(For more resources on SugarCRM, see here.)

Before you investigate that section of this article, it is important to review some of the issues that should be accounted for when deploying your own server. Some of the important items from that list include the following:

• Selecting an operating system: You must weigh the value of using Windows Server versus Linux (or other operating system) and vice-versa.
• Hardware configuration of the server: It must be capable of handling your expected immediate load, plus allow for at least 18 to 24 months of expected growth.
• Identify existing infrastructure that may be repurposed for the task: Your deployment does not require new hardware; it requires hardware capable of handling the current load with some room for growth.
• Establish a powerful data backup and security plan: The data in your CRM system is arguably the most valuable information your business owns. You must treat it as such, and plan for the worst. You must be able to quickly recover from anything, including theft of hardware and a natural disaster.
• Internet bandwidth: The current Internet connection at your office may be sufficient for today’s e-mail and web browsing needs, but may not be adequate for responsive use of your CRM system, especially if you are using an On-Demand provider.

As mentioned previously, this article does not specifically cover the process of installing your CRM system; however, it does discuss the aforementioned issues in detail. This information should help you make well-informed decisions for your deployment.

Deployment alternatives

One of the advantages of using SugarCRM as your CRM solution is its flexibility in a number of areas. For now, the flexibility we are most concerned with is its ability to be installed in a variety of environments. SugarCRM is rather unique in its breadth of supported deployment options.

The four basic options from which you must choose are as follows:

• On-Demand: In this situation, you pay a fee for the right to use the SugarCRM application. Fees are usually based on a per month and per user model, but can vary greatly depending on the provider. The advantage of this deployment is the quick time to deployment and elimination of responsibilities, such as backing up the server and so forth. Some of the reasons why businesses choose not to use this model include the following:
  • The data resides on someone else’s server
  • There is a limited access to the data beyond the application
  • There are limits on some of the customizations that can be applied to the system

  The latter point can become a real issue if you intend to integrate your CRM system extensively.

• Collocation: The main difference between this option and the previous one is that you are supplying the server that will host your installation, as opposed to paying a fee for the right to use a preconfigured one. As you are responsible for providing the server, you are also responsible for making the appropriate hardware purchases that will provide redundancy and high availability. You must still pay a monthly fee while also assuming the responsibility of configuring and maintaining the hardware, although many collocation providers offer maintenance services at an additional cost that may fit your budget. In addition, you are also responsible for installing and maintaining your SugarCRM installation; although, this level of control over your server and installation also eliminates the various limitations inherited by On-Demand environments. Collocation is also helpful for addressing bandwidth and disaster recovery needs. Collocation service providers are able to provide high bandwidth connections that are likely to be cost-prohibitive if you were to try to get the same at your office. Their facilities are also equipped with solid security and backup measures. These measures protect your server and its data, part of which includes their inclusion of systems that handle emergencies, such as fire and power outages.
• On-Premise: This option should be fairly self-explanatory—you buy a server (or use the one you already have), then install the required software on it. In this model, you are taking on the responsibility for maintaining the hardware, installing the appropriate software and furthermore, addressing the security measures, such as backups, security, fire prevention, and others. However, the result is a system over which you have a complete control. Since this type of endeavor is sometimes beyond the financial means of many small businesses, there is a temptation to cut costs by eliminating some of the components, especially lesser valued items, such as security. Remember, the data in your CRM system is the lifeblood of your business. It is arguably the single most important asset of your business. Treat it as such.
• Shared Server: This is the least expensive, not surprisingly, and also the lowest capacity option. You have your SugarCRM instance hosted on a server whose capabilities you rent on a monthly basis and are shared with other users. Those services include not only server space, but also backup and other security services that were discussed previously. Due to the proliferation of hosting providers, costs for shared hosting services are within the reach of nearly all businesses. However, a vast majority of these service providers are in the business of providing generic hosting platforms that customers tend to use for hosting websites, as opposed to applications, such as SugarCRM. While many are able to provide services that are conducive to a positive experience with SugarCRM, it is not uncommon to run into providers whose services hinder its installation, performance, or overall usage. It is also not unheard of for a hosting provider to make system changes that in turn cause SugarCRM to no longer function. Again, their priority is not that you have a working SugarCRM system, but that their services are able to compete effectively in their market. This also means that the features they offer, such as direct access to the data, will vary by provider. For many businesses, the low cost is reason enough to overlook the potential risks and limitations, but nevertheless, you must be careful in your selection of a service provider if you are choosing this option.

