rainwatr@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Don Rainwater) (08/11/90)
I'm preparing to recommend moving two of our Macintosh labs from being independent stations with hard disks into being serviced by an Appleshare fileserver. There is more than one way to approach this task, so I would like to get a feel for what would be the best way to do it. On the one hand, we could get a single file server for each lab. This has obvious benefits, including lab independence, but there are other things to consider as well. These things include duplication (hardware, software, effort) and more complicated access to the various applications that we would like to provide (something may be available from server A, but not on server B, etc.). What we would like to do is set up a single fileserver to service both labs. The server would be located in a secure area on our campus network (probably the VAX computer room). We would probably try to use DEC LANworks for the Macintosh on a VMS host as a backup in case of fileserver failure. What I need to know is: What are the disadvantages of a single server approach? Given that the labs contain about 40 Macs total, what size fileserver would be required? (The server would only be used for application service. The typical user would not have write access to the server, so that kind of file i/o should not be a problem. We want to plan on expanding the use of the server beyond the initial 40 stations, and we would like to provide file service to other Macs on the network as well as the labs, so I'm thinking that a IIfx would be a good idea.) How many simultaneous users can we realistically expect to support on a single server? Also, one of the labs is connected directly to the 10-Mbit Ethernet backbone, so it should have no trouble using the file server from anywhere on the backbone. However, the other lab is to be connected via a 1-Mbit segment that runs thru our PBX. Is there any noticeable problem with serving over a 1-Mbit line (I know it's better than LocalTalk)? Any information is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.