AbleCommerce v7 Server Requirements - Couple of Questions

primesuspect · Post by **primesuspect** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 12:14 pm

Hello,

I read the AbleCommerce v7 server requirements list in the Helpdesk: http://www.ablecommerce.com/crmTreeRF.aspx?&TopicId=424

But I still have a couple of questions about it. ASP.NET 2.0, Microsoft AJAX Library 1.0, and Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE) 3.0 are all free of standard, so thats good. But the Windows operating system and database software have a bunch of versions... Some very expensive.

Are all of the Windows server 2003 operating system versions compatible? For example, Web Edition is usually about $10 cheaper than the standard edition. Not that I mind the $10 a month, but if it will run the same theres no reason to spend it. Do any of the versions seem to work better/worse?

Also, to get one of the "fancier" databases, like Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition it is usually about $250 a month, alot more than I would like to spend just on a database. Is there really any reason to spend that kind of money just on a database? I saw that the free edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is compatible but do you lose any functionality of the cart by getting the free database?

Oh by the way, these are the upgrade costs are for dedicated servers. I am considering getting one at ServerBeach.com. I was looking at VPS's and foundout you could get a server for just a little more.

Thanks,

Brandon

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 3:29 pm

We have three load-balanced web servers and all three are running Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. The operating system is cheaper and it has less potential security risks in it because there is a lot of stuff you can't put on the server to start with--that's why the guy who manages are server suggested that we go with it. Our database is on another server of theirs, though.
SQL Server Express works well until you get a larger site going, then you might want to switch. We use it for our web analytics program and it processes a lot of data- churns thru the web logs for about 12 sites and creates reports. It lacks some of the ease of using the full version, as far as automated backups, etc. You will have to search for some scripts to do things like that. If I were starting out, I would go with it, then upgrade later if necessary.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:16 pm

I've never been a big fan of dedicated server sales. To sell it, they have to price it such that they recoup their costs usually in less time that I could just buy it myself and finance through Dell financing. When the Dell financing is over, at least I own it.
If they're providing regular backup services and hardware replacement coverage, that's a different story. Usually that costs extra from what I've seen here in the Midwest though.

My AC7 site is small compared to Judy. I run Win2K3 R2 Standard with SQL2005 Express. I do miss the scheduled backup feature of SQL 2005 Standard, but it's a minor tradeoff for the jump in price (from zero). I picked up a nice Proliant DL360 G3 of eBay with dual processor Xeon 3.06Ghz, 4Gb RAM, RAID-1 72Gb hot plug drives and dual power supplies for $900. All in 1U of rack space. A second one is getting ordered by the end of the year.

So with licensing and hardware, I've deployed a smoking web server complete with hardware redundancy for less than $2k. Co-locating it costs me like $150 a month. I drop by once a week to pull a hot-plug drive and replace it with another. Daily backups are FTP'd to another host at my ISP.

Since the SQL databases are compatible between flavors, opt for the less-costly Express and upgrade to Standard when/if it becomes necessary. To my knowledge, AC7 doesn't care what flavor of SQL 2005 or Win2k3 it is.

compunerdy · Post by **compunerdy** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:44 pm

I have a question that sort of goes along with this. When should you start using a dedicated server? I only do around 10 orders a day and I think the most we have ever had on the forums at one time was around 60 or so.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:04 pm

There's a couple of reasons to get a dedicated server and several reasons not to get one.

Dedicated gives me full control of the server itself. I can load my own programs, access all the management tools directly and bounce it whenever I want. Nobody elses site drags mine to a crawl. I don't have to wait for tech support to respond to an issue with my site.

But it also gives me more responsibility. Nobody wants to buy from a site that's really slow to load. So if performance starts to drag, I have to handle buying the right hardware, all of the installation and configuration and data migration. On top of that, I have to deal with all the security issues associated with web hosting. Miss something obvious and someone will ruin your day for certain.

