Lesson #1: Have a cluster of black boxes

My first blog is on the subject of servers - I hear the word server so many times during the course of my day and it seems to me that it is the crux of our business. So I suppose I should know what they are, where they are and why they are there. I'm told that they're all the black boxes scattered around the place - we even have a 'farm' of them up the road! I've seen it - it's not as exciting as it sounds believe me. The one under my desk is not as important as the ones in the cupboard and at the farm but I find it pretty useful.

There are different types of servers used in the web business: web servers, file servers, database servers, mail servers and servers which are a mixture of the above. The web server does what it says on the tin - it serves up web pages. To do this it needs an IP address. So far so good. The file server stores all the files that might appear on the web page, and the mail server stores the email. Easy.

And then there's the database server.

In my place of work whenever someone mentions the 'sequel' server I start to feel anxious and out of the loop. Incidentally, I am aware that 'sequel' is not referring to Superman 2 and it is in fact an acronym which stands for 'structured query language'. There you go, I do know something after all!

The SQL server is nothing but the industry favourite for database management systems, kindly provided by none other the Microsoft. You ask it questions (in its preferred language of course) and it spits out the answer.

And last but by no means least, there's the backup server. Even I know the cardinal rule of the IT industry: back up your files regularly. Even the most reliable computer is liable to break down eventually - I think it's called planned obsolescence. At Webreality we are especially safe (or paranoid) so we keep one backup on a totally separate server to the others.

So when it comes to our servers I suppose I have a lot to learn. But here's what I think are the good practice basics when it comes to servers:
1. Keep them dedicated to their task - this streamlines internal processes by distributing the workload between the servers.
2. Give them plenty of Ram to do their job .
3. Always have a backup to prepare for the day your server decides to give up the ghost.