Small office server advice

s0ck said:
In reality, this won't work. It will either cost... the exact same or more, plus you'll add more time to the order (which someone at your company will now have to micro-manage) because you've ordered bits here and there. Then, should absolutely anything go wrong, you have allowed the consultancy the awesome get out of jail free card of 'well, we didn't supply the hardware, you'll need to take this up with your vendor...'
Do you want to be in the position where your backup is failing and the consultancy is blaming hardware and your vendor is blaming configuration?


The road to hell is paved with good intentions :p
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This is what we did.

Our server died (mother board failed) and our support company were spec'ing HP on a 2 week delivery. We couldnt wait so ordered direct from Dell had a server 3 days later and shipped it onto them to restore all the data and setup the new sever. Saved us a lot of cash and time.

Just as an example:

PowerEdge T610 Tower Chassis for Up to 8x 3.5" Hard Drives
2 x Intel® Xeon® E5530, 2.4Ghz, 8M Cache, 5.86 GT/s QPI, Turbo, HT
12GB Memory for 2 CPUs, DDR3, 1333MHz (6x2GB Dual Ranked UDIMMs)
3Yr ProSupport for IT and 4hr Mission Critical
Microsoft® SBS 2008 SP2, Standard Edition, Includes Media, Includes 5 CALs,
PERC H700, Integrated RAID Controller, 512MB Cache
6 x 146GB, SAS, 6Gbps, 2.5-inch, 10K RPM Hybrid Hard Drive (Hot Plug)
iDRAC6 Enterprise Server Management Card

Comes to £3,800 You can easily get that down to 3k by talking to someone and then your laughing (oh, i forgot extra CALS)
 
There is a common challenge here in that Microsoft currently dominate the Small Business Server market place and own about 80%. To make the situation even worse for customers such as yourself around 90% of IT support company's, IT Consultants & other VAR's (Value Added Resellers) only promote resell Microsoft Small Business Server as well partly this is due to the fact that they all possess Microsoft Skills (which is fair enough) and partly because they they make their living from building hardware, configuring software and doing all of the server administration on a manual basis.....so its not really in there interests commercially to look a little wider and see what else is out there in the market that may benefit the CUSTOMER. My no means am I having a go at other company's just playing devils advocate.

However there alternatives that do everything Microsoft Small Business Server will do, that cost up to 60% less (in terms of hardware costs, software licenses and implementation costs) and up to 50% less in ongoing support fees.

With these solutions you have the options of self installing or having the installation done for you.
 
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Dear me, it took me months to have my OCUK account approved - do they just let anyone in now?

Talk about vendor lock-in though, if you switched support company the new company would charge you a fortune to maintain it.

We currently run a hotchpotch of unix/linux systems, maintained in house - and it's a nightmare! Getting a windows/exchange setup soon....
 
The problem with Mark's suggestion is that if his company / association goes belly-up, you're stuck with a solution you can't get support on.

So when the linux starts burping up odd errors, who do you turn to then?

Standardisation offers a lot of benefits.

I'm on a Google Apps trial at the moment to see if it's worth recommending to smaller businesses rather than moving to the newest versions of AD / Exchange etc.
It might even be appropriate for medium sized businesses with Google's caching servers - to be wholly reliant on an internet connection to work is unnecessary imo.

I'll mark this thread and report back once I've given it a good going over :)
 
I absolutely love a good debate so in response to the last few posts....

I actually contribute to a number of forums and whilst I've joined this one, my intention is to contribute here on a regular basis now I have access, I just happened to stumble across this post which I believe we can really add value to. Whilst we may be a vendor contributing to forums like this give us visibility of what's really going on in the market and the opportunity to enter in to discussion with our peers in the industry regardless of which camp they have a foot in (e.g. Windows or Linux etc).

I actually come from a sales and commercial back ground and have spent the last 17 years selling a mix of both Microsoft & Linux based solutions and I'll openly admit that in the right circumstances there are benefits of both approaches and personal preference can also play a large part (e.g. some with Windows skills is almost certainly likely to promote Microsoft Small Business Server and a Linux specialist will be a solution that has been developed on Open Source components).

Based on my personal experience I genuinely believe that Linux based solutions are (i) more commercially attractive (ii) more reliable/resilient (iii) more secure (iv) provide virtually the same level of functionality (with our offering considerably more as their is a complete security suite included).

With regards to vendor lock in you've only to look in any techie forums to gain an insight in to the technical issues and challenges you guys face dealing with Microsoft Small Business Server on a daily basis, Microsoft usually get 'kicked' on a regular basis re security issues and other issues and whilst you may be able to change support company there is not a damn thing you can do about any of the underlying issues.

