAM you throw at it the more it will cache and the better the performance in a multi user, multi request environment. RAM is cheap. Put at least 1GB in it. I have 1.25GB in mine and it has really helped.

...do you think SATA will be noticeably better performing than ultra ATA?

No. Besides, increase your RAM and the performance of the drives becomes a moot point 90% of the time. If you're really concerned about disk performance then nothing beats SCSI in a server.

You don't mention AMD processor; I've had no problems using one in my home smeserver, do you have a take on AMD vs P4 for this usage?

At the same price point, buy whichever has a larger cache. Otherwise, raw GHz.

Lastly, you mention caching proxy service, is this 'automatic' or an add-on rpm?

SME's web proxy is automatic and transparent. You can turn it off, but there's no benefit to this.

...how to determine and configure best cache size?

Not my forte, but for 30-60 people I doubt you will need to touch it. See here:

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=14625.msg55908#msg55908

[carload]

Thanks for the additional info.
One last confirmation:

See here:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=14625.msg55908#msg55908

the poster of that thread says he 'configured the ws browsers to use the sme server cache', your info and the manual say no client browser config is required. True? No proxy setting at the client?
Thanks for your patience, other opinions/feedback still welcome...

[Boris]

Dual processors always help in a multi user, multi request environment.

This mostly correct for application servers that process a lot of CPU intensive requests. For the router benefits are not that obvious.

>Do you think 512MB ram sufficient?
Yes. You will hardly notice difference for your type of usage after 256Mb.

>You don't mention AMD processor; I've had no problems using one in my home smeserver, do you have a take on AMD vs. P4 for this usage?
I use to like AMD until last few years, then the quality of them the dropped. I prefer Intel CPU now and I typically underclock them (if possible) for greater stability if cooling fan stops.
> Lastly, you mention caching proxy service, is this 'automatic' or an add-on rpm? and how to determine and configure best cache size?
It is automatic and transparent. You don't have to do anything on the client computers to take advantage of it. Default cache size I think is 100Mbyte. For your environment is important that few websites at the time were cached, so it’s enough. You may want to tweak the object size to store bigger pictures in cache for additional benefits. Search this forum for how-to on this.