Server Farms

Server Farms—Where Do They Belong?
Do servers belong near the users that they serve, or in a farm near the core? Where
servers belong in your network depends on how your network is designed, and often
on the type of server in question. Some servers should be in the core. Centrally locating
email servers, for instance, makes sense. Other servers should be closer to the users
they serve. For example, in a campus network, it would not make sense to put ac-
counting servers in the core if the entire Accounting department is located in one
building. Then again, there may not be space in each building for servers.
A lot depends on the layout of your network, too. Many companies these days are
building completely flat networks, with the core/distribution/access model being com-
pletely collapsed into a single pair of large switches, such as Cisco 6509s. In this case,
everything is connected to the same switches, making the argument moot.