Hi there
I am interested to know what you use and prefer on your WINDOWS server. So I have some questions, and lets discuss what is best and most stable:

NOTE: Remember to tell WHY you prefer one beside others.

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?
Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?
Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?
FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?
DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?
Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?
Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?

If I have forgotten any then add them to the list, thanks

AND are you currently using one configuration but is thinking of changing to another (if yes, from which one to which one)?

Too many questions? Hope you answer SOME of them then

Thank you ALL
Regards

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?

To be honest it's not likely to affect you much either way unless you're looking to cluster groups of servers togher. I beleive Advanced server has better support for this.

Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?

Well I'm a bit biased there really seeing as we developed Helm :-)

Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?

I've had quite a lot of experience with IMail and MailEnable and some with Merak. Imail is good on performance if you're looking to host LOTS of accounts but is quite expensive. If you're going to build a dedicated mail server Imail might be the way to go. However in most cases I like Mailenabe as it seems perfectly solid enough, is very functional, has a good API if you need that and best of all the standard version is 100% free. The pro version with webmail is cheap enough too.

FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?

Well MSFTP comes with the OS so it's obviously free. There may be licencing issues around how many people are logged into the server at any one time. ServuFTP however is very popular and well supported by control panels and, if I remember correctly, isn't very expensive.

DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?

Again, MS DNS is free and works well. Simple DNS is also very popular and has a few nice extra features such as transferring zones.

Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?

MS Access is cheap (well free) and cheerfull. For user's with small-ish sites it's perfectly acceptable. MSQL is excellent but very expensive. MySQL works well and I think it's free. Allthough I think I heard something about there being a charge now?

Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?

Only really had experience with LiveStats. It's good but again not the cheapest thing around. I've noticed a few more porblems with later version also.


Hope this helps..

Here is my two cents :)

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?
****We use Normal. Advanced is used more for clustering.

Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?
****We made our own Control Panel. Most windows stuff can be automated. Use MSDN and Technet, they are great resources for researching automation of windows tasks.

Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?
****Our Virtual clients were once hosted on IMail, but it could not handle the amount of emails going through it and the spool would often back up. We switched to VOPmail and it works GREAT! Mail Enable is really cool as well, it has an API that allows you to easily integrate it into your control panel, and also do stuff like write your own webmail in ASP.

FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?
****We use MS FTP since it comes with the OS. One note about it - NEVER leave Anonymous FTP on any MS FTP sites. It is a sure way to attract a lot of unwanted probes and traffic spikes :(

DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?
****We use Simple DNS because it is really easy to do slave servers with it for automated DNS updates. MS DNS is good as well, and so is Bind, but there have been some huge holes in Bind for Windows in the past.

Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?
****We use MS SQL 2000. It is very robust and expensive, but well worth the investment. Access is fine for smaller sites, but if you get more than 10 concurrent users hitting an access database on the web, performance goes way down. We have never tried MySQL for Windows personally, but some of our dedicated customers use it with success.

Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?
****MediaHouse(DeepMetrix) LiveStats all the way. Well documented and easy to integrate into your custom control panel. They also have very good support. The major plus is being able to store the stats in MS SQL Databases. This way you do not always have to keep old log files.


Well, that was my two cents :)

>Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?
Normal
>Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?
Creating one(www.webcresiter.com)
>Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?
Merak
>FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?
Serv-U
DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?
>External(DNS server shouldn't be used on the same server as the webserver)
>Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?
MySQL
>Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?
Weblog Expert

Originally posted by iCu
Hi there
I am interested to know what you use and prefer on your WINDOWS server. So I have some questions, and lets discuss what is best and most stable:

NOTE: Remember to tell WHY you prefer one beside others.

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?

You need Advanced if you want to do clustering and use more than 2G (or is it 4G ram?). Otherwise Standard is fine.


Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?

We had to create our own because we used different software from different companies. I am pretty there's none out that support everything.


Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?

Imail is good. It has nice web based adminsitration and per domain anti spam. VopMail is solid. Merak is cool and cheap. Although the api is clusmy to use if you don't know Delphi.



FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?

Serv-u is the more reliable windows software I have ever used and I use hundreds.

DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?

MS DNS has a bug where it consumes 100% cpu sometimes. Simple dns plus has nice blocking features and zone transfer plus api interface and on screen/ file logging.

Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?

SQL Server 2000 is best but costs money. MySQL is free.

Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?

Originally posted by sbloyd
You need Advanced if you want to do clustering and use more than 2G (or is it 4G ram?). Otherwise Standard is fine.


With normal server its upto 4 CPUs and 4 GB RAM. With advanced its upto 8 CPUs and 8 GB RAM and yes advanced support clustering too.

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?
- normal

Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?
- etrinix

Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?
- mail enable

FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?
- ms ftp
DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?
- bind (soon to change)

Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?
- mssql 2k access & mysql

Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?
- webalizer

Win2000 Server (Normal or Advanced)?
>> We use both

Do you use a control panel (which one and why)?
>> Command Matrix (by etrinix)

Mail server (XMail Mail Server, Mail Enable Server, IMail Server, Merak Mail, VOPMail Server, MailMax Server, Post.Office, Qmail etc.)?
>> We use the Mail Matrix which comes free with the Command Matrix, Mail Enable is good too, iMail is too expensive :P..

FTP server (MS FTP, Serv-U FTP. etc.)?
>> MS FTP

DNS server (Microsoft DNS, Bind DNS, Simple DNS Plus etc.)?
>> Bind is the way to go if you would like to run a central DNS server for UNIX and Windows 2000 hosting

Databases (SQL Server 7.0, SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL etc.)?
>> SQL Server 2000, MS Access and MySQL

Statistics (MediaHouse LiveStats, WebTrends Enterprise Reporting Server, WebTrends Enterprise Suite, WebAlizer Statistics Server etc.)?
>> webalizer