Cheapskate clients!

LizardKing · 27 Jan 2011 at 13:12

Any one else have this problem?
One of our clients had there mailmarshal server die on them, no problem usually, except it was running on a Shuttle :rolleyes:

They have asked me to spec a replacement, except i know they will want to just buy another desktop to replace it with.

How do you tell them they NEEP to spend some money on server grade equipment?
There already moaning how downtime costs them £££

DRZ · 27 Jan 2011 at 13:56

It will depend on the client but you just need to ask them how much it costs them for it to be down for any given period of time, then get them to estimate how long they could be down for before the company went under.

Once you have those figures, you can work on a solution that costs less than the downtime it would prevent.

zetec452 · 27 Jan 2011 at 13:57

DRZ pretty much summed it up. However, if a client cannot appreciate the value of a good IT infrastructure after downtime you’re flogging a head horse.

LizardKing · 27 Jan 2011 at 15:31

Yep, tried that approach to,

it amazes me how some of these company's get so big when they leave critical items to chance :rolleyes:

zetec452 · 27 Jan 2011 at 15:47

Just go in with what you would like to put in. If they don't like it they can buy something else with the consequences of potential downtime.

Sin_Chase · 27 Jan 2011 at 16:34

For a small/medium business a desktop is more than suitable for MailMarshal from a processing power point of view.

The only reason you would spec server grade kit is for availability which to some people does not matter. Takes less than an hour to rebuild a brand new desktop and import a marshal config even in a worst case failure. Even a new scratch config takes what, minutes? In it's simplest form you sort an AD connector, import groups, enable the connector recipient policy, content scanning policies and away you go.

Some of these so called "servers" are just desktops anyway. PROPER redundant, high availability servers JUST for a MailMarshal install in anything less than enterprise would be a huge outlay for not THAT much benefit.

I am all for the right kit for the right job but for a relatively simple mail processing node there is suitable and then there is overkill. How big is the client and like DRZ said, how big of an issue is downtime? You could have a prebuilt, patched desktop sitting ready to swap out and put a copy of the config on for less than the cost of a server. You could even have a VM sitting ready to boot and have as a interim solution while sorting out native hardware to put back on-line.

You need to look at it from both points of view. Us IT guys would love to be able to put the most optimum solutions in all of the time but at the end of the day top end IT costs top end money, it's not always the best value however.

LizardKing · 27 Jan 2011 at 17:04

Sin_Chase said:
For a small/medium business a desktop is more than suitable for MailMarshal from a processing power point of view.

I don't disagree in this particular case, unfortunately this is just one example of the unwillingness to shell out.
They blame us for there problems when we offer solutions they dont want to know, i think they just contract us for someone to shift the blame to.

I'm just having a rant, there emails were backup in less than an hour just without any spam filtering as they have no spare capacity. :eek:

brainchylde · 27 Jan 2011 at 21:37

It's not like servers cost you a fortune anyway - not all anyway. Remember the ML 110 & similar. In many respects they are cheaper than desktops! Load it with RAM, RAID the drives and you have a more than suitable system. OK you don't have the benefit of hot swappable drives, redundant power etc but it's certainly more suitable than a Shuttle.

You don't need to spend 4-5k on a DL380 or something.

p_r_i_m_e · 28 Jan 2011 at 00:49

a nice dollop of "I told you so" when el cheapo client's shoestring idea goes belly up normally manages to increase the budget to a sensible amount I've found, I've one customer who's done this to me a few times taken my idea stripped it back until it cost's tuppence and barely works, just to find that it failing because of something silly has cost him hours of downtime has led us to a workable compromise long term, he has learnt the hard way but at least he has learnt.

Syx · 28 Jan 2011 at 02:28

To be honest for clients like these it's often very easy to source something suitable from eBay. A second hand DL360/380 usually does the trick for simple things, and there's plenty of them floating around!

DRZ · 28 Jan 2011 at 14:38

Syx said:
To be honest for clients like these it's often very easy to source something suitable from eBay. A second hand DL360/380 usually does the trick for simple things, and there's plenty of them floating around!

I'd rather them spend the slight extra on something like an R200 than an old DL from eBay, for two reasons really:

- Warranty
- Power consumption

Never ever underestimate how useful it is to have someone on the other end of a phone ready to immediately ship you parts at no cost to you or the client. Beats the hell out of scouring ebay for that failed module that you just cannot find or having invoicing issues or whatever down the line...

Syx · 28 Jan 2011 at 14:49

Fully understand that, and in my organisation we buy our servers from HP for that exact reason.

That said, we have bought mainframes from eBay in the past for our own use, and regularly source old UNIX boxes from there too - however we have our own experienced support staff for these so probably not in the same situation as a small office who have little idea of how to maintain their setup.

I guess the question comes down to the user's needs. If I fully explained to a user that there wouldn't be any warranty supplied and replacement of parts would be at best effort - and they were happy (and there are those that are) then it might just be that stepping stone between reliability and cost you were looking for!

Street · 28 Jan 2011 at 14:59

We've had several clients like this.. I've been to a few new places that had god awful setups, unlicensed server operating systems running on an old desktop with no RAID or backups, useless no name switches, no CALs, or desktop licenses etc and when we go in with a quote to do it properly they laugh at us and go to some other cowboys! Usually end up getting a call in the future when it goes wrong though and we can charge them loads to sort it out!

LizardKing · 28 Jan 2011 at 21:59

DRZ said:
Never ever underestimate how useful it is to have someone on the other end of a phone ready to immediately ship you parts at no cost to you or the client. Beats the hell out of scouring ebay for that failed module that you just cannot find or having invoicing issues or whatever down the line...

To be fair if a company is willing to buy off ebay then there's little point selling a new server to them.

However the current prices of DL360, 1850's etc means you could buy 2 and use one as a hot spare.

Ironically, the client will be buying a new server, its amazing what a few hundred spam emails can do for changing a CEO's mind! (Did any one say how poo IMF is?!)
Actually managed to get them to spend a bit more and use this as an opportunity to upgrade an old DL360 and re-purpose that as there mailmarshal - winners all round!
Sometimes you just need the right approach

aldo1234 · 28 Jan 2011 at 22:22

Old stuff is not as bad as the friend of a friend who had a look before you get called.

Syx · 29 Jan 2011 at 16:08

aldo1234 said:
Old stuff is not as bad as the friend of a friend who had a look before you get called.

A look AND a tinker about too, no doubt!

LizardKing said:
Ironically, the client will be buying a new server, its amazing what a few hundred spam emails can do for changing a CEO's mind!

Ha, brilliant!

oddjob62 · 29 Jan 2011 at 17:37

Street said:
We've had several clients like this.. I've been to a few new places that had god awful setups, unlicensed server operating systems running on an old desktop with no RAID or backups

I've been to a place with an SBS server that had no backup but did have RAID... some genius had installed it on RAID0!!

And to make matters worse, they refused to spend money on a backup solution, but bought BES and half a dozen devices instead, and insisted I install it on that SBS server. Needless to say we made them sign something that said they understand it's a very VERY bad idea before I even got started.

I would like to say they had a drive failure the following week, but that was the last dealing I had with them, thankfully.