--- Keith Antoine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I asked about a week ago a question from my doctor, DR.Greg Silver at
> the
> local medical centre..
> I had two replies to which he has answered in a more indepth manner.
> I quote his repliy and additional questions below and would appreciate
> it if
> anyone with knowlegde than I could answer him direct and cc to me
> please.
>
>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> Thank you Keith and Linux affecionados: I am relatively new to Linux,
> having a copy of Esmith server and lots of user reports of its
> utility.
> The network setup is as follows:
> Lan: NT4 Terminal Server Edition with 5user Citrix metaframe license.
> 12user CAL P2 450 512MB RAM.
> Netfinity5000 server. RAID for twin HDs
> NT4 workstations *8, soon to be 11, P2 450 64MB RAM
> 10/100
> ethernet. 16port hub, not switched. Internet
> router with firewall, not meant to be user or application
> specific,
> just to keep others out.
> Wan: *3 citrix clients over individual copper phone lines.
>
> The software running is:
> 1. A medical practice management program. Windows based. MS SQL
> database.
> 2. A medical clinical notes patient management program. Windows
> based,
> presently Foxpro database, moving in Nov01 to MS SQL
> database
> also
> 3. Lotus domino server. Lotus notes clients.
>
> The system is just over 2yrs old. The speed on lan is fine. Over wan
> is
> acceptable. Bandwidth is probably the limiting factor here. With
> increase in lan and movt of both programs to client/server
> architecture the
> server may not cope cpu wise. Also the HDD space needs an increase,
> presently twin 9.1 GB, RAID mirroring. Hot swappable. Do we increase
> the
> existing HDD space within the same server box, with only a cpu upgrade
> to
> P2 600 possible? Or can we run a linux file server? Can it allow the
Well, increasing storage space is OS independent. If you need more
storage, then you're gonna need more storage regardless.
DB servers tend to require gobs of memory, and lesser amounts of
processing power. You failed to mention how much memory this box has,
although if its not choking run an M$ SQL server, then it should be fine
running mySQL or some other x-platform database server.
> MS SQL
> database to reside on the linux server, to be accessed by the two main
> programs elsewhere? Will this help? Will it slow the system to
TO keep just the database (not the M$ binary that accesses the server)
on the linux box, you'd need to use Samba. I'm not sure what benefits
you'd see accessing a M$-SQL server db that resides on an ext2
filesystem. It sounds as if you want to run Linux with MS applications,
which really defeats the entire purpose of the exercise.
> separate
> the programs from the database hardware, particularly for the citrix
> clients, who always suffer if there is sytem speed degradation. Is
> citrix
> necessary with Linux? Can linux run the windows programs in
Citrix is neccesary if you wish to run M$ apps over the network. Think
of Citrix as a rich man's VMWare or Win4Lin. You dont' get the full M$
OS environment, since the apps are still basically running off of the M$
box, over the network.
> win-4-linux
> or whatever it is called?
Sure, but why bother? If all you're going to do is install Linux, and
then run Win4Lin or VMWare on top of it, then you're just wasting time &
computing resources. One of the many reasons to migrate from M$ to
Linux is to avoid the steep M$ licensing costs. If you're going to be
running M$ apps anyway, then you've defeated that gain. You've also
lost any benefit of getting away from the inherant instability of M$
apps.
>From your network description, it sounds like you have a very heavily
entrenched M$ presence (Bill G. would be damn proud). Your most
limiting factor is the medical application which is going to require M$
SQL server for functionality. I'm not sure how much of a requirement
that it is to use this app, or if there are alternatives, or how easily
you could migrate to such alternatives.
=====
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J. Friedman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linux FAQ & Step-by-step help: http://netllama.ipfox.com
.
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