whatdo you think about distributed vs. centralized data for a 
web site. Is it better to have all your eggs in one basket, or spread 
them around a bit?  Why or why not?

Well, I think having a centralized center for your data is fine, so
long as you take a few precautions, such as: make backups of your
webserver often. (Also keep in mind something that most people forget,
test your backups! If you copy everything to a tape, then just try and
restore the tape to a spare machine, and see if you can get everything
running...)

Also keep in mind, that if you spread it around, then if one webserver
goes down then that renders that part of your website useless... So
even though people can see part of your website, they are left with a
feeling like "man this website sucks, half of the stuff didn't work!"

If you really want a solid 99.99% uptime website, then you should have
totally redundant webservers. That is basically 2 or more servers that
are mirror images of each other, and when one goes down the other
picks up qucikly, and automatically.

Hope this helps.
--jld

Most people at least would probably separate their back ends
(databases and all that other dirty stuff) from their front ends (nice
clean welcoming storefront.) That's just like the "Employees Only"
door of the website... gotta have one. :)