Ibm Server Cabinets

Posted on Monday, January 18, 2010 in ww2

Ibm Server Cabinets

Whic is the best & economical branded server? IBM / DELL / HP / HCL or any other?

I am searching for the best & economical branded server for our office requirement. I have visited IBM / DELL / HP websites for the same. But there are so many type and series for the same.

Can any one help me for choosing one???

Requirements are......
Office situation.....
* Windows 2003 Server
* SQL server 2000 which is connected with approx 25 (in LAN) Windowx XP client and 2 WAN PC.
* Server up time 16 hours daily
* Not configured as domain controller

Looking for....
* Tower type cabinet
* Intel dual processor (Xeon economical series???)
* SATA Harddisk (Hot Swap hard disk ???? possible ???)
* Good cooling system
* Configuring as domain controller

This server is important to your business right? It's going to have 25 users connected to it... meaning that if it fails, you have 25 people sitting and twiddling their thumbs, right? Do some math to start... how much in lost revenue/productivity would you have if the server went down. For example, if your sales rely on the server and your average week, you make $100,000 in sales... then if the server goes down for half a business day, that costs you $10,000 in lost sales PLUS you are paying, lets say, 25 people at $10 per hour. That's $1000 in lost productivity because you're paying the employee to be there, but they can't work, for 4 hours each. So, you've now lost $11,000 for a half-day outage. (Maybe your numbers are higher... or lower... which is why i say, DO THE MATH. Then determine what an acceptable down time is. If it's a full day, than fine... if it's an hour, fine... But you'll need to compare the acceptable downtime with the costs of getting appropriate redundancy.

Now... What to get... I HATE HP. I've never been able to call HP support and speak to a person who's native language was english. NEVER. I've called them maybe a dozen times. Now IBM is another story... they generally have a reputation for GREAT products... BUT they are also USUALLY the most expensive option. Finally, there is Dell. Usually a good price (NEVER, EVER, buy a server from the web site - CALL and get a Sales Rep assigned to your company - they can almost ALWAYS beat the price you get online - depending on the config, I've seen discounts between 3% and 25%+). And when I've called Dell support, I have a 50/50 chance of speaking to someone who's native language IS English.

As for the config, for a small business, you cannot beat the price of Small Business Server 2003. That said, you must understand, it's cheap for a reason. You MUST run it in a specific configuration - that is, with Microsoft Exchange 2003 (which comes with it), and with the SQL Server (which comes with the Premium version) both running on the same system. This is NOT GENERALLY A PROBLEM... It was designed to run on 5 year old hardware AND support UP TO 75 users. It MUST also be a Domain Controller. If you DON'T need a new SQL server, then you can get the Standard version of SBS 2003 which costs LESS than a standard copy of Server 2003 or 2008. You WILL need Client Access Licenses for EACH workstation OR each user (you decide; but you cannot exceed that count long term - it will start denying access if you do). That means you'll need 25 additional Client Access Licenses if you license PER USER. Licenses are sold in 5 packs for about $425 each 5 pack. BUT, the license covers access to the Exchange Server and any other Windows Server (NOT SQL Server) on the network.

Make sure you get a RAID array - RAID 1 (Mirroring) would be my recommendation.