Successful next-generation designers are able to quickly triage true requirements from wants and wishes. Much of the truth is drowned by emotions, agendas, hype, marketing, and other forms of distracting noise. Simplify, then build. Quickly get to the lowest and simplest common denominator and add where truly needed. Every server and GB of storage requires monitoring, administration, management, and all other care-and-feeding type activities. Poor choices at basic infrastructure levels can dramatically affect economics as all of the other requirements are piled on.
A single server is not as simple as it sounds. The following diagram shows a set of basic options that can be applied to any server. There are a number of ...
