Decisions Decisions… Windows or Linux… Hypervisor or VMware?

Ok so I’ve Decided that I am going to construct my own private irc network to create a stable and private fire sharing network for my close friends, the question now is do i want to host it on a UNIX environment (Which is more stable) or A Windows Environment (Easier to set up).

The next step in the process was to determine hardware requirements and the hardware to use. IRC networks traditionally have 1 main server and at least 3 servers powering services (on large networks). I didn’t really need to have four servers because of the hardware (2.8 Ghz / 12MB L2 Cache, 8GB DDR3 1600mhz and 2.4TB of Hard Disk Space w Dual Gigabit Network Cards, unfortuanly the Hard Disks are all 7200 RPM 12MB Cache) which isn’t bad would allow me to take advantage of Virtualization. I Decided The next step was installing Windows 2008 Server Enterprise installing Hypervisor services and virtualizing 4 servers all running windows server 2003 enterprise, 1 as the hub and the other 3 powering the services.

The Next step would be setting up the SSL layer on the network to allow only encrypted connections preventing packet sniffing from prying eyes.
Once the network is up we can port replicate it to a VMware & UNIX environment.

The next step is now to customize and optimize your own client. Which is the fun part.