Any Server Hardware Vendors on PH?

[TheExcession]

Or can someone recommend one to me.

I'm looking to purchase 3 rack mount servers - spec needs to be approaching the following:

2 x 3GHz processors (dual core).
4 to 8 GB RAM - depending on cost.
RAID 1 mirroring of two 170GB+ hard drives.
2 x 10/100/1000 Etherenet ports on board
PCI card providing extra 4 x 10/100/1000 Etherenet ports on board.

OS will be Linux which we'll install ourselves.

thanks
Ex

(post here or mail me via PH)

[shocker-z]

Hi,

I work for an IT company called Pronet Computers Ltd, if you could send an email over to [e-mail] then we may be able to help you.

Just out of curiosity what are you running on a Linux server of that spec!?? lol


Regards
Liam Wheldon

[sheets tabuer]

What are you running to justify a mirror?

Speaking as a person who has 3 servers with a mirror to fix and none on raid 5

Edited by sheets tabuer on Saturday 26th May 22:02

[JamieBeeston]

sheets tabuer said:

What are you running to justify a mirror?

Speaking as a person who has 3 servers with a mirror to fix and none on raid 5

Edited by sheets tabuer on Saturday 26th May 22:02

anything run anywhere needs at least a mirror, regardless of what's on it!

Ade, Personally I'd say steer away from Kit purchase and on to rental, regardless of my personal position, it gives you the capital flexibility to invest the liquidity elsewhere, whilst giving you the power to demand more for your money, and annual upgrades in spec for the same cap spend!

J

[theboss]

TheExcession said:

Or can someone recommend one to me.

Yes: HP

[TheExcession]

JamieBeeston said:

sheets tabuer said:

What are you running to justify a mirror?

Speaking as a person who has 3 servers with a mirror to fix and none on raid 5

Edited by sheets tabuer on Saturday 26th May 22:02

anything run anywhere needs at least a mirror, regardless of what's on it!

Ade, Personally I'd say steer away from Kit purchase and on to rental, regardless of my personal position, it gives you the capital flexibility to invest the liquidity elsewhere, whilst giving you the power to demand more for your money, and annual upgrades in spec for the same cap spend!

J

1st to answer sheets tabuer - I want to mirror simply because if a hard disk goes pop I don't want the system to break. I'm only after 3 servers, they are going to be installed in Italy, Hawaii and Netherlands. trying to arrange on-site support for these is proving to be a nightmare.

Next, Jamie, I'm right with you on this but I'm totally lost as to where to go to get a supplier. Our contract states that we SHALL supply hardware and it SHALL (neh must) be delivered to the customer's premises (the software won't work if we house this in a data cente). If you can put me onto a rental deal that will allow us to operate in this manner then I'll snap it up.

I need to have a hardware quote in by Monday so that we can sign the contract. I've already indicated the budget we have and the type of system I'm loking to purchase with this money.

So far I've spent two days trying to sort this out which is already absorbing any money we could hope to make on the hardware portion of the deal.

Advice?

[TheExcession]

theboss said:

TheExcession said:

Or can someone recommend one to me.

Yes: HP

that helps..... not very much.....

I've looked at the HP site, I've looked at the Dell site, I've tried Dabs, Misco and numerous others.

Can you point me to a web sight where in less than 10 minutes I can get a quote for the hardware I'm looking to buy?

cheers
Ex

[sheets tabuer]

Dell PowerEdge 2970 would fit the bill, look closer on their website, infact so would the 1950

Edited by sheets tabuer on Sunday 27th May 03:12

[theboss]

TheExcession said:

theboss said:

TheExcession said:

Or can someone recommend one to me.

Yes: HP

that helps..... not very much.....

I've looked at the HP site, I've looked at the Dell site, I've tried Dabs, Misco and numerous others.

Can you point me to a web sight where in less than 10 minutes I can get a quote for the hardware I'm looking to buy?

cheers
Ex

Sorry to be unhelpful!

I've had a quick look at specs for you based on Dell 1950/2950 and HP DL360/380 machines (basically class-leading 1U/2U Intel rack servers) and you're looking at circa £3.6-4k per box if you want them fully loaded. By that I mean redundant power supplies, decent RAID controllers and an out-of-band management interface, in addition to the 6 (?) Gigabit NICs and CPU/RAM requirements you've specified.