In our case our appliance is based on a number of open source components which has been developed over a 3 year period and should we go belly up as terms in the above post we would simple provide customers with access to the code and support can then be picked up by any developer/IT support company who possess LAMP (Linux Apache, MySQL & PHP) skills.........e.g. a skill set that is readily available where there are just as many local vendors of Microsoft so we don't really see any risk here. Linux/LAMP skills actually cost the same as Microsoft skills so this isn't a valid argument either............although there is a considerable amount of false perception in the industry (on all sides). So we've put steps in place that protect our partners and customers.

If you currently have "a hotchpotch of unix/linux systems" then really you can't expect anything other than a load of issues and downtime etc equally you could have a hopscotch of Windows based systems and be in exactly the same boat, regardless of the technology solutions need to be well designed, well developed, well implemented and well supported and whether your looking at Windows or Linux technology it isn't going to make a difference.

Just going back to support as an example in our business we operate as an MSP (Managed Service Provider) and our service included 24x7x365 remote monitoring, technical support and even guaranteed replacement hardware (pre configured) on site within <4 hours in the unlikely event of a failure (plug and play customers can be up and running in 5 mins) and all of this is supported with documented service descriptions and SLA's..........when you use local resellers levels of skill, experience, expertise all vary greatly as do their definitions of 'support' which range from give me a call if you need me and I'll see what I can do right through to some highly professional organisations who have well designed support processes..........again its not the technology that makes the difference its the people.

Wise Guy is absolutely correct when he says standardisation offers a lot of benefits (infact its vital) and in our case every single appliance we have is a completely standard build. All appliances run the same operating system configuration, same application stack (customers can use as much or little of the functionality as they need) and are managed/supported using the ITIL best practice methodology - There is a considerable difference here between our approach and what an independent developer may pull together where every solution is bespoke and support is a little undefined.

Google Apps are clearly another good option and many smaller organisations choose to use them as there simple to use, commercially attractive and provide essential services.............until Google (or Hotmail or Amazon or BT) have a 3 day outage like they did 4 months or so ago then your stuffed and to make matters worse there is no one to speak to your in the grey area of email support and support portals so yes there cost effective but are they always the most appropriate solution?

Interestingly Microsoft's strategy is now to focus on mid market businesses as they are starting to loose ground in the small business sector with a whole raft of SaaS and Appliance based solutions quickly gaining ground some of which include....

IBM Lotus Foundations offering - http://www.lotusfoundations.com

So next objections please against Linux based solutions, lets see if anyone can put a strong argument up...........
 
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It's not about spam, or that you came across as anything other than an attempt to be helpful, but self-promotion of your own business ventures, especially those which border the primary business of OcUK is most definately against the forum rules.

Just remove the links and phone numbers and everything you've said is valid.
 
With respect to the OP, I think you need to review how, when and what you want to back up and how critical it is that you use MS / Commercial products to do so. Whilst I generally agree with the guys that using branded servers is a good step, I don't think it is this best advice for every SME.

With many small / medium sized companies that I have dealt with, backup is more about preventing human error and corruption that it is about recovery after a physical incident like a theft, flood or fire. In most SME's the amount of critical data they hold is low, often well below 64GB (at the very most) and this is normally highly compressible data such as invoices, account information, a customer database etc. The vast majority of the systems they use are filled with either non work related work (the OS and applications installed etc).

The truth is (as much as we in IT wouldn't like to admit it) there are very cheap solutions to backing up data for SME's. For one client simple a script to back up to a portable USB stick with hardware encryption was sufficient and all in cost them less than £400 to implement. For others with larger stores of business critical data it can be significantly more expensive.

Just remember that "those in the game" will often push for a more complete backup agenda than is unwarranted given the risk profile of the company. I have seen this over and over again with clients spec'd expensive tape based backup devices like those mentioned here, when in reality the majority of that was being backed up was easily replaceable and moreover totally non business related.

WRT Mark H's comments in my view Linux and open source software is totally at the stage where it can provide almost as complete and reliable service as the software companies pay high license costs for. The problem is that in SME's there is a very low level of experience of Linux and open source software, and in my experience generally those that have, vastly over estimate their ability to deal with significant problems when they occur (which again tends to be more often than in commercial products). With out an excellent support contract or highly experience staff in Linux and open source software there is no way at this moment in time I'd advise a client to go the Linux route.
 