A deployment option that continues to rapidly grow in popularity is the use of cloud computing services, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/). It offers many of the same benefits as the collocation option; however, unlike collocation, you do not need to provide a physical server. You are renting a virtual server at costs as low as approximately US$100 per month (at the time of this writing), allowing you to deploy a very comprehensive solution.

In addition to reduced costs, cloud computing also gives you the flexibility to effortlessly scale by adding additional servers by means of a few mouse clicks. This process allows you to double (triple, quadruple, and so on) your processing capacity in minutes—a process that in past years may have taken days to complete.

The popularity of such services is such that you can even find a virtual server with SugarCRM already installed on it, eliminating the potentially complex setup work and bringing it closer to the turnkey model of the On-Demand option.

 

Let us look at a comparison chart of the various options which are as follows:

	On-Demand	On-Demand	On-Premise	Shared Server
Initial cost	Low	Medium	Medium	Low
Ongoing cost	Medium/High	Medium	Low	Low
Initial setup	Easy	Complex	Complex	Somewhat complex
Your ongoing effort	Low	Medium	Medium	Medium/High
Custom fit	Limited	Excellent	Excellent	Varies
Data security	Excellent	Excellent	Self supplied	Excellent
Performance	Excellent	Excellent	Likely excellent	Varies

A couple of important points can be extrapolated from the previous chart.

First, note that your initial expenses will be higher with either the Collocation or On-Premise option. This makes perfect sense, as both require that you provide a physical server which you may have to purchase—unless you already have a suitable server available. Even then, you may still need to buy a Server Operating System. On a related note, you may also incur additional costs to develop and implement a data backup and security solution. It would also be a wise investment to pay an experienced SugarCRM consultant a nominal fee to install your system.

The latter point touches on an unproductive scenario in which too many get trapped. Most entrepreneurs tend to have a “hands-on” mentality, meaning they like to do things for themselves as much as possible. Sometimes, this is out of necessity or shortage of financial resources, while on other occasions different motivators explain the behavior. The danger, however, is that installing a piece of software is sometimes a task best left to someone with more experience.

It is not uncommon for some people to spend 3 to 4 hours (or days) attempting to complete the installation, whereas an experienced SugarCRM consultant should be able to do the same in well under an hour. You should weigh the value of your time against the costs that would be incurred from using a consultant. Unless your time is worth less than US$10/hour, you are likely to find that hiring a consultant to perform the task is a far more cost-effective approach.

A second point of importance that should be highlighted on the chart relates to post-deployment costs. An On-Demand deployment requires little upfront investment, but in the long run, it may prove to be quite expensive. Your subscription is based on a per user, per month fee that usually starts at around US$30/month. Thus, a five user implementation would represent US$150/month or US$1,800/year. Furthermore, some On-Demand service providers require a commitment of at least 12 months or longer. Such arrangements represent not only a financial commitment, but also one to the CRM solution, underscoring the importance of diligently evaluating whether or not the feature set it offers will meet your business needs. The financial part may be a trivial matter for businesses with a small user count, as it removes the burden of maintaining a server, and others. However, if your business has more than 10 users, you should consider an On-Premise deployment, not only for financial reasons, but also to meet a wide variety of customization needs that may not be feasible in an On-Demand environment.

