advice for configuring small network please?

I'm trying to put some old hard- and software inherited after the
dissolution of a software company of which I was a principal. These consist
primarily of two machines, both running Windows 2003 Server & SQL Server
2000-an older Dell Pentium 450 MHz, and a no-name AMD P8 2.6 MHz. Both have
big drives. The newer machine has 1Gb ram, the Dell has 512 Meg. The Dell
also has a 10,000 RPM ultra-wide/ultra-fast SCSI system drive, which seems
to be a key component for the machine still offering viable performance.

Having been a software developer, and not a system administrator, I'm aware
of most of the relevant concepts, but not necessarily experienced in the
setup and management of a server/network.

At the moment, I have a fixed IP on a DSL line, which I access through a
small Netgear firewall/router. Up to now, we just had the family's 3
workstations (XP Professional) plus an old Gateway 266Mhz NT 4.0 domain
controller, each running into the router. I maintained several personal
low-traffic websites (500-1000 hits/day total) on the 266, as well as an
IMail pop/smtp server.

I'm about to take a stab at an internet -based enterprise, and am wondering
about the optimal way to configure what I've got to work with, since there
are no available funds for replacing anything.

My application will entail hosting 6 websites, 5 of which are simple
html-only static sites. The sixth has one .aspx page that displays a list of
approximately 20 lines of text from one SQL-Server table, collects some
basic user information, and writes it to a SQL-Server database (one parent
and two child tables). The amount of data being transmitted is probably
somewhere around 500-1000 bytes. The app is simple .asp.net -- no business
object tier, etc.


My thought is to make the 450 MhZ Dell my combination primary domain server
and database server. I would configure the AMD 2.8 to run IIS, and my mail
server. On the firewall, I would open up the appropriate ports for HTTP,
POP3, and SMTP to that machine only. I would duplicate the same
configuration on both machines so that in a pinch I could run the whole mess
off of the remaining machine if I have to bring one or the other down for
maintenance. My initial inclination was to make them both domain controllers
in a single Active Directory, just for the convenience, as well as getting
maximum redundancy since I'm using two marginal machines, but then I got to
thinking that this wasn't such a good idea.

So, I'm thinking that I would keep the AMD machine running the mail & web
off of the network. Question 1: Should I make it a stand-alone server, or
the controller for its own active-directory domain?

Second question: what's the best way to access the web/mail server from the
internal domain (mainly for shuttling files back and forth)? Ordinarily I
would set up a trust relationship and a shared directory or two, but I'm
guessing that might not be advisable? Would a schema in which the exposed
machine (the AMD) trusts the (internal) PDC, but not vice versa be
adequately secure?



If I were to set these up as two active-directory domains, would I still be
able to easily replicate directories between them?


Some of the topologies I've seen on the web suggest a second firewall
between the webserver and the internal domain server. Would the Windows
software firewall on the PDC be adequate?


Any suggestions as to better ways to configure what I've got to work with
would be appreciated. My thought is that if I get up to 10,000 hits/day,
it'll mean I'm making enough money to either upgrade, or (better still) hand
the
whole shebang over to a provider.

Thanks.


Joe



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