You are working in the IT shop of a rapidly growing organization that is planning to implement a new client/server system. Initially, there will be slightly fewer than 100 clients, with a substantial amount of data input and data analysis activity across the network. The business drivers are to be able to get data in and to “crunch” it quickly. The budget for the project is robust and allows for the purchase of powerful workstations and personal computers. The designers on the team are pretty well evenly divided between a two-tiered and three-tiered client/server architecture. They are looking to you for advice.
What would you recommend? Why?