db servers separate hardware

[Harald Barth]

> Management wants to consolidate services where possible at our site. We
> have always adhered to the recommended practice of keeping our Database
> servers running vlserver, kaserver, ptserver and buserver on separate
> machines from our Fileservers. 

Seperate machines are reasonable because when things break (and things
do break from time to time) hopefully only one thing breaks at a time.
As you can run your dbservers on almost any handed down hardware (like
last years fileserver minus disk), I don't see any consolidation
benefits to gain. Of course you have three less servers to tend to,
you have to decide if that is a considerable benefit for your
organization. Part of the idea with with AFS is that it is designed
for distribution. No, I would not do it for any production cell
with more than 3 servers. Try to hold out until the consolidation
trend is over.

Harald.