By the way, what is the best configuration for astaro 6 and 7? Which chipset is better, which mainboard works better without problems? What do you recommend?
VMWare is now free, and the Virtual Appliance is free to download and subject to the same licenses.
It takes away hardware compatibility issues, you can run a Linux-based host OS like CentOS free.
In "normal" installs, we use intel 915-based mainboards, 1GB RAM, 80GB drives, DLink NIC's, lowest spec CPU's we can (Cel 2.4GHz) - these seem to be fine up to about 80 users with mail filtering and IPS enabled. Very few of our customers use web filtering, but if they do we bump it up to SATA 3Gbps disks adn Pentium-based processors. CPU usage seems to be low so don't see any need for high-speed or dual-core, although they are always nice to have [:)]
VMWare is now free, and the Virtual Appliance is free to download and subject to the same licenses.
It takes away hardware compatibility issues, you can run a Linux-based host OS like CentOS free.
In "normal" installs, we use intel 915-based mainboards, 1GB RAM, 80GB drives, DLink NIC's, lowest spec CPU's we can (Cel 2.4GHz) - these seem to be fine up to about 80 users with mail filtering and IPS enabled. Very few of our customers use web filtering, but if they do we bump it up to SATA 3Gbps disks adn Pentium-based processors. CPU usage seems to be low so don't see any need for high-speed or dual-core, although they are always nice to have [:)]
Why do you prefer to use your own hardware rather than the Astaro appliances? They have sizing information available, you never have to worry about incompatabilities....
so what's the benefit to using your own hardware (unless you're at home and you want to use an older machine).
I'm curious as to why you do this as opposed to using an appliance - is it a cost-savings to use the VMWare Appliance in this manner?
I can understand why we'd want to use VMWare in certain scenarios, but normally we're selling and using the appliances. We don't have to worry about hardware compatability, and many of the sites we have are larger, so we are worried about performance over time.
Why use your own hardware as opposed to an appliance?
There are pros and cons for using your own hardware:
Pros:
1) You can implement a mirrored drive system with spending Megabucks for the 525 Appliance (good appliance, but overkill for smaller businesses that may still desire some hardware redundancy)
2) Your hardware can be more expandable (the ASG110/120, 220, for instance, only support up to 512MB of RAM--hardware limitation)
Cons:
1) all the appliances but the 110 come with unlimited IP support--this can get costly if you just license it via software
2) You should be assured of ultimate compatibility between releases of the ASL build; since they must support their own hardware... there have been cases of older (non-Astaro) hardware platforms having support dropped in newer versions.
3) Support as an end user will likely be a little better, as the hardware is not a factor.
FWIW, we sell mostly appliances to our customers. There have been particular cases where we have implemented our own hardware, but they are far and few in between (helps us take hardware support off of our plates).
CTO, Convergent Information Security Solutions, LLC
Advice given as posted on this forum does not construe a support relationship or other relationship with Convergent Information Security Solutions, LLC or its subsidiaries. Use the advice given at your own risk.
We are of the opposite opinion, in that we sell no appliances and only software. The actual reason is more to do with not wanting to hold spares, we always have a spare PC around but would not want to carry spares for appliances.
Very interested in moving to the virtual appliance though, as we have seen a massive push into virtualisation technology over the last 12 months.
