Hardware manufacturers do their best to segment
markets and position products within those categories. Case in point: You know that a Pentium 4 processor is primarily intended for desktop use, while the architecturally similar Xeon is tweaked especially for workstations and servers. The same goes for AMD’s Athlon 64 and its Opteron families. But there are marked issues with such broad, generic divisions.

The most painfully obvious is where you draw the lines between desktop, workstation, and server functionality. After all, there are significant differences between enterprise-level database applications and the more general-purpose tasks that your SMB customer might run. Even within those narrower boundaries there are almost innumerable configurations that appeal to a range of price points. If you’ve shied away from selling servers up until now, that cavernous abyss between ultra high-end and merely competent hardware probably has something to do with it. Admittedly, it isn’t easy to get a bead on a target you can’t see.

Another issue involves sorting desktop and server technologies. For example, Intel can tell you that the Xeon’s DBS (demand-based switching) technology, ironically adapted from its mobile SpeedStep feature, will conserve power and reduce heat – both tremendous benefits in high-density server arrays – but if the cost savings over time don’t outweigh the initial investment, your customers may very well have reason to consider the cheaper and almost equally capable Pentium 4 in their small business environment.

The same holds true for storage technology. Modern SCSI drives do offer their benefits and are truly appropriate in systems with 24-hour duty cycles. However, certain advances in hard drive connectivity and higher MTBF specs are paving the way for alternative devices that cost less and still deliver respectable performance. And then there’s the ever-important discussion about data backup. Traditionally constrained to tape cartridges, which are incidentally still the most popular backup medium, new optical drives and external hard drive enclosures are opening doors in that market as well.

Once you address those two issues, delineating target markets and identifying the most attractive hardware technologies to use, building, selling, and supporting servers becomes a lot less intimidating.

Narrowing the Field

As opposed to desktop computers, which often stand alone in the home or communicate with systems over a network, servers are generally dedicated to a specific purpose, be it hosting a web page, storing files shared across any number of clients, mail services, or providing access to middleware applications. Your customers will want different types of hardware depending on the job(s) their server will perform and the load to which it will be subjected.

For the sake of establishing a baseline, let’s consider the customer interested in a server that will run Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 on a network with 15 clients. Because Microsoft Exchange is a component of SBS 2003, you anticipate basic mail server functionality and more general task-oriented collaborative projects using Microsoft Outlook. Many small businesses employ file sharing too, though not necessarily to the extent that a dedicated server would be necessary for that purpose.

And so, With a target application clearly defined, it becomes possible to design a solution custom-tailored to satisfy your customer’s server needs. Now it’s simply a matter of translating the aforementioned tasks into the appropriate hardware package capable of performing up to expectations while delivering sufficient value. In other words, it needs to be fast, but not ridiculously over the top.

If Microsoft’s system requirements for SBS 2003 are any indication, building a server should be a piece of cake for any competent reseller. A 300MHz processor, for example – wasn’t that a Pentium II? At least 256MB of system memory – are we talking about high-end video cards here? A hard drive with 4GB of available space – wait, I think I saw a 4GB USB flash drive the other day. All joking aside, it’d be best to look past both the minimum and recommended hardware lists in this case. Technology is so inexpensive these days that you can build something much better and still abide by a reasonable budget. And it doesn’t pay to go cheap when it comes to mission-critical information, as there is plenty of information indicating that a majority of companies struck by catastrophic data loss go out of business after only two years.

Picking A Platform

The first task in building a server from the ground up is to pick the best platform for the job. A couple of variables in this department have changed in the past several months, complicating the decision somewhat. Mainly, Intel recently unveiled revamped processor and chipset architectures to improve its standing against AMD’s Opteron line of server components.

Nevertheless, AMD still offers one of the most compelling solutions in the entry-level server space. Implementations best served by a single processor benefit from the Opteron 100-series’ integrated memory controller and large 1MB L2 cache while dual-processor systems featuring the Opteron 200-series and above perform even better thanks to AMD’s point-to-point bus that grants each chip a dedicated path to memory without having to share throughput. This sort of scalability is perfect in machines expected to last five years or so. Build with one processor today and add the second a year or two down the road for an added boost (though it might be necessary to re-deploy software for proper multi-threaded operation).

Although SBS 2003 centers on Windows Server 2003, and consequently doesn’t support Opteron’s 64-bit extensions, it’s worth noting that AMD boasts compliance with existing 64-bit operating systems, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9. One of the chip’s features that Microsoft’s SBS 2003 will soon support, though, is Enhanced Virus Protection, a special hardware bit that prevents the execution of code in a buffer overflow. Already enabled through Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 will benefit from the technology once Service Pack 1 emerges.Because AMD doesn’t focus on chipset development, the core logic that supports its processors often lags behind competing platforms from Intel. Currently, the most advanced Opteron motherboards employ NVIDIA’s nForce3 250 Pro and AMD’s 8131 PCI-X tunnel, all connected through HyperTransport links. There aren’t any fancy PCI Express slots, and Opteron won’t be adopting DDR2 memory support for some time. In fact, representatives at AMD claim Opteron is highly sensitive to memory timing, and actually performs better with DDR modules rather than DDR2. Though some boards offer generic six-channel audio codecs, don’t expect anything like Intel’s high-definition eight-channel solution.

What you will get, however, is a solid platform built on proven technology that supports up to 16GB of registered DDR400 memory, some of the best Gigabit Ethernet performance thanks to NVIDIA’s highly optimized nForce3, and the scalable performance of Opteron.

Not one to shy away from a fight, Intel first dismissed AMD’s move into its server space, claiming that 64-bit processing wasn’t yet necessary anywhere but the high-end enterprise market, where the Itanium was struggling for attention. Opteron didn’t rely on 64-bit functionality to do battle with Intel’s Xeon, though. It packed enough native 32-bit processing power to usurp the reining champ, offering the benefit of 64-bit almost as an afterthought to those who could use the increased