Server Price Query

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The wife of a friend of mine works for a small business who are looking to get their systems upgraded. The company that supplies the current system sent them a quote.

I was sent the following spec for the server machines which will consist of three for three sites. They are looking £850 + vat for each server and £1100 + Vat to setup/load the servers. That's the cost before transferring the old system to the new system.

Am I right in thinking it's seems very expensive? VMWare & MySQL server is free is it not?

The old system consisted of one server with all sites connecting to the database via terminal services so I am not sure the purpose of a server database at each site so maybe someone can shed some light to why that might be?

Dell Optiplex 3020 VMWare Hosted MySQL Database Server.
I5 Quad Core Processor
8GB DDR3 RAM
1Gb HD
VMWare Host Operating System
Linux MySQL Server
Windows 7 Pro
 
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A Dell Optiplex is not a server, it's a desktop PC.

Difficult to say if having a server (PC) at each site is required without knowing more about the application and network. However, if the application is important to the business, then a bog standard desktop probably isn't the right platform.
 
Not sure VMWare is free for business use. For Development, evaluation and home use - sure. Running in a production environment? Wouldn't think so.
 
The old system consisted of one server with all sites connecting to the database via terminal services so I am not sure the purpose of a server database at each site so maybe someone can shed some light to why that might be?
Click to expand...

Unless there is some serious amount of data being crunched and reported on at each site, this seems more hassle than its worth. Resilience and replication of SQL databases, or even different instances of the same database structure across sites?.. ugh.

What benefits does this infrastructure bring over the existing setup - thats what I'd be asking the vendor.
 
£850 per server plus £1100 to set them all up sounds about right. I know companies who would charge a lot more.

Also the servers at each site might only be for local storage and backing up the data stored on the other servers.
 
Definitely a bad idea having a server on each site if that means duplication of the databases. The database synchronization is NEVER going to be real time so they are opening themselves up to big issues there.

As has already been said, those Dell's are desktop PC's and are not designed to be used as servers so if an IT company have recommended those, I would find another IT company to be honest. From a quick look online, a Dell Optiplex 3020 costs about £400-£500 depending on the final spec, plus the commercial license for VMWare.

Apart from the current system being old, are there any problems caused by it being one server that's connected via Terminal Services? If not, I would advise sticking to a similar setup but with new hardware.
 
Vmware is free, well the basic version is but you wont have low level access to it needed for the likes of backup software.

Specifying a server for each site sounds more like a miscommunication between them and the requirements imo :)

Does the price include site visits as its perhaps on the high side but certainly not crazy.
 
The site visit to get everything up and running is another £1000 or more. The current system/server is around 7-8yrs old and the system has been working fine but suffers quite often from very slow terminal service connections and been told that the company isn't supporting the current system any more and have moved onto this new system.

From the information I have been told is the new system requires a database server at each site and they will be linked hence why they need a vpn router like a Draytek at each site, and terminal services will continue to be used.

If I am allowed, I might contact the company myself to get them to explain the new system and how it's going to be deployed.
 
I'd be very interested to see the reasoning behind a database server at each site. As I said, the synchronization is never going to be real time so it is very unlikely that the databases on each site will always be identical and there lies the problem.

What if someone on one site accesses the database and makes changes, while someone else at another site makes different changes to the same database record?
 
Depends on how the database is used - could be that whatever apps they are running are Read biased, and having a local database server to read from, with all updates going to only one of the servers provides a big benefit.

Without knowing what the database is used for then no idea.
 
distributed onsite databases a head ache waiting to happen. For sure its possible but not for that budget without a LOT of time spend with open source software.

Desktop PC's unless your cash strapped shouldn't be used as servers. Servers typically have more resilient components etc

For that budget i would look at a cloud service Azure office 365 Amazon etc (not enough info to be specific on a recommendation) all they need is a good internet connection at each site
 
The pricing seems fine but the system design is off to say the least.

If the application isn't architected for the cloud which to be honest the vast majority of line of business apps targeted at SMB customers aren't, and is instead a service accessed via a desktop application then you'll be much better served by hosting the whole lot on something like Rackspace's VMware platform and serving it out via RemoteApp or going full VDI.
 
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