If you use SugarCRM as an On-Demand service, you will, in all likelihood not have a whole server dedicated to running SugarCRM for your business. Instead, your service provider will most likely be using a shared server facility—a controlled portion of the resources of a physical server—to support your business’ CRM deployment.

If you are planning to use your CRM to house a lot of shared documents for your business, you should check with your On-Demand service provider if any disk space limitations are applicable to your subscription—they are often surprisingly low.

From reviewing the table, you should also notice that the Shared-Server approach is the least cost-prohibitive option for deploying a CRM system. It is cost-effective, but your customization capabilities and ability to handle larger loads of data and users will vary greatly depending upon the service provider. You may quickly run into disk space issues if your service provider offers a limited amount of disk space and you intend to use a lot of files, documents, so on in conjunction with your CRM data. Some service providers also place restrictions on the amount of bandwidth you are allowed to use. Larger data and user loads are likely to cause that limit to be reached rather quickly. Due to the wide range of hosting providers and options available today, it is important to evaluate the various features they offer with great scrutiny. Some of the important factors include: disk space limits, shell access, remote MySQL connections, and bandwidth restrictions. In general, even in the best of scenarios, this option should not be used for more than 10 users.

For most businesses with more than 10 employees, the choice between the deployment options is a trade-off between cost versus complexity, and effort. There is also an issue of comfort. Although On-Demand providers take a number of precautions to ensure system availability and safeguard data and servers (such as the use of surveillance equipment, secure server areas, and so on), the thought of relying on another party for this safety is sometimes beyond the comfort level of some businesses.

Regardless of which option you select for your business, it is beneficial to have at least a basic understanding of the related technology features. Some of these features include bandwidth or connection speeds, performance and scalability, and backup and security procedures. This information will make you a knowledgeable consumer and in turn, assist you in your decision making process.

In the case of On-Premise and Collocated deployments, there are additional topics of importance that must be discussed and evaluated. Although we lightly touched on some of these topics earlier in this section, it is important that we examine them in more detail. The section that follows will lead us through this examination.

Choosing a server operating system

Server and network operating systems have been around for a long time. Many years ago, Novell Netware, Banyan Vines, and numerous variants of UNIX (most notably, Solaris from Sun Microsystems) were the major players in this marketplace, but today, the largest players in network/server operating systems for small to medium-sized businesses are Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Choosing which is best for your needs can be a confusing and sometimes a daunting process. Microsoft Windows, for example, is offered in a variety of flavors, including Web Edition, Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, and others. In addition to pricing, the various editions also vary in their ability to scale, that is, handle more demanding computing needs.

For example, 64-bit versions of the Web and Standard Editions are limited to 32 GB of RAM and do not support clustering— a technology used to provide redundancy and increase scalability. Datacenter Edition, on the other hand, not only supports clustering, but is also capable of supporting up to 2 TB of RAM (1000 GB = 1 TB). As you can see, your decision will vary greatly depending on your anticipated needs. If you expect a large volume of data (over a million accounts or contacts), you will want to ensure that you use a version of Windows that supports at least 8 GB of RAM. Data needs ranging in the area of 100,000 or less (accounts or contacts) are likely to function well with 4 GB of RAM, but you should remember the earlier statement that the hardware that you pick today should be capable of handling today’s load, plus that expected within the next 18 to 24 months.

If you have never used Linux before, but are considering it for your CRM server, you should prepare yourself for a vastly different selection process. First and foremost, Linux is available in many different flavors (commonly referred to as distributions or “distros“). The various distributions differ mostly on the structure of the file system (that is, the location of configuration files and tools) and included software. Strong opinions on which distribution is best are equally plentiful. We will, however, discuss the leading distributions, namely, Red Hat, Fedora Core, CentOS, and Ubuntu.

Much like Windows, different iterations of these distributions will support different hardware configurations. However, unlike Windows, the costs incurred in using a more scalable version versus a less capable version do not change because the operating system is free.

