Your Recommended Setup for Windows Web Servers

Flashster · 25th May 2006

**I've broken this subject into seperate threads so please reply to them instead if you can - thanks.**

Ok I'm costing out what server colocation is gonna cost me and I am looking at what my my software set up (and therefore costs) will be.

The OS is windows 2003, but I am interested in what people are using for their:
i) software firewall
ii) backup software - or do you just rely on disk mirroring?
iii) anti-virus
iv) email server (Exchange?)

Any help much appreciated.

Flash

BurtyB · 25th May 2006

Hi,
We don't do any "hosting" on a Windows server, but we do have a staff Server 2003 box.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashster

ii) backup software - or do you just rely on disk mirroring?

You should still backup when using RAID/mirroring. If something bad happens to the box you could still end up with the filesystem being corrupted, or required files being corrupted/damaged that arent available via VSS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flashster

iv) email server (Exchange?)

Have you looked at the license costs involved per user for exchange, they dont come cheap?

ChrisB.

Flashster · 25th May 2006

actually I shouldn't have mentioned the email software. I'm not sure I will be offering any email support - just web sites.

Ignore that bit.

Flash

TDMWeb · 25th May 2006

i) software firewall

Routing and Remote Access does the job and is simple to use. Windows Firewall is ok if you're only using one Ip.

ii) backup software - or do you just rely on disk mirroring?

Windows backup, plus various scripts, batch files and custom apps.

iii) anti-virus

F-Prot. Do *not* have A-V software running in "background", just do periodic manual scans.

iv) email server (Exchange?)

MailEnable Standard is free and good. Merak Mail is very powerful. IMail is often viewed as the tops but is very expensive.

HTH.

dch · 25th May 2006

Software firewall - Have a look at Visnetic, it quite nice.

Backup software - Check out DriveSnapShot, Maybe also Backup for Workgroups (Never actually used this though), as Chris said above use built in with your own scripting etc.

AV Software - Nod32, extremely fast, light and very very good - we actually do have it running actively on servers with no issues, the number of viruses that actually get loaded up to servers are quite rare, and are usually where clients ask for document uploads, eg CVs etc.

Another alternative for email server - hmail - may be worth looking at.

Cheers,
Sean

Flashster · 26th May 2006

I've been up all night thinking about this - as I have several questions on the different areas I've broken them up into separate threads in this section to make it easier to understand!

Thanks,

Flash