Digital's ServerWorks management software not only manages and monitors servers, but it serves as a true enterprise-level network device management platform. With this software, you can monitor any SNMP device on your network or across other networks. While ServerWorks is powerful, it is relatively easy to install and use. ServerWorks can manage your NT domain user accounts, enabling a single point of hardware, operating system and user administration.

Besides monitoring your server, ServerWorks can also manage your NT network. It supports other network operating systems, such as NetWare, SCO Unix and Digital Unix.

Tangent Computer Enterprise X-D
Tangent Computer's Enterprise X-D is similar to SAG's STF 333-LVD. It has lots of room for expansion, is packaged with Intel LANDesk 2.8 management software and can be ordered with nearly any configuration.

If expandability and capacity are what you crave, the Enterprise X-D will satisfy your appetite. For $4,700, you'll receive support for 1 GB of RAM, which is the most among the units tested. You also get 10 drive bays, a whopping nine expansion slots (eight are open) and eight memory slots. We appreciated the eight open expansion slots, letting us add memory as we needed it. The servers from SAG, Digital and Gateway come with four memory slots, and HP's ships with six.

The Enterprise X-D also sports three SCSI channels on the motherboard. One channel is a SCSI II Fast narrow controller, and the other is a dual-channel Ultra Wide controller. This configuration lets you attach slower devices, such as CD-ROMs or tape drives, to the narrow SCSI controller and attach a bunch of drives to the Ultra Wide SCSI channels.

As with the SAG server, Enterprise X-D ships with Intel LANDesk 2.8 for server management and monitoring.

If fault tolerance is a must, this server should appeal to you. The Enterprise X-D ships with dual, redundant, hot-swap power supplies and dual power cords. One unique feature is the ability to install a module onto the motherboard for hardware RAID capabilities. This, combined with the hot swap-capable drive bays, makes the Enterprise X-D a decent fault-tolerant server.

Jay Milne can be reached at jmilne@nwc.com.

Technology 101: Choosing The Right Server For Your Workgroup
The process of choosing the right server doesn't have to be complex. You simply need to match your needs with the speeds, capacities and management features of the servers available on the market. That sounds easy, but there really are a lot of details. For example, when selecting a server for your environment, you'll need to consider at least the three main subsystems: processor, memory and I/O. In addition, you should have a decent understanding of your application, how it works and how critical it is to your group.

Let's start with the CPU or processor. You have three processor options: Intel Pentium, Intel Pentium Pro or the more current Intel Pentium II processor. There are also work-alikes that come from other vendors, but for simplicity we'll only talk about options from Intel. You may have heard about the Pentium II "Deshutes" processor, which is Intel's code name for the Pentium II processor. Deshutes is a more expensive processor that will run at speeds of up to 450 MHz by the end of this year.

Trying to keep up with the latest versions of Intel processors is a full-time job. The current iteration of Pentium II processors are great for workgroup servers or high-end workstations. There are two types of processors and these fit into two different types of slots on the motherboard. Pentium II processors based on the Slot 2 design will be available next year. With Slot 2 Pentium IIs, the L2 (Level 2) cache operates at the same speed as the processor, while Slot 1 Pentium II's L2 cache runs at half the speed of the processor.

If you are looking for servers with support for more than two CPUs, the only current choice is the Pentium Pro, which presently has a maximum clock speed of 200 MHz. Intel plans to phase out the Pentium Pros by the end of this year in favor of the Pentium II. See Intel's Web site at www.intel.com.

Besides raw processing power, you'll need to assess server memory requirements, regardless of whether you are using NetWare or NT. Anytime a server starts running low on memory, your users will notice. Both Novell and Microsoft provide formulas to calculate the amount of RAM your server should have. You should take those calculations to heart.

Just like processors, disk and disk controller performance has increased over the years. For the most part, SCSI--not IDE (used on most home PCs)--is the preferred disk channel technology for servers. SCSI performs better, supports higher-capacity drives and lets you connect a number of disks on each SCSI channel.

Besides higher performance, today's drives offer reliability and problem-detection enhancements. Disk drive prefailure analysis, formerly the domain of high-end servers, is now a standard feature. This new technology is called SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology). A SMART drive will send an SNMP alert when a predefined threshold is reached for various error counts, such as the number of read or write errors, or excessively long disk spin-up time. If you get a warning like this, it's time to run some backups and order a new drive.