If I were on a tight budget, here is what I would do:
Purchase two linksys Gig-E switches, and make sure that half of my POS terminals were running to one, and the other half to the other switch. Purchase a couple of desktop computers on ebay with enough RAM for your requirements, two hard drives each (so you can do hardware RAID) and a hardware RAID controller, and an additional NIC with dual ports. You'll want to stack the two switches, or at least trunk between them and turn on spanning tree.
On the dual port NICs on each server, run one Gig-e cable to one switch, and the other cable to the other. Create a crossover cable and run it directly between the two servers to the onboard NICs (this will be used for DRDB). Download CentOS. Set the dual port NICs in an Active/Passive Mode. Download DRBD: http://www.drbd.org/ And create a disk partition that is mirrored between the two nodes with GFS running on top of DRBD (you now have shared storage, functionally similar to a SAN). Download KVM, or some other virtualization product and run your SQL server/.Net application as a virtual machine. Given your environment, it doesn't sound like you'll need high IOPS, and so this setup should work fine. You could use the clustering software that comes with CentOS, but in the case of a physical server failure, it would probably be easier to simply spin up the instance of your virtual machine manually on the 2nd server with the KVM software.
Granted, you could make things work seemlessly, and I've done that before, but it takes a lot more work than I'm guessing you would wish to spend on this project. By approaching things the way I mentioned, you could easily have a small list of directions that your wait staff (or shift manager) could follow in the event of a physical failure. It would be easy for them, and you could ensure that your business operates with excellent continuity. Your total expenditure if for everything I mentioned should come to about $1,200 - $1,500 for the entire environment. Finally, in the event hat Murphy's Law visits your establishment, be sure to have a backup strategy.
Now, everything that I discussed isn't especially easy, but there are TONS of resources if you spend some time on Google. And, it is definitely all very doable. My background is in designing highly available infrastructures internationally with budgets ranging from mom & pop small town establishments to multimillion dollar infrastructures.
Good luck, feel free to contact me at: ATheoryOfTruth "at" Gmail . Com
I just noticed the bit9 comment and got excited because we're bit9 customers. I've locked down our call center and customer service reps' computers with Parity and have plans to eliminate mcafee corporate antivirus from our environment. I love the software and our employees (ones who previously enjoyed installing unapproved software) despise it. It catches just about every type of executable and can very versatily handle software installers/packages. Between that and Flexnet Adminstudio a Windows admin can very effectively manage an AD enterprise. Between costs for licenses/network bandwidth in corporate infrastructure/manageability/etc, Parity and adminstudio has been the most costeffective and administratively effective solution I've been able to find. Note: this is for windows environments only, I'm assuming here that Sunrays, linux thinclients, linux workstations, etc etc etc are not an option.
I have to agree. I installed a Kodak i80 for one of our office workers who has to scan in 1000's of pages of documents (we digitize everything). The speed is incredibly fast, the OCR software seems to do well (as well as post the scanned page nearly instantly), it has a pretty good flatbed scanner built-in, and seems to be pretty easy to use. I spent a lot of time comparing medium range scanners, and for the money (about $1800), it seemed to dwarf all of the others. And, it seems to actually hold up to hype *gasp!*. If you google, there are a few sites out there that have some ok comparisons, most of them aren't very descriptive or lose credibility upon comparing them to other sites (in other words, consistency isn't often found in people's opinions). I've found that poring through lot's of ad hoc comments tends to provide the best information (given that you're willing to sift the the good from the crap information).
