Have a question about servers

[mikeny]

I am a teacher in NYC and we were looking to creating a dedicated server for our school. We want to cyber news webcasting and video confrencing. Right now we have a server for our computer labs but we don't think it can handle this. We are part of a program that gives a laptop to each student (and teacher).

Im more into desktop systems but can servers be built (as in Build Your Own)? Im a little cloudy on this so I appologize if I seem like I'm making no sense...which I hope it not the case. If you can't BYO, does anyone have any recommendations of already built servers that can handle a Middle School with 1230 students? Is it possible?

 

[rockbyter]

the difference between a desktop system and a server is the drives, memory capacity, network cards, and the software. Take a laptop, put windows server 2003 on it and you got yourself a bonified portable server. Decide what you want to do, how much storage you need, how many users will be hitting it now and in the future. That will all determine whether you need an actual server motherboard, or a reliable desktop board with a nice raid card and a little extra cooling capacity.

 

[akhilles]

Def. it can be done. Even from scratch. With Linux acting as server for free. But is the time worth the effort? Only you can determine that. Linux = weeks if not months of reading.

Or you can check out OEM PC makers like dell.com that lets you customize a server to your liking.

 

[mikeny]

I would say this is for 1250 (May and June sees an influx of new students) students, 100 teachers, and 4 administrators. Our school is over capacity so these are the "actual" numbers. The 2 computer labs are on a server which is powered by Dell.

I'm new at servers so I wouldn't know what storage and how much, as well as a server motherboard. I'm guessing a server motherboard would be better. But then again a server would serve a very large capacity and Im thinking just one school on it wouldn't create a problem, right?
Is a portable laptop a good idea or would Dell just be easier? I was thinking, I conquered building my own, why not go for the server medal lol. But if it's a lot of time, maybe Dell would be better.

 

[4745454b]

We want to cyber news webcasting and video confrencing.

What does this mean exactly?

A server is pretty much like a normal computer, but is usually suited to just one task. It also is usually required to be up for long periods at a time, so extra care is given to power and cooling. Typical servers have ECC memory, dedicated cards (SCSI, SAS, SATA, etc.), RAID1 arrays, some even have multiple PSUs in case one dies. Not all of these are needed for all servers.