fourstar71's questions

We have a requirement to send desktop alerts to various users (compliance, production) across a network when other users have submitted content online for a report.

At present we are using NET SEND but this has no guarantee of delivery and has proved unreliable from both client and server perspective (and I gather will be unsupported in later versions of Windows; we are currently running XP).

We are considering a Jabber-based solution but has anyone used a Jabber client to pop up alert messages on the screen like NET SEND does, as opposed to just bringing a chat window to the front or displaying a temporary 'toast' message near the system tray.

We need the alert message to be persistent and only dismissed by the user, indicating they have seen it. Toast-style pop-ups would be fine as long as it was not only for a limited time and again had to be dismissed by the user.

Any solutions?

We need to implement a new MS-SQL/IIS server serving intranet pages internally. At the moment we are on average seeing 22 hits per second, but each request is quite small.

What would be your recommended server configuration?

a) single server with both applications
b) two physical servers, one per application
c) two VMware servers, one per application
d) other

Also, which version of Windows and MS-SQL would you opt for, at this moment in time, and why?