There are Servers and Servers

Servers have tended to become more and more powerful as does the desktops in an user organization. Thus, quite often, a powerful desktop can actually take the burden of managing a few clients. The essential requirement for fulfilling a server role is just that. A server should have enough capabilities to service the client needs. There is no need for looking for a box that is called a server! Yet lot of people will actually try to buy a box called server even though it is not called for at all.

I saw this first hand a while back. There was a set up required for managing just 5 clients. The need was for these clients and the server to run a library management set up. The clients were recently obtained desktops that had Core 2 Duo and 2 GB memory and so on.  While these desktops cost below Rs.40,000 but what was being proposed was a so called "server" costing at least 3 times more! Strange how people seem to go by names rather than by capability and functionality required!