Regarding backups tape & USB HDD are probably the two main solutions currently being used, we actually followed IBM's approach and use integrated hot swap backup discs that you simply change daily (or as and when your backup policy demands) as they cost about the same as USB HDD's, however with the back up being disc based its more reliable and backups run much faster (important for restores) and it also enables data to be backed up incrementally throughout the day so if a customer has a failure the chances of any date being lost are minimal.

With regards to the sentence from the above post "The problem is that in SME's there is a very low level of experience of Linux and open source software, and in my experience generally those that have, vastly over estimate th/products)" in the above post I think most technologies can be broken down in to two categories (i) the DIY/home grown/amateur solutions and (ii) professionally developed products/services where the user/reseller doesn't require any Linux skills as all of the administration can be done via a simple administration interface.

Question - Why do you believe Windows solutions are easier to support than professionally developed Linux based solutions? We have a number of Microsoft partners reselling our Linux servers and the majority of them actually believe the Linux servers are easier. I am genuinely interested in your thoughts on this if you could take a few minutes to reply?
 
I don't agree that there is this oasis in which Linux products don't require any Linux skills. In our experience this isn't the case, it's often promised, but it's never realized.
 
Absolutely and I'm not suggesting that, what I am saying is that smaller end user businesses shouldn't need any Linux skills along with the resellers that install them (similar to Windows SBS where all of the set up and admin can be done via the admin interface etc) and provide 1st line support.

Any Linux skills that are required should be provided by the vendor who understand the software architecture and code inside out.
 
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Mark Hutchinson said:
Absolutely and I'm not suggesting that, what I am saying is that smaller end user businesses shouldn't need any Linux skills along with the resellers that install them (similar to Windows SBS where all of the set up and admin can be done via the admin interface etc) and provide 1st line support.

Any Linux skills that are required should be provided by the vendor who understand the software architecture and code inside out.
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But the argument is what happens when that vendor disappears (...for whatever reason)

It would be great if all the admin could be done 'via an admin interface' indefinitely - however when do things run consistently smoothly with IT systems? What about future upgrades? What about bugs/patches? Where do you go if the vendor is unreachable?

I'm not saying Linux based systems are bad, far from it - however standardisation in SME's is something I definitely advocate.
 
Mark Hutchinson said:
Absolutely and I'm not suggesting that, what I am saying is that smaller end user businesses shouldn't need any Linux skills along with the resellers that install them (similar to Windows SBS where all of the set up and admin can be done via the admin interface etc) and provide 1st line support.

Any Linux skills that are required should be provided by the vendor who understand the software architecture and code inside out.
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I think the problem here is the promise of tools / applications that void the use of linux knowledge. It's not really about the scale of the organisation. In truth we've had no products that have achieved this. SME's tend to be surprisingly agile and very resource intensive on their admins / IT staff, they expect enterprise level support and development on a tiny budget and IT staff try and respond. If they know MS and their products and have experience with them the quickest route from idea to solution is via MS products. With linux if anything needs more custiomization than the "front end" provides they're screwed without experience of linux administration. Where as with MS products the familiarity often breads a willingness to try.

With linux if you have no experience and are facing a critical problems that needs help, if you have no idea there no often but to pick up the phone, and even then your relying on their experience to solve the problem. Most admins I know and deal with like the balance of power to be on the client side, i.e. if needed they know enough about the platform to implement albeit a temp solution. With Linux this is impossible in my view without a clue about the platform itself. I've seen NT based experts with years of knowledge completely back away from a simple error from a make command when all they need to do is correct some simple script to correct the problem. Admins will not switch to supporting Linux until they know how to support simple / reasonably complex ones without some training no matter how much telephone / online support you offer.

If you want your scheme to work, approach the guys that deal with these issues and push as much as you can lower stream to them. Otherwise you'll **** them off, and leave a business with no real idea of how there systems work.
 
You've made some very valid points above regarding the fact that Microsoft partners will usually back Microsoft offerings due to familiarity, their skill set/experience and the fact that they feel the need to know enough about solutions/platforms before implementing them.

I think if a reseller is going to take on supporting a Linux/Open Source offering directly then yes clearly Linux/LAMP skills will be required, however what I was talking about was managed services that are delivered using Linux/LAMP technologies where end user customers/partners only need to worry about 1st line support.

What do you mean by "approach the guys that deal with these issues and push as much as you can lower stream to them"?

I've found this debate interesting as its helped me to gain an insight in to how Microsoft VAR's/Partners view Linux solutions and where their concern/resistance is.
 
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