[Server-devel] From Marina Orth Foundation

[Daniel Drake]

Hi,

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Luis Fernando Sanchez
<director at fundaorth.org> wrote:
> Hi Daniel, this is Luis Fernando Sanchez, Executive Director of Marina Orth
> Foundation in Medellin, Colombia. I have a question, but let me
> contextualize the situation  first . In Itagui town in Colombia they are
> going to implement an OLPC with 14.500 XO; they also have 38 schools and 38
> school servers. We would like to know if is good and practical idea to
> install a central server where they can manage everything. If so, what kind
> of server they will need and how they can implement that?

I'd say that you should implement a central management system if you
feel that you need it (i.e. if there are things that can be centrally
done), and otherwise you shouldn't burden yourself with the effort.
This really depends on what the role of the school server will be, and
how often you forsee having to update files on the machine.

As for server choice and implementation, I think such choices should
be based on the expertise locally available. However I can recommend
some systems of personal preference:

In Nicaragua we have many servers but each one is almost identical
(talking about the content that it hosts and the roles that it plays).
We manage them with a central server that runs Fedora 16 and acts as a
"puppet server":
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Zamora_Teran/Puppet
Then we run puppet on all the school servers to keep them synchronized
with the central server.

We use puppet to send out new content and tweak the configuration of
the system. With an active technical team you'll never finish
configuring your server, and puppet's design reflects this nicely.
This is a solid system but requires quite a lot of expertise.

Good luck with your project!

Daniel