What do you consider "Enterprise"?

sparkey196 · 4 Jul 2008 at 19:21

I went to an interview today for a hosting company in docklands and they consider Enterprise to be "more than 2 servers plus firewall". With my previous employer, enterprise was 50+ servers, dedicated NAS, load balancers, database cluster etc.

dave-lew99 · 4 Jul 2008 at 19:25

I consider enterprise to be when you employ technologies a bit beyond the norm, which, in my mind includes things like load balancing, clustering, dynamic routing protocols, vpn's, remote access and other such things.

Biffa · 4 Jul 2008 at 20:53

Enterprise is more to do with the size and spread of the company than it is to do with technology, so any IT infrastructure built to support a large >500 userbase usually geographically dispersed or over multiple locations.

Andy100 · 5 Jul 2008 at 07:11

Biffa said:
Enterprise is more to do with the size and spread of the company than it is to do with technology, so any IT infrastructure built to support a large >500 userbase usually geographically dispersed or over multiple locations.

Yup, that's what I've always thought. 500+ is when most retailers catagorise you as Enterprise rather than SMB.

It's not a hard and fast rule but it's a good starting point.

SkeeterUK · 5 Jul 2008 at 07:43

I consider Enterprise to be a name given to certain ships in starfleet.

zetec452 · 5 Jul 2008 at 08:41

Two servers plus a firewall lol. That would make my home office "enterprise".

Netvyper · 5 Jul 2008 at 08:42

I consider enterprise kit, to be kit with 6 times more features than you'll ever use; and a price tag to match

BoomAM · 5 Jul 2008 at 19:39

Theres a lot of ways to justify what 'enterprise' is imo.
It is possible to use 'enterprise' hardware without being an enterprise for example.

PhillyDee · 5 Jul 2008 at 20:05

The blue netgear products are classed as enterprise kit. I have an enterprise class router and the same in a 16-port dumb gigabit switch. For my flat which only ever has max 6 pc's / network connections ever used at once. Plus, they do get a damned good warranty support from netgear.

Mr E · 5 Jul 2008 at 22:00

It's mainly marketing term for products that are brought by people spending other people's money that don't really care what stuff costs (Sorry I've worked for the government).

I consider enterprise to anything with high availability and scalability.

LordSplodge · 6 Jul 2008 at 14:29

Biffa said:
Enterprise is more to do with the size and spread of the company than it is to do with technology, so any IT infrastructure built to support a large >500 userbase usually geographically dispersed or over multiple locations.

That's what I think as well.

dave-lew99 · 6 Jul 2008 at 16:13

mrn said:
I have Cisco and Junpier kit at home (for certification purposes)... does that class me an enterpsie... don't think so.

Depends whether you're thinking of 'an enterprise' like you say or as 'enterprise level' I'd consider that enterprise level but not in an enterprise per se (if that makes sense....)

PhillyDee · 6 Jul 2008 at 21:08

mrn said:
LOL do me a favour netgear prosafe stuff is not enterprise kit - sme. Try Cisco, Juniper, Foundry Networks, Brocade etc. (when a router cost the same as a Ferrari ) Rule of thumb it's when you have 500+ (maybe 1000) employees in the organisation. I have Cisco and Junpier kit at home (for certification purposes)... does that class me an enterpsie... don't think so.

Heh, what i mean is, they class it as enterprise kit. Its more to do with the warranty than anything else methinks. Like has been mentoned before, its more a marketing term.

Robdav · 6 Jul 2008 at 22:08

JonRohan said:
Two servers plus a firewall lol. That would make my home office "enterprise".

lol... and that would make my dinning room "enterprise" too!

my current project is for a customer down in chertsey who laid £3m on an intrastructure re-fresh.. .now that's what I call enterprise

skiba · 6 Jul 2008 at 22:15

Does it start with N and end with R?

BoomAM · 6 Jul 2008 at 22:30

mrn said:
Rule of thumb it's when you have 500+ (maybe 1000) employees in the organisation.

So on that basis, a school would be an enterprise?

LordSplodge · 7 Jul 2008 at 12:44

BoomAM said:
So on that basis, a school would be an enterprise?

Some schools run "enterprise" level equipment.

The school I used to be IT Manager at had an Apple XServe, Exchange 2003 (and 2007 just before I left) , a NAS box a Google Box, Terminal Server, SharePoint sever, SQL Server and a cluster of AD servers, of course!

Oh and then it had a network backbone of at least 2Gbps with redundant links all configured using OSPF.

Didn't have any remote sites but that sounds like enterprise kit to me!

EDIT: Shame my typing and English are not Enterprise level. Edited to make better reading.

Schnippzle · 7 Jul 2008 at 16:37

LordSplodge said:
Some schools run "enterprise" level equipment.

The school I used to be IT Manager at had an Apple XServer, Exchange 2003 (and 2007 just before I left) and google box, a NAS box a Google Box, Terminal Server, SharePoint sever, SQL Server and a cluster of AD servers, of course!

Oh and then it had a network backbone of at least 2Gbps with redundant links all configured using OSPF.

Didn't have any remote sites but that sounds like enterprise kit to me!

I take it that was not a school funded by the UK Department of Education?

BoomAM · 7 Jul 2008 at 17:34

LordSplodge said:
Some schools run "enterprise" level equipment.

True, im at one of them! lol. Just testing the water with that comment as there are some members on here who are VERY elitist with enterprise level stuff.

Schnippzle said:
I take it that was not a school funded by the UK Department of Education?

You'd be suprised.
We're on a pretty impressive, enterprise hardware level, stuff here.