harder - most will come with cpanel/plesk/ or its an option so no, if you dont get a panel its not difficult but do you want to learn nix or just click on a gui? the panel software probably has more built in security than you do setting up nix. plus with the panels you could easily host sites for other people/business- and gives those users the interface versus asking you to configure their site. dual xeon/p4/celeron - if your doing a terabyte of traffic and your site is nothing but database generated pages you probably want the dual xeon or a P4/AMD XP - skip the celeron unless cost is prohibitive for the other options. if you need an SSL cert check out instantssl.com - $49
I am looking for a dedicated Windows server to run my ATS on it. Any experiences or suggestions? I don't need much service, but high quality hardware and stable internet connections.
i suggest getting a server in a datacenter that uses the same bandwidth that your quotes and broker use. same city if possible. unless specified - the lower price guys use generic desktops with an ide drive as dedicated servers. you might want to get your own server - something like a compaq dl360 with ilo board. the ilo board is seperate keyboard/mouse/video hookup so you can remotely access yoru server - youll see the boot up screens and can go in to the bios screens if you had too. compaq also comes with a good onsite warranty on hardware - nice when your not in the same city. make a base OS restore CD and put it in drive before sending. anything goes wrong with software you can restore - anything wrong with hardware and compaq takes care of it.