If you or your client wants to spend less than that, you'll need to identify features/spec you can do without, or look for cheaper vendors. I would avoid the latter as IMHO you get what you pay for, plus you know that you'll always get a Dell or HP conversant engineer on the other side of the world (which is where these are going, right?).

I would also consider that modern dual-core or quad-core Xeons are extremely capable, don't be decieved by 'low' clock speeds. It's common to see people max out on these processors which spend their lives idling at 10-15% utilisation whilst other areas of the system (i.e. disk) end up overstressed.

As a consultant I am used to working with HP gear predominantly, 90% of the sites I've worked on have been HP and I'm talking about a lot of law firms, government/defence, finance, you name it, which speaks for itself. I can supply any of this gear, so if you want any formal quotes or further advice drop me a PM. However I will say that supplying kit isn't my main line of business, you may be just as well off buying from Insight/Dabs/HP direct/etc, but I'd be more than willing to help you indentify the right parts to buy.

Hope this helps

Neil

[JamieBeeston]

Ade,

Best bet will be call Dell, with an order for £x0,000 of kit, i'm sure they'll massage margins, the thing they LOVE most is people loading up on options (it's where they make the biggest margins) as such they'll happily drop margin to retain the deal (ie get the quote, you're really up for buying it, just need signoff from XYZ..... but oh no... it's now too expensive, sorry.. oh whats that, you WANT the commision afterall and you'll drop the prices )

GL

J

[rich1231]

JamieBeeston said:

Ade,

Best bet will be call Dell, with an order for £x0,000 of kit, i'm sure they'll massage margins, the thing they LOVE most is people loading up on options (it's where they make the biggest margins) as such they'll happily drop margin to retain the deal (ie get the quote, you're really up for buying it, just need signoff from XYZ..... but oh no... it's now too expensive, sorry.. oh whats that, you WANT the commision afterall and you'll drop the prices )

GL

J

I was going to add that if you have servers that are being deployed in multiple regions, check with the supplier first some support offerings dont move regions, so you may have to buy a server from differnt areas to get the benefits

[TheExcession]

rich1231 said:

I was going to add that if you have servers that are being deployed in multiple regions, check with the supplier first some support offerings dont move regions, so you may have to buy a server from differnt areas to get the benefits

thanks Rich, that's the most sensible post I've seen from you ever :thumbsup:

We will, bear this in mind, though it is already a point of concern high on my list of 'things that will bite you later down the line if it goes tits up'

best
Ex

[davidd]

We have a dell reseller agreement, sort out a basket and email it over to me and I'll see what we can get off it for you.

D

[MooSchmoo]

How about Sun X4100's.. will seat 2 dual core opterons, lots of ram, on board hw raid, remote management via ilom, 4 gig ports on board, can hold 2 sas 10k disks if you go for a dvd rom, or 4 disks without and install it via the virutal cd on the lom.
Not sure on costs but there's a calulator on the sun website.
Think ours with a single dual core 2.4ghz cpu/ 2x74gb disks/ 4Gb of ram came in at a tadge under two grand a pop.. mind you we did buy a hundred of them so the sales peeps might have negotiated our normal discount up a tadge

[TheExcession]

Thanks everyone that replied to this thread.

We are sorted now.

Appologies to those that I never contacted, time, money, alcohol all played a part but I thingk we got a pretty goods deal at the end of the day.

Again, thanks to all those that posted and got in touch.

best
Ex

[JamieBeeston]

TheExcession said:

Appologies to those that I never contacted, time, money, alcohol all played a part but I thingk we got a pretty goods deal at the end of the day.
best
Ex

What is this Alcahol of which you speak

get yourself back over for another Excesession



J

[TheExcession]

JamieBeeston said:

[
What is this Alcahol of which you speak

get yourself back over for another Excesession



J

I'm still too scared.....

[neilski]

TheExcession said:

Again, thanks to all those that posted and got in touch.

best
Ex

You're very welcome. Thanks for the business.

Cheers,

Neil