JeremyV
07-12-03, 11:22 AM
So... as business is continuing to expand and more and more servers are being deployed, it is time to start analyzing costs. When looking at leasing servers right now, it works out that by purchasing a smaller number of these MUCH more powerful servers would be the same price or slightly cheaper than leasing what we use now.
So, does anyone use either of these vendors for servers? When building the servers on their websites, it seems that comparable hardware configurations the IBM is actually a bit cheaper (looking at a xSeries 345 and xSeries 360)
Both compaq and ibm offer lease to own solutions for businesses, so with a 24 or 36-month lease, the monthly payments would almost be the same, or slightly lower than what is being paid right now.
So, that leads me to another question when using high end servers like these. Right now, I typically use single CPU P4 2.4GHz machines. Great servers, solid, and pretty quick, but lack SCSI which is the main bottleneck. So... with dual Xeon 2.8GHz CPUs with 2GHz of DDR ram with SCSI.. that would obviously be a lot faster. So, in all likelyhood, we could probably consolidate a couple P4 boxes into one of these machines then, correct?
I've never worked with more high-end equipment before, so I may be expecting too much out of the hardware, or I may also be underestimating it. But it seems to me, it would be optimal to have a lower number of more powerful servers that have the ability to be upgraded in the future (quad CPUs and up to 16GB ram) rather than a large fleet of "white box" servers that have a shorter life-cycle.
A friend of mine is a networking consultant, so I'm going to talk with him next week, I know he deploys and sells Compaq servers all the time, so he may be able to answer some of my questions, eventhough he doesn't deal directly with webhosting. But I figured maybe someone who may actually use these machines might have some input.
I'd rather get as many facts as I can before buying a $15-20,000 dollar server :D
So, does anyone use either of these vendors for servers? When building the servers on their websites, it seems that comparable hardware configurations the IBM is actually a bit cheaper (looking at a xSeries 345 and xSeries 360)
Both compaq and ibm offer lease to own solutions for businesses, so with a 24 or 36-month lease, the monthly payments would almost be the same, or slightly lower than what is being paid right now.
So, that leads me to another question when using high end servers like these. Right now, I typically use single CPU P4 2.4GHz machines. Great servers, solid, and pretty quick, but lack SCSI which is the main bottleneck. So... with dual Xeon 2.8GHz CPUs with 2GHz of DDR ram with SCSI.. that would obviously be a lot faster. So, in all likelyhood, we could probably consolidate a couple P4 boxes into one of these machines then, correct?
I've never worked with more high-end equipment before, so I may be expecting too much out of the hardware, or I may also be underestimating it. But it seems to me, it would be optimal to have a lower number of more powerful servers that have the ability to be upgraded in the future (quad CPUs and up to 16GB ram) rather than a large fleet of "white box" servers that have a shorter life-cycle.
A friend of mine is a networking consultant, so I'm going to talk with him next week, I know he deploys and sells Compaq servers all the time, so he may be able to answer some of my questions, eventhough he doesn't deal directly with webhosting. But I figured maybe someone who may actually use these machines might have some input.
I'd rather get as many facts as I can before buying a $15-20,000 dollar server :D