Web sites that just service pages to visitors don't need alot of oomph. I've seen people run a current-day website on a 386 and you wouldn't know it.
But when you get into server-side applications like AC7, more load is put on the server and thus a beefier server is necessary.

So the answer is how important to you is it to have full authority and responsibility for your web hosting. For me, I have the knowledge to build my own web server and maintain it. Not everyone has those skills in sufficient quantity to make it as cost effective as it is for me. Plus, I have control issues

Nobody will care as much about your web site as you do.

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:40 pm

Good advice from Joe- it's a trade-off on the ups and downs. We got a dedicated server a few years back for Able 4.x because I couldn't find anyone that would host Able on a non-dedicated (install back then required changes to the operating system) and we already had a high-traffic website we were going to switch over. We still pay someone to manage the servers- I could do it now, but I'm too scared to do it when so much depends on it.
I didn't mention in my other post about SQL express- we are running that for our web stats on one of the servers that uses Windows Server 2003 web edition, so if you used that and went with dedicated server, you could still get by with one server.

calvis · Post by **calvis** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:47 pm

SolunarServices wrote: My AC7 site is small compared to Judy. I run Win2K3 R2 Standard with SQL2005 Express. I do miss the scheduled backup feature of SQL 2005 Standard, but it's a minor tradeoff for the jump in price (from zero). I picked up a nice Proliant DL360 G3 of eBay with dual processor Xeon 3.06Ghz, 4Gb RAM, RAID-1 72Gb hot plug drives and dual power supplies for $900. All in 1U of rack space. A second one is getting ordered by the end of the year.

Hi Joe,

How loud are those those servers? Normally we use Dell servers, but they are very loud for an office environment and we are looking for a server for the office. Plus $900 sounds like a good deal for a RAID & 2 Xeon processor machine.

Thanks,

-Charles

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 1:00 pm

Loud. My kitchen sounded like a small jet taking off for two days while I built it and burned it in. You won't want a DL360 in an office environment without a separate room (with locking door and proper ventilation) dedicated to server equipment.

The server was a good deal - many larger IT groups are thrilled to get ANYTHING for them, so they dump them on eBay after a major upgrade project.

I sell Compaq servers and workstations with my computer consulting business, so I'm very familiar with the product line.

An office environment would do well with a ML350 or ML380. They're tower instead of rack, much quieter and handle many more hard drives. Compaq servers are broken down into chassis, model and generation. The current generation is 5.

A DL360 G3 is a rackmount (DL) model 360(360) and generation 3 (3). It's a 1U server with two hot-plug drive bays.

You would be well suited with a ML350 or ML380, either G3 or G4. Avoid anything before G3. The ML means it's a tower chassis. That gives you more drive bays and alot quieter operation. It'll still have some noise, any server built for 24/7/365 will.

If you do look at the ML350/ML380, just verify it includes a RAID controller and Hot Plug drive bay. I'm not sure, but I think G3 series had the RAID controller as optional in the ML350 but standard in the ML380. The rest of the specs are up to you.

I made sure I had dual hard drives and dual power supplies for fault tolerance. Also got 4Gb RAM, so no need to worry about finding RAM a year or two from now.

At the end of the day, it is used equipment. Your mileage may vary. But at these prices, I'm just going buy a second as a standby/parts server.

primesuspect · Post by **primesuspect** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:33 pm

jmestep wrote:We have three load-balanced web servers and all three are running Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. The operating system is cheaper and it has less potential security risks in it because there is a lot of stuff you can't put on the server to start with--that's why the guy who manages are server suggested that we go with it. Our database is on another server of theirs, though.
SQL Server Express works well until you get a larger site going, then you might want to switch. We use it for our web analytics program and it processes a lot of data- churns thru the web logs for about 12 sites and creates reports. It lacks some of the ease of using the full version, as far as automated backups, etc. You will have to search for some scripts to do things like that. If I were starting out, I would go with it, then upgrade later if necessary.

Thanks for the reply Judy, I sent you an email.

