Servers - WHY?

[defunktlemon]

Hi.
I'd like to ask the biggest most general question on a few questions, that is WHY? Why would a person need to ask these questions. They are all considering servers in relation to setting up a new university network.

How many simultaneous connections can the servers support?
How much bandwidth does that reqwuire?
How much video can the support? So, how many streaming lectures are they capable of supporting?
How many people can log on at the same time?



On top of this, I need to consider what kind of features and functionality it has, e.g. what is it offering and what happens in the worst case scenario, etc?

Thank you

 

[dbhosttexas]

Hi.
I'd like to ask the biggest most general question on a few questions, that is WHY? Why would a person need to ask these questions. They are all considering servers in relation to setting up a new university network.

How many simultaneous connections can the servers support?
How much bandwidth does that reqwuire?
How much video can the support? So, how many streaming lectures are they capable of supporting?
How many people can log on at the same time?



On top of this, I need to consider what kind of features and functionality it has, e.g. what is it offering and what happens in the worst case scenario, etc?

Thank you

To answer your question as to why a person needs to ask those questions, it's quite simple. For budget and capacity planning purposes. Will whatever server you / they are looking at provide the service over the given network resources in the environment that you / they desire?
If not what needs to be added, removed, or modified to end up with the desired end result?

Now it also seems like you are wanting some input on how to deal with their questions. I will tell you without any further information about these questions, there can be no accurate answer. You need more input from the requester to accurately assess the situation and solve the problem. Below I deal with the questions as you posted them.

How many simultaneous connections can the servers support?

What specific type of connections are you referring to? Windows Terminal Services, ssh, http, ftp, or? It makes a HUGE difference. Some of these connection types are limited by licenses, some are limited by technological factors, you cannot accurately answer that question without knowing what exact connection types are being asked about.

How much bandwidth does that require?

Sorry about the quote not being 100%, but I had to correct the spelling error. It was bothering me. But back to the point. Just like the first question, the second question relies on just what exactly is being served. Likewise you need to know how many clients will attempt to access this resource at one time.

How much video can the support? So, how many streaming lectures are they capable of supporting?

I am guessing you meant to type "How much video can the server support?". You left a critical word out there, so I have to take my best stab at it... Again, what types of video are we talking about? Resolution? Frame rate? Encoding technology? Is it multicast, broadcast, or? Are you streaming stored files, or streaming live feeds? How big are the stored files?

How many people can log on at the same time?

That's pretty much the same question as the first one. See my answer above...

 

[defunktlemon]

Hi.
Thanks for your reply. I would like to go with one of those questions at a time, please.

How many simultaneous connections can the servers support?

Lets say there are around 1000 staff (including 400 academics), of which 800 (350 academics) will be consolidated onto a main campus. There will be up to 20 rooms which would need to be capable of hosting lectures.
The network requires lecture rooms hosting lectures made available online in real-time , so do we need RTSP? The lectures will also be recorded for future viewing, which will require FTP for upload, right?

There will be a requirement for high bandwidth and coverage levels in these lecture rooms to support student and staff wireless access, so WAP and HTTP?
The network will deliver objectives through a combination of wired, wireless, and web-based solutions. Also, on-line web-based staff meetings, web-based seminars and lectures, and
provide a mechanism for feedback from the lecture attendees.

There is also a requirement of VPN. This will have to be for Windows / linux / MAC. So do we need SSH for the Linux and VPN for Windows tunnelling?

Is that the sort of thing you are asking for?

 

[defunktlemon]

How much video can the support? So, how many streaming lectures are they capable of supporting?

The types of video are probably both .avi for access to recorded lectures when users are on-site and .mp4 for streaming videos in real-time across the net.
Resolution - not sure about that, but it would have to be of a fairly good quality so that people could watch it on computer terminals and be able to see any writing on whiteboards by the lecturers clearly.
Frame rate would have to be PAL, right? PAL is for England which is 25 fps. If you took down the frame rate wouldn’t that create a choppy video?
I think I may have answered your query about encoding with the mp4, no?

We are streaming stored and live feeds and the stored files would need to be .avi lecture files, which would be anything up to 3 hours, I guess. So that would lead us to think that they can’t be too high quality or they will use up too much space on the server.

P.S. Sorry about the spelling mistake. I too dislike that so thanks for fixing it.