Red Hat is the exception to this rule. Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux Server is a subscription based product ranging in price from US$349 to US$2,499 per year, per server. The subscription includes software updates and support.

In contrast, costs for Windows Server 2008 begin at approximately US$470 per server for the Web Edition and can be as high as US$3,000 per processor for the Datacenter Edition. You are also likely to incur additional costs for Client Access Licenses (CAL), a license that allows a computer on your network to legally connect to a server and normally costs approximately US$30 each. These costs are for licenses only and do not include support services.

A business with very limited financial resources may conclude that both—Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Server—are beyond their means. Even if you are not in that situation, it is comforting to know that Fedora Core and CentOS are both widely used zero-cost alternatives, and also happen to be derivatives of Red Hat. CentOS in particular is intended to be a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and it has a large following. If you have not heard of it before and are concerned about its viability, the fact that SugarCRM (the company) utilizes 64-bit versions of CentOS for its On-Demand datacenter (at the time of this writing) should help ease your fears.

The final distribution mentioned was Ubuntu. Ubuntu is quite different, in that it has a long history of focusing on growing the adoption of Linux on the desktop. It has gained popularity primarily due to its ease of use. Server installations of Ubuntu are definitely possible and many users today are successfully using it for their SugarCRM implementations. In general, choosing one distribution versus another usually becomes a matter of personal preference and comfort.

The cost involved in purchasing a server operating system has just been explained and the choice is yours. Clearly, were you to base your decision solely on licensing costs, Linux would be a more cost-effective choice. In practice, either of the operating systems is more than capable of fulfilling your CRM needs and in addition, each requires a certain amount of investment to maintain, and these costs are not readily visible up front. As a result, your selection is usually a choice more directly influenced by licensing and ongoing support costs, more so than licensing costs alone.

The level and type of technical resources you have access to will no doubt have some influence on your choice. You will need someone to be on call in case of emergencies, perhaps to come in and set things up for you in the beginning, and possibly to perform backups each week. There are many independent network and server support people who make their living performing this type of work and it should not be difficult to locate a resource. Prices will vary, but working with one of these individuals might cost you US$5,000 to US$10,000 per year and depending on your circumstances, could be a perfect fit.

Of course, the On-Demand option at US$30/per user/per month remains an option as well.

Specifying your server hardware

At home, most of us use our computers as isolated workstations for work or play. A few of us may also connect several computers at home into a network, much in the same manner they are connected at the office. When several computers are connected in a network, there is often value in attaching one or more special computers to the network that is designed to act as a shared resource for all users. These special, typically more powerful computers are called servers.

Most of us are familiar enough with a home or office Personal Computer or PC. The usual product is a so-called three-box configuration—the system unit, the display, and the keyboard. While a computer server can look quite similar to a PC, it has a number of fundamental differences relating to hardware that affect cost.

Note that there are plenty of low-end servers from the likes of HP and Dell that use non-parity memory, Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment (PATA) or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disk drives, and a single power supply. They can be used for small SugarCRM installations fairly effectively (those not exceeding 10 users). You should, however, always aim for the highest capacity and reliability that you can afford. Remember, it must serve your needs today and in the future, for a minimum of 18 to 24 months. A lower cost solution may seem attractive today, but rarely pays off in the long run. It is usually best to invest a little more in higher quality components up front, rather than pay for problems down the road as they will be more costly.

Error Correction Codes (ECC) memory for example, has the ability to detect and correct the most common forms of errors that could be made by semi-conductor memory when it starts to fail. Typical PC memory, by contrast, does not have this capability (due to the lack of a feature called parity) and certainly does not have the ability to correct those errors. The only time a PC checks to see if its memory actually works is at system boot time—when you turn it on. As you intend to leave your server on all the time, that approach clearly will not work.

Similarly, power to a server is typically supplied through two physical power supply units connected to it in a redundant manner. Should one unit fail (not uncommon), the fault is reported, but the system continues to function using the working power supply unit. You would then eliminate immediate impact and be allowed the opportunity to replace the power supply at a scheduled maintenance window of time, as opposed to the time of failure.

A Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) hard drive configuration is designed to provide performance and redundancy. These types of configurations require the use of multiple hard drives that work in tandem to split data into smaller chunks that in turn reduce access times. There are varying levels of RAID configurations numbered 0 through 6 (skipping 2). The number of drives required to implement a RAID system will vary depending on the level that you select. It can range from two drives (RAID 0) to as many as four (RAID 6).

Redundancy levels are also directly tied to the level that you choose. RAID 0 should never be used in a server environment as it does not offer any sort of redundancy. You should look at using RAID 5 or 6, as they offer the best performance and redundancy. A hard drive failure in such environments would not represent a loss of data. RAID 5 and 6 systems are specifically designed to tolerate such problems without causing loss of data.

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) or processor used in a server is typically a multi-core processor (at least two cores). Depending on your anticipated load, you might be better off with a quad core chip. The general rule of thumb is that the more cores, the better the performance as computing work would be divided amongst the various cores.

System memory size is perhaps the biggest difference between a server and a PC. Most PC users (other than those doing graphics design and other demanding tasks) work happily with 2 to 4 GB of memory in their PC—usually 2 GB is the norm. In contrast, few servers use less than 2 GB of memory, at least those that perform well. Most use a minimum of 4 GB. With more memory, the work being done for many users can stay in memory simultaneously as it is performed, rather than being sent temporarily out to the hard disk if memory runs out of space. As system memory is at least 100 times faster than the hard disk, anything that involves the hard disk will slow down the system substantially. It is also worth noting that database applications, such as SugarCRM, perform better when more memory is made available to the database server.

Some of these differences are summarized in the table that follows:

	PC	Server
Form factor	Desktop, Tower	Tower, Rack mount
Memory type	Non-parity	ECC (Error Checking and Correcting)
Memory size	2 GB to 4 GB	4 GB to 32 GB
Hard disk technology	PATA / SATA	SATA / RAID
Hard disk speed	5,400 RPM to 10,000 RPM	10,000 RPM to 15,000 RPM
LAN interface	Ethernet 10/100, Wireless	One or more Giga-Ethernet
Power supply	Single 250 W to 450W	Redundant 500W
Processor (CPU)	Single Dual Core Chip	One or more Quad Core Chip
Video	Often High Performance for Gaming	Low Performance / Generic
Users	One-Local	Many-Remote

Servers are used for many tasks. A network may have a specific server to act as a database server , for example. That type of server would be optimized for fast and reliable disk storage and high memory capacity. Another server might be an application server— one on which applications are run, with the results being communicated to the users on the PCs using those applications. An application server is typically optimized with lots of memory and CPU power—to get through all that application processing quickly. An example of an application server is a SugarCRM server—the SugarCRM application is actually running on the server—and multiple user PCs are just running web browsers that display web pages. These web pages communicate to the users what is going on in their particular session.

For a business with 10 users or less, a SugarCRM server to be used as a combined database and application server should look something like the following:

• 500 GB of disk space on a RAID 5 configuration
• 4 GB of ECC memory
• Two dual core or one quad core CPU
• A single Gig-Ethernet connection to the network
• An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
• CentOS Linux or Windows Server Standard Edition (32-bit)

For a business with perhaps 25 users, the following would be better suited:

• 1 TB of disk space on a RAID 5 configuration
• 8 GB of ECC memory
• Two quad core CPUs
• A single Gig-Ethernet connection to the network
• An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
• CentOS Linux or Windows Server Standard Edition (64-bit)

For a business with 100 users, the server specifications would resemble the following:

• 2 TB of disk space on a RAID 6 configuration
• 32 GB of ECC memory
• Four quad core CPUs
• Dual Gig-Ethernet connections to the network
• An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
• CentOS Linux (64-bit) or Windows Server Enterprise Edition (32 or 64-bit)