carepacks/extended warranty pack opinions

[DustyMiller]

At the end of the day, its your call, but every one here is trying to give you enough words to make a business justification to replace the server.

But you want to have your primary business server on 10-13 year old hardware. At the end of the day its your / their money.

I wouldn't even have that as hardware in my test / Dev lab as its so far out of date.


If the business isn't bothered about running their most critical server (the DC) on hardware of that age, they are not going to be bothered about the OS being out of support, which to be fair is less of an issue, as its so mature now there are likely to be very few issues with it.

 

[matthab]

I wouldn't even entertain the idea. How old is the OS on it?

 

[Lanz]

Buying a new server is not possibility while the current one still work...

You should scrap the support contract and just buy another identical G2 for about £20 on ebay as a cold spare.

Anyway, whoever is making these decisions, keeping a 10 year old server, renewing for another 3 years is a fool.

 

[wijcc]

The currently G2 is running windows server 2003.. and is used a domain serve for about 50 users.. but usually at most only 25-30 log on at any one time. usually it is about 10-15 users.
I would like to be able to replace the server and the software.. but the decision is not mine to make... just employed to keep everything running.

There is the added costs of new software licences with replacing the server.

What would be a rough cost of replacing the server with a new one. The current ones spec is:

HP ProLiant ML570 G2 with 2 x Xeon MP 3 GHz with RAM 4 GB
HP Smart Array 6404/256 Ultra320 SCSI RAID controller - with 6 x 72.8 GB hot-swap 3.5" - Ultra320 SCSI - 15000 rpm HDDs

Ideally i would like to be able to reuse the HDDs if possible

 

[matthab]

Scrap the whole thing and go virtual. Get a fairly decent spec server with the same amount of capacity (if not more), put Vmware on to tied you over P2V your current server and then build a new VM next to it to eventually take over.

I would personally chose a Dell R520 with some good capacity disks. Not only will the hardware/software be under support it will cost less to run and be a lot quicker.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

ML310 Gen8, a couple of Crucial M500 960GB SSD (£329 each) plus a 3 TB SATA disk for backing it all up. You are probably looking at just slightly over £1000. 1000x faster and more powerful than your existing server.

You may think that because the ML570 G2 is big and loud, that it must be powerful. Well you would be wrong. The ML570 G2 has one or two "Intel Xeon MP", so looking up on http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php we find that a dual CPU Intel Xeon MP 2.70GHz system has a total CPU Passmark score of 539, whereas a SINGLE Xeon E3-1220v2 has a score of 6503; so in CPU power alone, the ML310 Gen8 is 12x more powerful. Then you have vast improvements in memory, bus, disk performance, and there is just no comparison.

And don't even think about re-using the existing drives.

Note that I have only given you the absolute lowest-cost option; the ML310 is a tower server for small branch offices. Ideally you should get something a bit more up-spec, which would still only set you back around £3,000.

 

[nightmare99]

just employed to keep everything running

Tell them that to keep everything running they need to replace the server.

 

[matthab]

ML310 Gen8, a couple of Crucial M500 960GB SSD (£329 each) plus a 3 TB SATA disk for backing it all up. You are probably looking at just slightly over £1000. 1000x faster and more powerful than your existing server.

So many things wrong there. One its a tower server his old one is rack mounted. Two using consumer HDD/SSD is not advised as they arnt covered within the warranty so getting them replaced and supported will be nasty.

DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT USING ANY OF THE OLD KIT. The only good use it may have is performing as a backup server.

 

[Trifid]

he decision to replace the server with a new one is not in my control unfortunately.

What will be the result of a complete failure of the server to the business? And how does this reflect on yourself?

 

[matthab]

What will be the result of a complete failure of the server to the business? And how does this reflect on yourself?

If it was me it would be a carefully worded email detailing the costs to replace vs cost of a major failure. I would also explain the software is badly out of date and what the implications of that it.

That would go to all senior people who make the decisions. Let them own the risks if it fails then its not like you didnt tell them.

 

[Deleted member 138126]

So many things wrong there. One its a tower server his old one is rack mounted. Two using consumer HDD/SSD is not advised as they arnt covered within the warranty so getting them replaced and supported will be nasty.

You must've missed the bit where I stated:

Note that I have only given you the absolute lowest-cost option; the ML310 is a tower server for small branch offices. Ideally you should get something a bit more up-spec, which would still only set you back around £3,000.

 

[Caged]

If you run stuff in your production environment without warranty cover or any level of redundancy at all then clearly you don't value a single thing it does and you might as well unplug it and throw it away.

The idea of a single DC was pretty hilarious, but to find out it's also running on ten year old hardware is the icing on the cake.