I worked with a business client today who runs their cash register computers from a "server" computer in the back of the store. Their server is really a normal computer that just shares the data about the stores customer's and products. The actual program exists on each of the register's computers. In larger businesses like banks, Home Depot's, etc, true servers deliver the program and data to the cash registers and need to be very powerful. In the situation I described with my client's system, the "server" computer doesn't do a lot of work so it doesn't have to be too powerful.
Anyway, to tighten up the story and get to the punch line quicker, the customer bought a new Dell computer with Windows XP (yes, you can still get XP on a new computer through a few sources). It was a pretty beefy machine with 2 GB of RAM, large hard drive and a dual core processor. One non-techy advisor of this business recommended that they buy this machine and replace their two year old "server" to improve performance of their network.
I carefully weighed the specifications of the older "server" computer and the new Dell and found that the existing machine really only lacked RAM compared to the newer machine…an easily upgradeable situation. Also, after talking with the owners and the employees, there were no complaints about the current status of the system and network. However, it turned out that at one of the cash register terminals, a lot of computer work was happening as well; word processing, desktop publishing, database and spreadsheet work and more. That computer was easily six to eight years old. I expressed my opinion that replacing this computer with the new one would increase the efficiency of the store more than replacing the server computer.
The store owners trust my advice, but were still a little leary. I made a quick call to the folks who developed and now support their Point of Sale (POS) software and the person I talked to asked me, "Are there any current performance problems?". I said, "No." He responded, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I smiled satisfactorily.
Now how many times have you heard me dispense that tech logic?
