[CentOS] Small Business support for *nix systems in Spain

[John R Pierce]

  On 07/23/10 12:05 PM, Kurt Hansen wrote:
> Our company has 30 shops that connect to a central server where the
> point -of-sale software runs, and is currently operating on Unix (it´s
> an old system we acquired when we bought another company). It seems
> obvious we have to replace this Unix architecture with something more
> modern (and better able to manage our growing needs). The computer
> consultants we work with have suggested two options:
>
> - Moving to Windows Terminal server (cheaper)
> - Moving to Citrix with virtualized servers (more expensive but
> apparently much faster and more powerful).

before picking an operating system for the central server, its a good 
idea to pick the Point-of-sale system architecture.

using terminal server/citrix/nx/etc type connectivity for POS from 
remote locations means if the network is down, the cash registers are 
down.  thats not good.     most POS systems have a local onsite store 
server at each location, the registers are terminals to this server, but 
usually run the cash register POS software directly, then the store 
server communicates with the corporate mothership as needed, either live 
or batching transaction logs as appropriate.

different sorts of retail businesses have widely varying POS 
requirements, for instance, the POS system for a restaurant chain is 
very different than the one for a auto parts chain.

All these questions should be sorted out long before getting into 
implementation details like operating systems, hardware platforms.