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Hosted intranet solutions?
- Thread starter Debowne
- Start date
Debowne,
External or internal to your own organisation? I can't help with external but the following may be of interest....
We had different departments within our own organisation that wanted to set up their own intranet websites. Money was tight, knowledge was limited and support time was non-existent.
I didn't have the time to learn IIS and didn't know Linux. I ended up re-using a very old PC (PIII 500, 64Mb Ram, 6Gb HD) and a copy of SME server. SME server is a Linux distro available from
Even though I had never used Linux before, SME server was incredibly easy to setup. Apart from a few DOS-like screens where I had to enter network details, the Linux installation was all automatic and, following a re-boot, all subsequent management is carried out via a web browser on my own PC.
The server now hosts 8 different virtual websites for different departments/purposes, e.g. some are open access and others are secure.
Once setup the server just kinda runs itself and I've only re-booted it 4 or 5 times in nearly 3 years. In fact, the only times I've had to look at it has been when yet another department wants their own intranet. I just set the site up, configure the users who are going to be content authors, let them know their ID, password and URL of their new website and leave them to it.
Cost: Nothing (OK... 25p for the blank CD I burnt the downloaded ISO image onto <grin>)
Ease of use: 10/10
Learning curve: Easy. The manual is very good and the online forum excellent.
Flexibility: 9/10
Customisability: 4/10 (SME server is a non-standard Linux distro and 'hides' from you so you just use the browser interface. You CAN customise it but it can be very tricky and you have to know what you are doing. This suits me down to the ground 'cos I have no interest nor the time to learn yet another server OS. I just wanted an out-of-the box solution that was 99.9% plug-in-and-go.)
Reliability: Incredible... no downtime in nearly 3 years.
Would I use again or recommend: 100% Yes
Would I do anything different: After 2 years of use I increased the amount of RAM from 64Mb to 128Mb to speed up the search engine I added. I might add another 128Mb if some comes up from a PC we're junking. Teh SME server doesn't need it... I'm just interested to see whether there's another performance boost.
Additional services: Yes... it can also handle mail, FTP, DHCP, etc. The HTTP server includes PHP and MySQL support.
Support costs: £0.00 - The only time I remember it's there is when I'm asked to create a new virtual website.
Secure: Very good. The server is inside the organisation's firewall so any concerns would be internal. Wesites can be secure or open. Script support, FTP, etc. can be allowed/disallowed on a per-site basis.
Hope this helps...
Rick
External or internal to your own organisation? I can't help with external but the following may be of interest....
We had different departments within our own organisation that wanted to set up their own intranet websites. Money was tight, knowledge was limited and support time was non-existent.
I didn't have the time to learn IIS and didn't know Linux. I ended up re-using a very old PC (PIII 500, 64Mb Ram, 6Gb HD) and a copy of SME server. SME server is a Linux distro available from
Even though I had never used Linux before, SME server was incredibly easy to setup. Apart from a few DOS-like screens where I had to enter network details, the Linux installation was all automatic and, following a re-boot, all subsequent management is carried out via a web browser on my own PC.
The server now hosts 8 different virtual websites for different departments/purposes, e.g. some are open access and others are secure.
Once setup the server just kinda runs itself and I've only re-booted it 4 or 5 times in nearly 3 years. In fact, the only times I've had to look at it has been when yet another department wants their own intranet. I just set the site up, configure the users who are going to be content authors, let them know their ID, password and URL of their new website and leave them to it.
Cost: Nothing (OK... 25p for the blank CD I burnt the downloaded ISO image onto <grin>)
Ease of use: 10/10
Learning curve: Easy. The manual is very good and the online forum excellent.
Flexibility: 9/10
Customisability: 4/10 (SME server is a non-standard Linux distro and 'hides' from you so you just use the browser interface. You CAN customise it but it can be very tricky and you have to know what you are doing. This suits me down to the ground 'cos I have no interest nor the time to learn yet another server OS. I just wanted an out-of-the box solution that was 99.9% plug-in-and-go.)
Reliability: Incredible... no downtime in nearly 3 years.
Would I use again or recommend: 100% Yes
Would I do anything different: After 2 years of use I increased the amount of RAM from 64Mb to 128Mb to speed up the search engine I added. I might add another 128Mb if some comes up from a PC we're junking. Teh SME server doesn't need it... I'm just interested to see whether there's another performance boost.
Additional services: Yes... it can also handle mail, FTP, DHCP, etc. The HTTP server includes PHP and MySQL support.
Support costs: £0.00 - The only time I remember it's there is when I'm asked to create a new virtual website.
Secure: Very good. The server is inside the organisation's firewall so any concerns would be internal. Wesites can be secure or open. Script support, FTP, etc. can be allowed/disallowed on a per-site basis.
Hope this helps...
Rick
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