Ahhh, wow! Too bad Isaac Newton isn't around today, he could've patented Calculus so that the advancement of every single technological step would be inhibitted. -andrew:)
Well, I would have to say that the most influencial person ever was whoever came up with the idea of the hammer. It is the primary tool in the creation of all other tools and simple devices. Simple devices lead up to more complex machines and so the trend continues. Gutenburg made the english language concrete, up till that time there were no really set spellings for words, and often it was possible to come across different variations of the same with when reading between different authors before him. The virgin queen, queen elizabeth was a bit more influential than him, she encouraged writers and scientists and such to excel, and they did. For writers throughout the centuries, Keats would probably have to take the cake for his literary genius, too bad that his best work only last a handful of years before he died of TB, admittedly, if he hadn't known that he was dying, there is a very good possibility that he never would have taken an influencial newspaper editors advice to start writing..... Scientifically..... by far Newton takes the cake. Isaac Newton is by far one of the most intelligent men who ever did. He came up with the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in a matter of about 4 hours, and hadn't even seen math at all until 3 years before he came up with calculus. At the time limits were being used and ppl had realized that they were very important, and a few ppl knew of differentiation, and what it could do, though, no uses were really understood. And about 2 or 3 ppl knew that antidiferrentiation (integration) existed, but they had no concept of how it was used or applied at all. But Newton made the leap that if the derivative of the integral is taken, then the resulting equation is the origial. He also came up with the concept of rotating equations around the y axis, placing them into a 3d environment. Also, calculators today still use Newton's method of determining square roots, cubed roots, quad roots, etc. Without calculus, there would be now way possible that computers would have ever come into existance. Also, did his work in physics, the laws of relativity, light reflection and refraction, etc. He did all of his discoveries in an 18 month time span. Basically this just shows that he could prolly blow both Hawkings and Einstien away without any problem, don't me wrong though, both of those men are extradinarily amazing as well, without them, quantum physics wouldn't be the dreams that stuff is made out of. For politicians, i dont think that Franklin was all that great, he did cover a lot of fields, but most of the things he did were other ppls ideas, he just saw the uses for them, the Japanese do that with the technology that we create here in the US, so i guess he does have his place though. Thomas Jefferson on the other hand, he was a very very impressive man. In my opinion Jefferson is the most intellgent and important politician we have ever had. Conversely, his foil, Alexander Hamilton gave him a reason do such great acts. Hamilton himself impressives himself, i wouldn't say that he is best that we have had, but he is deffinantly up there. I'm sorry i would give examples to back up what i'm saying about, but i have only gotten a couple of hours sleep for the whole week, and am quite exhausted. For those interested, read a whole lot of stuff on Jefferson, and Hamilton, then i would be more than happy to chat, the more that you learn about those two men, the more youll very likely be amazed. i hope everyone had a great millenium. andrew:)
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If I were on a tight budget, here is what I would do:
Purchase two linksys Gig-E switches, and make sure that half of my POS terminals were running to one, and the other half to the other switch. Purchase a couple of desktop computers on ebay with enough RAM for your requirements, two hard drives each (so you can do hardware RAID) and a hardware RAID controller, and an additional NIC with dual ports. You'll want to stack the two switches, or at least trunk between them and turn on spanning tree.
On the dual port NICs on each server, run one Gig-e cable to one switch, and the other cable to the other. Create a crossover cable and run it directly between the two servers to the onboard NICs (this will be used for DRDB). Download CentOS. Set the dual port NICs in an Active/Passive Mode. Download DRBD: http://www.drbd.org/ And create a disk partition that is mirrored between the two nodes with GFS running on top of DRBD (you now have shared storage, functionally similar to a SAN). Download KVM, or some other virtualization product and run your SQL server/.Net application as a virtual machine. Given your environment, it doesn't sound like you'll need high IOPS, and so this setup should work fine. You could use the clustering software that comes with CentOS, but in the case of a physical server failure, it would probably be easier to simply spin up the instance of your virtual machine manually on the 2nd server with the KVM software.
Granted, you could make things work seemlessly, and I've done that before, but it takes a lot more work than I'm guessing you would wish to spend on this project. By approaching things the way I mentioned, you could easily have a small list of directions that your wait staff (or shift manager) could follow in the event of a physical failure. It would be easy for them, and you could ensure that your business operates with excellent continuity. Your total expenditure if for everything I mentioned should come to about $1,200 - $1,500 for the entire environment. Finally, in the event hat Murphy's Law visits your establishment, be sure to have a backup strategy.
Now, everything that I discussed isn't especially easy, but there are TONS of resources if you spend some time on Google. And, it is definitely all very doable. My background is in designing highly available infrastructures internationally with budgets ranging from mom & pop small town establishments to multimillion dollar infrastructures.
