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Anyone considering a small-business server appliance should take a look at what Cobalt Networks has done with the latest edition of its RaQ line of server appliances, the RaQXTR. The RaQXTR is a 1U-high (1.75-inch) server that runs the Red Hat Linux operating system, Apache Web server and a Web-based management interface written by Cobalt, now a fully owned subsidiary of Sun Microsystems. Rather than being sold as a general-purpose high-density server, the RaQ is intended to provide Web, FTP or e-mail hosting for ISPs. For small businesses, it can also act as a local DNS server.
We suggest that anyone considering a small-business server appliance should take a look at what Cobalt Networks has done with the latest edition of its RaQ line of server appliances, the RaQ XTR.
Although this system, with its built-in Web, file and e-mail servers, can't compete with the breadth of applications that a full- featured Windows 2000, Solaris or even fully maxxed-out Linux server can accomplish, Cobalt continues to be the leader in both ease of use and ease of manageability. And we can say that based on our previous examinations of Windows-based Internet appliances from Compaq and IBM as well as non-Windows offerings of more powerful single-purpose file servers from Connex and Snap (see More Online).
The RaQ XTR, which replaces Cobalt's previous flagship, is fundamentally a heavier-duty, rack-mountable version of the Cobalt Qube 3, which we reviewed last November (www.internetweek.com/ reviews00/rev112700-2.htm). The internal software is very similar, and to a remote operator, the platforms are identical and easy to manage. However, the RaQ XTR's hardware is more scalable and robust and more appropriate for an enterprise or service-provider environment, making the server definitely worth considering for Web hosting and other related functions. Still, by introducing the RaQ XTR at more than twice the price of the RaQ 4 server, Cobalt is showing that its products aren't as much of a bargain as they used to be.
So, what's the business case? It's that this machine is easier to set up and manage than comparable servers running Windows, NetWare or even an off-the-shelf copy of Linux.
The suite of software that Cobalt has preinstalled and the top- quality management interface mean that organizations can easily train PC power users or even PC-savvy office managers to perform routine maintenance and moves/adds/changes on the Cobalt platform. Where there are already experienced server managers, the simplicity of the Cobalt interface means that administrators can keep track of a relatively large number of machines. In the service-provider environment, the ease with which separate customer accounts and sites can be configured on the RaQ XTR server means that many small sites can be located on one server, reducing the number of machines that must be purchased, installed, powered and managed.
Inside The Blue Box
The RaQ XTR is a 1U-high (1.75-inch) server that runs the Red Hat Linux operating system, Apache Web server and a Web-based management interface written by Cobalt, now a fully owned subsidiary of Sun Microsystems. Rather than being sold as a general-purpose high- density server, the RaQ is intended to provide Web, FTP or e-mail hosting for ISPs. For small businesses, it can also act as a local DNS server.
Cobalt packed a lot of hardware into a small space. Externally, there are four swappable ATA hard drives, two Fast Ethernet interfaces, two serial ports, a USB port and a small LCD panel with buttons, which would normally be used only for setting the server's IP address. There is only one nonswappable power supply.
Inside the box, the RaQ XTR contains a single 933-MHz Pentium III processor, a much more powerful processor than the 450-MHz Pentium III used in both the older RaQ 4 and the current model, Qube 3. The server has 512 GB of ECC RAM (expandable to 2 GB) and four bays for nonhot-swappable IDE hard drives that are connected to an IDE RAID controller. Although a basic RaQ XTR includes only two or three hard drives, Cobalt equipped the system we tested with four 30-MB Seagate Barracuda ATA/66 disks, which we configured as RAID 5 (redundant with striping). The RaQ 4 and Qube have only two ATA drives.
All in all, it's a decent uniprocessor server-and unique, as far as we can tell, by offering four removable drives in a 1U form factor. Cobalt came up with a clever physical design for the server, which was to hinge the front bezel (which contains the LCD panel and buttons). Swinging the bezel up or down provides easy access to the four 3.5-inch drives. You need to power down the server to swap them, but that's the only real disadvantage of using the ATA interface rather than a SCSI.
Speaking of SCSI: The biggest obvious hardware dearth, compared to other products in the Cobalt line, is that there is no external SCSI connection for directly attaching a disk array or tape-backup system. The Qube 3 and RaQ 4 both have an external SCSI connection. We also wish that it had a dual power supply option, or at least that the single power supply would be modular.
