[Debian-uk] OT: What's required for a debian based small business server?

[Simon Waters]

Joel Merrick wrote:
>
> What I'd be interested in knowing, is people's experience of such
> small business environments. How much certain aspects are used… such
> as how much groupware is used etc..
> 
> I'm sure that these are pretty open ended questions with even more
> open ended answers, but any input would be most welcome

One thing W2003 has which is nice, is the snapshot style system (Shadow
Copies).

Classic Microsoft, nice feature, easy to use, but the administrator has
to install extra software everywhere for it to work, and it is very
badly implemented. You only have to look in the direction of the
computer, and it deletes all the shadow copies.

I've been meaning to write a Debian specific "How To" on implementing
similar functionality with XFS without the drawbacks. It isn't hard, but
I felt the need to make it "obvious".

Of course our small business has 200GB of files belonging to 10,000's of
people on a volume doing that, so we probably find this sort of recovery
 more useful than the average small business, and we only use it a
couple of times a month.

My experience is groupware, and shared calendar features are used a lot
less than people intend in small businesses. This may well be due to
implementation issues - it is more work than it saves. Which is why the
online services hold such appeal.

One to add "backup", and again a deal with an online provider, rather
than relying on the end users may be the way to go?!

 Simon