by I'm looking for opinions on connecting to the 'net. A company that I
am dealing with is interested in providing Internet access to a local
school district. This would involve dialup access for teachers, staff,
and students into a centralized location. The number of simultaneous
connections could reach 200 to 300 during peak usage.
The company needs to determine what type of UNIX servers to use to
handle this volume of traffic. Choices range of a network of high
powered PCs running SCO to Sun to SGI to ... You get the idea by this
point. The idea of the high powered PCs is attractive for cost and
maintenance, but may lack the performance. Has anyone had experience in
this setup?
The other consideration is the type of dedicated line to use. The
options here are also considerable. The Dedicated 56 is cost effective
but may *on that volume of traffic. T1 is more expensive but may be
able to handle the load without problems. T3 is really expensive and
should surely handle the load. The question here is, does anyone handle
this type of traffic, and what type of lines do you use? The access
could require a lot of 'ftp', 'gopher' (incl. downloads), Usenet feeds,
and of course e-mail (which could also include MIME).
Anyone wishing to voice an opinion would be welcome. Thank you for
your time.
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