Gary P
Active Member
I agree with Mr. Jones, and think his advice should be followed. What I get the impression of is that you're one of the "top" people in your company. If that's the case, time spent learning a new system is time not spent helping your company grow. Same about money spent hiring support and admins. Spend your time getting a solid setup that you can hit the ground running with while meeting the needs of your company at the same time. When you have spare time in your days, start thinking about the future and be prepared so that when your company expands, you and your department are ready.
The only thing I disagree with Mr. Jones on is the multi-box setup. Not because it would bog down the server, but for safety. I've come from a background with unix servers in a university environment, and with the company I work (much larger than the one you describe, so I can't recommend your environment), I've learned a valuable lesson about separating your data.
You will undoubtedly hire more developers in the future and do some development work on your own. No matter what you do to train someone, or what precautions you take, accidents happen. Developers might have to change data to test, and you want to make certain they don't accidentally change the wrong data because the data is too "close". The same would go for your PD programs as well. Further, what if your physical machine goes down? I don't know if your company could handle being offline in the time it takes to get the machine back in operation, but if it can't, you can always use the DV/PY (PrototYpe) machine to work in the meantime.
The only reasons I'd recommend going two-machine is for those security reasons, but if you can handle those with one machine, by all means do so. Other than that, follow the above advice.
The only thing I disagree with Mr. Jones on is the multi-box setup. Not because it would bog down the server, but for safety. I've come from a background with unix servers in a university environment, and with the company I work (much larger than the one you describe, so I can't recommend your environment), I've learned a valuable lesson about separating your data.
You will undoubtedly hire more developers in the future and do some development work on your own. No matter what you do to train someone, or what precautions you take, accidents happen. Developers might have to change data to test, and you want to make certain they don't accidentally change the wrong data because the data is too "close". The same would go for your PD programs as well. Further, what if your physical machine goes down? I don't know if your company could handle being offline in the time it takes to get the machine back in operation, but if it can't, you can always use the DV/PY (PrototYpe) machine to work in the meantime.
The only reasons I'd recommend going two-machine is for those security reasons, but if you can handle those with one machine, by all means do so. Other than that, follow the above advice.