Small businesses, home offices, and home users alike are quickly becoming overwhelmed by data. Whether it's digital pictures, videos, scanned material, or plain old documents, one thing has become certain: Managing all that data on more than one system has become an overwhelming burden.
In the business environment, the problem gets solved by installing a server. But for the typical small office/home office (SOHO) user, this option is usually too costly. Another option, peer-to-peer networks, seems no better: P2P typically mulitplies management problems by the number of computers.
This management nightmare creates an opportunity for the smart system builder. The solution: create customized server appliances. A server appliance offers the benefits of a traditional server, but at a much lower cost -- and without the traditional management burdens associated with a full-blown server.
Selecting Ingredients: OS
From the system builder's perspective, constructing a server appliance is not that different from building a typical whitebox PC or server. The one exception is product selection. For a server appliance, no exotic hardware is needed. Instead, the system builder should choose basic components that stress reliability over performance and that offer adequate storage needs.
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