Good luck, feel free to contact me at: ATheoryOfTruth "at" Gmail . Com
Cheers,
Andrew
I just noticed the bit9 comment and got excited because we're bit9 customers. I've locked down our call center and customer service reps' computers with Parity and have plans to eliminate mcafee corporate antivirus from our environment. I love the software and our employees (ones who previously enjoyed installing unapproved software) despise it. It catches just about every type of executable and can very versatily handle software installers/packages. Between that and Flexnet Adminstudio a Windows admin can very effectively manage an AD enterprise. Between costs for licenses/network bandwidth in corporate infrastructure/manageability/etc, Parity and adminstudio has been the most costeffective and administratively effective solution I've been able to find. Note: this is for windows environments only, I'm assuming here that Sunrays, linux thinclients, linux workstations, etc etc etc are not an option.
:)
Cheers!
drew
I have to agree. I installed a Kodak i80 for one of our office workers who has to scan in 1000's of pages of documents (we digitize everything). The speed is incredibly fast, the OCR software seems to do well (as well as post the scanned page nearly instantly), it has a pretty good flatbed scanner built-in, and seems to be pretty easy to use. I spent a lot of time comparing medium range scanners, and for the money (about $1800), it seemed to dwarf all of the others. And, it seems to actually hold up to hype *gasp!*. If you google, there are a few sites out there that have some ok comparisons, most of them aren't very descriptive or lose credibility upon comparing them to other sites (in other words, consistency isn't often found in people's opinions). I've found that poring through lot's of ad hoc comments tends to provide the best information (given that you're willing to sift the the good from the crap information).
Ahhh, wow! Too bad Isaac Newton isn't around today, he could've patented Calculus so that the advancement of every single technological step would be inhibitted. -andrew :)
Well, I would have to say that the most influencial person ever was whoever came up with the idea of the hammer. It is the primary tool in the creation of all other tools and simple devices. Simple devices lead up to more complex machines and so the trend continues. Gutenburg made the english language concrete, up till that time there were no really set spellings for words, and often it was possible to come across different variations of the same with when reading between different authors before him. The virgin queen, queen elizabeth was a bit more influential than him, she encouraged writers and scientists and such to excel, and they did. For writers throughout the centuries, Keats would probably have to take the cake for his literary genius, too bad that his best work only last a handful of years before he died of TB, admittedly, if he hadn't known that he was dying, there is a very good possibility that he never would have taken an influencial newspaper editors advice to start writing..... Scientifically..... by far Newton takes the cake. Isaac Newton is by far one of the most intelligent men who ever did. He came up with the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in a matter of about 4 hours, and hadn't even seen math at all until 3 years before he came up with calculus. At the time limits were being used and ppl had realized that they were very important, and a few ppl knew of differentiation, and what it could do, though, no uses were really understood. And about 2 or 3 ppl knew that antidiferrentiation (integration) existed, but they had no concept of how it was used or applied at all. But Newton made the leap that if the derivative of the integral is taken, then the resulting equation is the origial. He also came up with the concept of rotating equations around the y axis, placing them into a 3d environment. Also, calculators today still use Newton's method of determining square roots, cubed roots, quad roots, etc. Without calculus, there would be now way possible that computers would have ever come into existance. Also, did his work in physics, the laws of relativity, light reflection and refraction, etc. He did all of his discoveries in an 18 month time span. Basically this just shows that he could prolly blow both Hawkings and Einstien away without any problem, don't me wrong though, both of those men are extradinarily amazing as well, without them, quantum physics wouldn't be the dreams that stuff is made out of. For politicians, i dont think that Franklin was all that great, he did cover a lot of fields, but most of the things he did were other ppls ideas, he just saw the uses for them, the Japanese do that with the technology that we create here in the US, so i guess he does have his place though. Thomas Jefferson on the other hand, he was a very very impressive man. In my opinion Jefferson is the most intellgent and important politician we have ever had. Conversely, his foil, Alexander Hamilton gave him a reason do such great acts. Hamilton himself impressives himself, i wouldn't say that he is best that we have had, but he is deffinantly up there. I'm sorry i would give examples to back up what i'm saying about, but i have only gotten a couple of hours sleep for the whole week, and am quite exhausted. For those interested, read a whole lot of stuff on Jefferson, and Hamilton, then i would be more than happy to chat, the more that you learn about those two men, the more youll very likely be amazed. i hope everyone had a great millenium. andrew :)