Today I’ve received my new computer, which will be used as a Datacenter/web server. It’s an Asus P6-P7H55E and I will install Microsoft Windows 2012 Datacenter on it. It will be used mostly for my personal web experiments but it will be linked to my domain names.

I’m using Windows 2012 simply because I’ve received a license for this operating system as part of my MSDN subscription. It’s not meant to be used as a production server but as a development server, for testing purposes. I’m a Senior Software Developer so its perfect for me. I already upgraded it’s memory to 8 GB and wonder if the 512 GB disk space will be enough. Then again, I have plenty of external hard disks that can be used for extra storage.

It has an Intel Pentium E5800 onboard, which happens to be pretty decent. The system won’t be very powerful but then again, I don’t expect many visitors either. Those who do visit are most likely visiting my sites that are hosted somewhere else, like this blog. But for experimental purposes, it’s great. I hope, since I still need to set it up correctly. 🙂

I won’t be hosting my blog on it. My blog is nicely hosted on WordPress itself. I’m also not going to use it as mail server, since I use Google Apps for that purpose. And no, if I ever create a useful site that attracts hundreds of visitors every month, I’m probably not going to host it on this server either. Just my personal experiments, although these will be accessible from the outside.

The content of this web server won’t be very valuable, since I will do development on my other systems. And important data will also be stored on my other systems. I am considering to change my previous web server to an SQL Server system, almost completely dedicated to maintaining the more important databases on my system. Since my old web server will not be accessible from the outside, it would make my databases a bit more secure, although it also means that I have to keep two computers running continuously.

For now I still have plenty to do. It still sees only 4 GB RAM instead of 12 and it doesn’t seem to know it has a dual-core processor. And the remote desktop services aren’t operating properly yet. Plus, I need to give it a fixed IP address. And then I’ll have to migrate all projects that I consider important. Finally, I’d have to adjust my router to make sure the new web server will be used. And lots and lots more…

For now, I’m busy! Please, do not disturb… 🙂