I dont know if this is the right place to ask the question.
A friend of mine assigned me to create a web application for the company(warehouse) he works in order clients place orders etc.
The software is a COBOL program over 25 years old running on a 15 years old computer.
Because the computer has single disk and has a strange type of disk he takes backups at tape. There are about 400 cobol programs. However the computer now is ok.
But cause of the single disk and that the computer is old he wants to upgrade it. The 10 people who use the programs in the company connect via terminal from windows to the AIX server with cobol programs.
The computer still works great after 15 years with no problem!
The question after this long introduction is:... He want to buy a computer with high integrity that wont cause a damage..
However i am wondering if we should buy something like this: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/tower/x3200m3/index.html
not because that the software is demanding( a 133 celeron would do the job i believe!) but because it has high quality parts..
I believe that it is extravagant to buy such a computer but i dont know if a custom rig with high quality parts (those that i can find) would be better.
Also we need a second pc for the webserver.. The uplink is 2mbps enough for the simple web interface and few concurrent clients i believe!
So to sum up...
What specifications are recommended? Also is it better to use a seperate pc for webserver and "cobol server" ?