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Support

Support is the last area to examine when determining organizational needs. Support plays an important part in server selection. A server should be geared to serve data to the intranet but still be compatible with existing systems and staff knowledge. For example, if the rest of your organization is running on Scaleable Processor Architecture (SPARC) servers, an Intel-based server is probably not the best choice. Using a server type that is already supported in your organization allows current staff resources to be maximized.

In the area of support, don't overlook the server's availability needs. If an organization's server runs 24 hours a day, consider installing redundant server features such as RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) in case of drive failures, and redundant power supplies for protection against power supply failures. A RAID server is a group of disks that automatically copy one another so that if one goes bad, the data remains intact. A redundant power supply provides power to the servers in case of emergency. If the intranet continuously serves hundreds of users simultaneously, the organization can't afford for the server to crash.

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