The real value of the Cobalt servers isn't in the hardware, nice though it is, but in the software. The RaQ is a veritable who's who of the open-source community: Red Hat Linux based on the 2.2 kernel, Apache 1.3 Web server, Major Domo e-mail manager, bind DNS server, Perl 5 scripting language, ssh (secure shell) and Samba support for Windows file sharing. Added to that are three separate database engines-InternetBase 6, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Not all of the software is open source, however: The RaQ's Web server can support Microsoft's FrontPage extensions and Active Server Pages dynamic page generation using software from ChiliSoft, a company Cobalt acquired about a year ago. (We erroneously reported in the November 2000 review that the Qube 3 includes the ChiliSoft ASP software; we had confused that functionality with support for the Microsoft FrontPage extensions.)
The only other change in the RaQ XTR software, over the RaQ 4, is a WebMail application, which lets end users send and receive e-mail through a browser, in addition to a POP3/IMAP4 e-mail client.
The benefit of all this software isn't just that it powers the RaQ's own internal systems, such as the Web server, e-mail server and so on, but that because it's defined as part of a standard system configuration, third-party developers building software for the RaQ (or Qube, for that matter) can expect to find those services installed. Similarly, they can expect to be able to take advantage of Cobalt's Web-based user interface extensions for Linux, through a series of APIs the company calls Sausalito. Although we haven't seen developers flocking to the Qube/RaQ platform or to Cobalt's new BlueLinQ application delivery service for distributing software fixes and third-party applications over the Internet, the hardware/ software platform is well in place to support independent software vendors. (For more about those programs, see our earlier review of the Qube.)
Smooth And Easy
We configured our evaluation RaQ XTR server to provide services for a small business. Bringing the server up was simplicity itself: Just configure its IP address using the front LCD display and buttons, and then browse to that address.
We moved our FrontPage-based Web site to the RaQ, installed 10 e- mail accounts, and then configured our WAN router to use the RaQ as our public-facing Web server. We experienced no difficulty with the Web server, and the ChiliSoft ASP server code executed our site's ASP scripts properly. Cobalt makes everything transparent, and as long as you have the right administrative privileges, Microsoft's FrontPage 2000 can upload Web sites to the server with ease. Web pages can also be loaded onto the Qube via FTP or by mounting the server's disks as a network drive and just copying them over.
As we said before, what distinguishes the RaQ XTR from other appliances in this space, or from a general-purpose server, is its ease of use and administration. Frankly, we've had it with Linux- based appliances that still make you drop to a command prompt or Telnet to set certain functions, or Windows-based appliances that require that administrators launch a terminal session to access the Windows Control Panel. They are not appliances! Cobalt, along with companies like Snap Appliances and Internet Appliances, understands that if you need to know how to use the server's underlying operating system-or if the average systems administrator even sees the operating system-that it's not an appliance. Although developers can reach the OS via ssh, there's no reason for administrators to do so.
In that regard, Cobalt has done a fine job, though to be honest, its UI and administration tools are identical to that of the RaQ 4 and Qube 3, and have not significantly evolved over the past couple of years.
The software includes independent administrative accounts: one employed by the enterprise as well as a new "super administrator" account designed for ISPs or value added resellers to remotely maintain the server. In a managed environment, the super-admin account could be key to keeping a system running. It's also valuable when paired with the server's ability to host multiple virtual Web sites, thereby putting an ISP into the situation where multiple clients might each want administrative control over a server.
Overall, Cobalt has done an excellent job with the RaQ XTR. Although from the software perspective it's only an incremental upgrade over the older RaQ 4, this server has twice the disk capacity and twice the processing power. Of course, it's twice the price: the RaQ 4 costs $2,699, and the 933-MHz RaQ XTR we tested is priced at $5,999. For comparison, the fastest version of the nonrackmountable Qube 3 costs $2,099. Given that all three systems have nearly identical software and management interfaces, for a very small business the RaQ 4 and Qube would be better values.
Yet despite its higher price, the RaQ XTR is a system worthy of serious consideration. It's an attractive option for small businesses looking for basic server functionality-Web hosting, e-mail and some file sharing-as well as for service providers searching for a low- priced turnkey Web hosting platform.
Alan Zeichick is principal analyst with Camden Associates and a contributing editor at InternetWeek. He can be reached at zeichick@
camdenassociates.com.
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Copyright 2001 CMP Media LLC
(Copyright 2001 CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.)