SolunarServices wrote:I've never been a big fan of dedicated server sales. To sell it, they have to price it such that they recoup their costs usually in less time that I could just buy it myself and finance through Dell financing. When the Dell financing is over, at least I own it.
If they're providing regular backup services and hardware replacement coverage, that's a different story. Usually that costs extra from what I've seen here in the Midwest though.

My AC7 site is small compared to Judy. I run Win2K3 R2 Standard with SQL2005 Express. I do miss the scheduled backup feature of SQL 2005 Standard, but it's a minor tradeoff for the jump in price (from zero). I picked up a nice Proliant DL360 G3 of eBay with dual processor Xeon 3.06Ghz, 4Gb RAM, RAID-1 72Gb hot plug drives and dual power supplies for $900. All in 1U of rack space. A second one is getting ordered by the end of the year.

So with licensing and hardware, I've deployed a smoking web server complete with hardware redundancy for less than $2k. Co-locating it costs me like $150 a month. I drop by once a week to pull a hot-plug drive and replace it with another. Daily backups are FTP'd to another host at my ISP.

Since the SQL databases are compatible between flavors, opt for the less-costly Express and upgrade to Standard when/if it becomes necessary. To my knowledge, AC7 doesn't care what flavor of SQL 2005 or Win2k3 it is.

Thank you too Joe. So how hard is it to manage a colocated server? I dont have experience in server management, but I am definately willing to learn. How big is the learning curve on server management? Did you actually take a class on it, or just teach yourself with books?

Since your in the mid-west, are you by any chance using Colo4Dallas? I've heard good things about them. What kind of uplink do you get for $150? And you got one heck of a steal on that server, do you remember what seller you bought it from?

I'm glad to hear both you and Judy run SQL Express fine, I will be getting Windows Web Edition and SQL Express when (if) I get my server.

Thanks!

Brandon

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 7:54 pm

There really isn't much to manage with a co-located server if you have a solid remote access capability. I think I've been to my server physically twice in a month.

Going from start to finish, you will need to be prepared to know many things, including:
1. Loading and securing a Windows 2003 server
2. Configuring an ASP 2.0-enabled web site
3. Installation and configuration of SQL 2005
4. TCP/IP networking
5. DNS configuration
6. FTP
7. Basic disaster recovery planning
8. Website/OS performance monitoring
9. Firewall configuration and server lockdown

If you don't feel comfortable in all of those areas, deploying your own web server will be frustating. It is an enormous learning experience, but it requires a healthy dose of patience.

As I said earlier, I have extensive experience. I have sold and supported Windows servers for over 15 years and developed custom programming for over 20 years. So for my situation it was a good fit. If you don't want to mess with any of the above issues, just buy an account at a hosted provider like DiscountASP.Net or something. They'll handle all of that for you, so you focus on your web design. Once you've learned to get your feet wet down the road, light up your own box.

You can always farm out certain parts to a consultant and have him help you learn. But with a consultant comes additional cost.

I don't remember the seller, but there are many available. Just search eBay for DL360 G3 and you'll see several for sale with a variety of configurations.

Even with all my experience, I've had to learn 8 completely new technologies/languages since I started my web business about 9 month ago.

sweeperq · Post by **sweeperq** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:26 pm

Judy, you mentioned you "have three load-balanced web servers". Are you on AC7 with this now? Also, do you experience any caching issues? The reason I ask is that the .Net cache is specific to the application. So when you do the ?ClearCache=1, it is clearing the cache on the server that you are pointed to. The other two servers are now out of synch. Or, is AC7 set up so that when you do a ClearCache, it wipes it on all 3 servers?

Lastly, do you have it set up so that once a user hits a server, they continue to go to that server?

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:57 pm

We were using it with Able 5.5.I just don't remember about the affinity. I remember we tried it one way and had to change it. I don't think we had it set because of Able using database session management.I think for Able 7 you might have to set affinity because of viewstate. I know for our forum, we couldn't have it load balanced because of the way it handled sessions.