We would appreciate comments on the following:

The Backup Solution (We are looking at a SCSI raid array with a script to back up 7 days) Are there better or more cost effective solutions?

Firewall, we are looking for a low cost easily administered solution. What do you think of the Cisco PIX 515 and does anyone have any suggestions for getting one at a low cost. Are there better solutions?

Is there a combo load balancer / firewall? What do you think of the Altheon ACEDirector?

Lastly, any suggestions for managed colocation professional services providers?

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Yours in sport,

George

George Spellwin
Research Director

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get plenty of ram - it is cheap now and it is something that you really can never have too much of. and I'm 90% sure I recall the 733s having the 133 bus, so that is cool.

Glad to hear this is getting an update, it sure needs it.

George, if you ever decide to move away form the festering crap that is the infopop engine for these boards, let me know - I can write a system a million times better - and that way you can add any feature you want... and infopop sucks - did I mention that? (although it does occasionally have security holes... its got that going for it)

-hs

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The Downside Of Being Better Than Everyone Else Is That People Tend To Assume You're Pretentious.

Cisco firewalls are generally without problems. I'm not too familiar with other choices.....but part of that is because the Cisco products get the job done. Johnny would be the guy to get into depth with Cisco.

I haven't had the same nightmare experiences with RedHat that H-S has......though I'm sure his claims merit consideration. RAM - as always - a good amount is as much as the machines can hold.

Anyway this is welcomed.

I'm moving the database to a new machine where we will be using RAID 10. Raid 10 is faster than Raid 5 but requires more disks for the same useable space.

I'm so glad you didn't try to use Dell servers on NT. Caution - RedHat Linux is still formative and you may have memory leaks or performance bugs.

Sun - Boo! hiss! been there, done that,
left the job in disgust.

I WANT THOSE STARS!!!!!

That's not entirely true. All of the new linux distros are using the latest linux kernals and don't have memory leaks. You are right that perhaps some of the included software might, but the linux itself that is driving your server will be rock solid (post patches). When you buy a MS solution, you get all their stuff, and so if there is a problem, you know it is their stuff. But with linux, it is free, you are buying a packaged solution of 1000s of different programs bundled together and those are all written by different groups varying in skill. 90% of the time you are getting the best programmers working on that stuff b/c it is what they want to be doing, but occasionally you will see problems. But to say RedHat has memory leaks is a fallacy - they had well known problems in the mid to late 90s - but they are pretty good nowadays.

And I too am very glad you avoided MS stuff, and the move away from Sun is good as well - they have one thing going for them, and that is, they are very slow.
(MS is good b/c they have an amazing array of security holes)

Keep us posted on the move George, and the final decision(s)!

Thanks for all your help.

I do not think I was a clear as I could have been on some things.

1. We will be using Raid 5 instead of Raid 2 as we use now.
2. We will be at above.net, they are a tier one ISP and host many of the largest sites -- bn.com I believe.
3. JohnnyO, we would love info on getting a discount on a cisco pix 515 -- sounds like that's what we want, but boy is it costly! Thanks.
4. We run now with a GIG of Ram and plan to in the future -- we can add more, but this has always been sufficient.
5. We hate Infopop too and would love an alternative. Indeed, we have hacked lots of this system to make it better meet your needs. The good thing about UBB is the GUI -- this is our 5th forums software and by far the most popular. Let me know if there are better comercial packages out there that you recommend.
6 Backup: Right now, we back up everything EVERY day and we save backups for seven days. So we can go back a full seven days if necessary. This will not change. I think we will get a Raid array with five 36 GIG drives for the backup.

We would also love a security consultant in New York who could help us set this up and make sure we are doing things right -- if anyone has any contacts. More comments are welcome.

------------------
Yours in sport,

George

George Spellwin
Research Director

Tell your friends about elitefitness.com!
Click here to Give them a free subscription to Elite Fitness News.

The RAID 5 you are suggesting could have an impact on the performance. I would suggest a RAID 1+0 for the best performance for what you are using it for.

The scripting backup is okay, but a third party solution would be better.

Veritas Netbackup for Linux works great once its configured.

PIX Firewall is a good soltuion for a firewall, but will need someones expertise in setting it up and maintaining<--(minimal) it. I would check with above.net to see if they could provide you with a firewall solution, and lock down the Linux box. If not just make sure the person configuring the PIX KNOWS what they are doing.

Also let me know what kinda price you get for the PIX, I might be able to beat it from my rep.

You mention a load balancer. WHY? You only suggested using one server.

Exodus would be my choice for co-locating have a friend that works there, awesome setup.

The MAIL is not using SSL until you enter your name to login at that time it transfer over to the HUSHAMIL servers. Yes someone can get your user name but they could possibly get that from your profile.

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Don't be alarmed, my real name is Richard.