That assumption is using VMWare - they could use XenCenter or Hyper-V to provide failover, or even using Veem with free VMWare.
This would also require the purchase of vcenter which no small office is going to do.
That assumption is using VMWare - they could use XenCenter or Hyper-V to provide failover, or even using Veem with free VMWare.
DRS is not HA. HA is failover clustering which can be done by hyper-v without system center. In fact hyper-v without system center has more features than esxi free. It's why so many small businesses have moved to hyper-v. You can get 95% of the features that vmware requires vcenter for with live migration and failover clustering being the most important.
You have to buy windows licenses anyway, so there really is no good reason to not use hyper-v (except for owning vmware licensing). The problem is going to be the skill that properly setting up and managing hyper-v requires.
I'm not a hyperv guy, but doesn't DRS or PRO as MS calls it require system center? and I think you mean Veeam? I stand by my original statement, if OP wants to skimp on the server hardware what makes you think he is going to want to purchase vcenter, system center or veeam? OP would probably just need a standalone esxi server with a decent backup solution.
DRS requires System Center VMM but HA does not. Hyper-V 2012 R2 Server is free and so long as you already have an AD domain and shared storage, you can cluster them for HA at no cost.
For a two server cluster, DRS is less important to have.
Nice to see other IT people who are adaptable to the company and the situation. I think most IT people go through school or get trained at one job and then since that is all they know they are never comfortable outside of that environment and try to replicate it wherever they go and refer to that as "The correct way"I've never found Supermicro to be too much cheaper than Dell/HP. I would love to see you quote some actual numbers. There's nothing stopping you from putting standard parts into a Dell/HP. I've got OEM Hynix RAM in my HP's, tossed the old HP memory in some Dell's, and put the Dell memory in some Supermicro's. I've got similarly mix and matched drives. Are there some proprietary parts? Sure, but Supermicro has proprietary parts too.
ROFL. That's not even remotely practical for smaller companies. Everyone here seems to be operating under the assumption that all companies have a complete IT staff onsite. Setting up a cluster, especially a multisite cluster isn't something there's an easy button for.
Not to mention I've worked for a company that used that system and it's got no shortage of headaches as well.
Until you realize you are paying an IT Admin $80k a year plus benefits to sit there waiting for something to break rather than paying Dell/HP/SMS/etc like $800/year.
I can call HP (or email them) and in 30 minutes I'll have a new drive on the way. SMS will have it on the way in like 5 minutes.
There's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing with an OEM. Have you ever actually done this before? I can get parts for my HP/Dell's just as easy as my Supermicro's.
If you're outside warranty and still using the box (that's a whole different conversation) there's companies like SMS (System Maintenance Services) that offer post manufacturer warranty support.
I've never seen that used as the primary factor in the purchasing process. Not to mention it doesn't matter how much you spend, something can still go wrong.
Not to mention all that assumed you keep a full IT staff onsite. We support roughly ~110 customers. All of their equipment is configured to send SNMP trap alerts to us. We get an alert, call HP/Dell/SMS, tell them they need to go replace a drive/fan/battery/whatever. Call the client and tell them somebody will be there at X time and will need access to the server closet. Our client has 0 IT staff onsite and doesn't even have to touch the server.
Understood and I agree. My original point was if OP is skimping on a single servers cost, what makes people think he's going to buy two servers and set HA or DRS?
Oh he won't - but the guy I replied to said he'd buy a single server to the tune of almost $20k.
and when it breaks you can ring me, and i'll get someone to fix it for you.and if they wanted to use vmware, the cost is nominal for small deployments.
http://store.vmware.com/store/vmwar...tailsPage/ThemeID.2485600/productID.306265000
This gives them HA, vcenter, backup, vmotion, vshield, replication (great if they decided to do HA in the cloud), and ops manager for monitoring.
What started as a "point & laugh at the op" thread has turned into an informative thread. Gotta love ATOT.
Understood and I agree. My original point was if OP is skimping on a single servers cost, what makes people think he's going to buy two servers and set HA or DRS?
Oh I agree. Believe me when I say I don't care for this shit. I build one gaming rig every few years and don't give a damn in between those times. I have an IT friend and he talks to me like I care. It puts me in a coma.
RAID IS NOT BACK UP. There, I said it. But I swear I thought that's what raid 1 was for.
RAID is for redundancy or more generally a small piece of high availabily for business continuity.
Backup has nothing to do with RAID. Backup is something you should go to at a last resort. Sounds to me that your business doens't care about business continuity... which may be okay with you guys. I'm assuming you're a local sandwich shop
RAID is for redundancy or more generally a small piece of high availabily for business continuity.
Backup has nothing to do with RAID. Backup is something you should go to at a last resort. Sounds to me that your business doens't care about business continuity... which may be okay with you guys. I'm assuming you're a local sandwich shop
You guys still yaking about this? Jesus Christ you guys are something else. Put me in a damn coma with this boring crap. Thanks for the advice though. Much appreciated. :biggrin:
So I'm buying a server for my job and I was going to get a real server, with real server hardware, with a real server OS, and real server ram, and a real server pair of SSD, and then I saw the price and it gave me a real severe headache.
I'm buying a god damn gaming PC and using that. Screw this expensive crap.