New computer server needed... sound reason
Discussion
Morning all
Just after a bit of advice if possible please, don't want our pants pulled down as it were.
For context, i'm in an office with 15 computers and one server in a small room.
Everything is running okay, but that serve is now 7 years old and so things are slowing up a little (not much), we have an IT company that we have a maintenance contract with, they back up off site and give us a hand and update stuff on the server (I assume) and that's £350+vat a month.
They've quoted us £5000+vat for an HPE Proliant ML110 Gen 11 server 64gb - 8x1TB (no idea what this is) plus £450+vat to install that server.
Then a futher requirement to upgrade from our current 2012 server software to 2023 software at £800+vat, £600 for 15 users and a further £1,300 to install that.
So £8,150+vat.
Does this seem reasonable? Wouldn't ask, but sometimes feel they take advantage of us not knowing anything with other small things, feels like a lot of a single server, but don't know what's involved compared to a standalone PC which is pretty basic stuff.
Oh and they're 20 yards away, so no travel as such lol.
Cheers :-)
Just after a bit of advice if possible please, don't want our pants pulled down as it were.
For context, i'm in an office with 15 computers and one server in a small room.
Everything is running okay, but that serve is now 7 years old and so things are slowing up a little (not much), we have an IT company that we have a maintenance contract with, they back up off site and give us a hand and update stuff on the server (I assume) and that's £350+vat a month.
They've quoted us £5000+vat for an HPE Proliant ML110 Gen 11 server 64gb - 8x1TB (no idea what this is) plus £450+vat to install that server.
Then a futher requirement to upgrade from our current 2012 server software to 2023 software at £800+vat, £600 for 15 users and a further £1,300 to install that.
So £8,150+vat.
Does this seem reasonable? Wouldn't ask, but sometimes feel they take advantage of us not knowing anything with other small things, feels like a lot of a single server, but don't know what's involved compared to a standalone PC which is pretty basic stuff.
Oh and they're 20 yards away, so no travel as such lol.
Cheers :-)
We're an accounts office, so our software is on the server and we all access it. We scan all post and that's distributed and filed so quite a lot of documents?
Don't think it's being hammered for use, hence the 7 year old one is still okay, but won't handle 2023 Server software too well and our accounts package needs us to upgrade.
Don't think it's being hammered for use, hence the 7 year old one is still okay, but won't handle 2023 Server software too well and our accounts package needs us to upgrade.
dirty boy said:
We're an accounts office, so our software is on the server and we all access it. We scan all post and that's distributed and filed so quite a lot of documents?
Don't think it's being hammered for use, hence the 7 year old one is still okay, but won't handle 2023 Server software too well and our accounts package needs us to upgrade.
Definitely sounds like overkill then.Don't think it's being hammered for use, hence the 7 year old one is still okay, but won't handle 2023 Server software too well and our accounts package needs us to upgrade.
I guess you're using Sage or similar. I'd be talking to them about cloud options, or if not available installing on a virtual server on Azure or similar.
Likewise I'd be looking at scanning post onto Azure storage (make sure you choose the right option).
Getting everything into the cloud should be much more cost effective and give you much better backup and DR options.
To be honest I'm surprised your local IT firm aren't exploring this with you rather than simply quoting for hardware. I'd suggest finding another local firm to review your requirements.
To those suggesting cloudy options how do you guard against rising licencing costs? With an on-prem arrangement the costs are fixed at £8.1k plus £350/mo but once your operation is cloud based the vedor (eg Sage) can charge what they like & there's nothing you can do about it, other than move to different software.
vaud said:
To clarify - they back up off your site, or is the backup only 20 yards away.
Surely the backup can't be physically stored 20 yards away. If that is the case this provider should not be part of the solution.Plenty of scenarios that could cause a loss at the site and also at the backup location, defeating the point of a backup.
As others have suggested is a cloud based solution. No reason to be storing data locally.
Mr Pointy said:
To those suggesting cloudy options how do you guard against rising licencing costs? With an on-prem arrangement the costs are fixed at £8.1k plus £350/mo but once your operation is cloud based the vedor (eg Sage) can charge what they like & there's nothing you can do about it, other than move to different software.
True. It sounds like some independent advice might be needed. SaaS can be a lock-in, but it needs to be weighed with other benefits (remote working, additional functions in the likes of Sage), etcAlso assessment of storage needs today + forecast, document retention policy, etc
the hardware costs is a bit high as is the install costs, more of an issue really is your lack of any kind of resilience if the server breaks.
I have no affiliation but give absolute networks a call, I used to use them a lot when I was in IT and they are generally a good bunch to deal with and won't rip you off. www.absolute-networks.co.uk
Simon
I have no affiliation but give absolute networks a call, I used to use them a lot when I was in IT and they are generally a good bunch to deal with and won't rip you off. www.absolute-networks.co.uk
Simon
We switched from onsite to this about 8 years ago, completely changed the way we work for the better. There are some very large organisations using it, including ones with some serious confidentiality and security needs. https://www.box.com/en-gb/home
Edited by mattybrown on Thursday 8th February 11:57
Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's s
t loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.
I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's s
t loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
dirty boy said:
Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's st loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.
I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
Document management isn't memory heavy it is storage heavy (more so if you don't use any compression software)To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's s
t loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
in your use case i would implement a networked attached storage device (or a pair for redundancy) and a small server and make sure my network switches were decent to facilitate fast retrieval of documents from the local storage. For offsite backup I'd use Arcserve UDP to backup to the cloud, or one of the Amazon services, both pretty cost effective with good infrastructure underpinning them. I'd also seriously consider SAGE's cloud offering, from a BC/DR perspective if your team can access your main software from anywhere it is a big advantage. I've been out of day to day IT for a while now working in more operational roles but the fundamentals don't really change.
simon_harris said:
dirty boy said:
Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's st loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.
I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
Document management isn't memory heavy it is storage heavy (more so if you don't use any compression software)To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's s
t loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
in your use case i would implement a networked attached storage device (or a pair for redundancy) and a small server and make sure my network switches were decent to facilitate fast retrieval of documents from the local storage. For offsite backup I'd use Arcserve UDP to backup to the cloud, or one of the Amazon services, both pretty cost effective with good infrastructure underpinning them. I'd also seriously consider SAGE's cloud offering, from a BC/DR perspective if your team can access your main software from anywhere it is a big advantage. I've been out of day to day IT for a while now working in more operational roles but the fundamentals don't really change.
Before the OP goes down the cloud route, the starting point should be just how good and resilient is your internet connection. You'll be stuffed if it goes down and everything is in the cloud. We'd only recommend a leased line if you are relying on connectivity to run your business, and those aren't cheap.
Additionally, your accounts package, if its anything like Sage (or the myriad of other server based professional accounting packages like Iris and CCH) trying to run a client-to-server over the web is like walking through superglue, it works really badly, they are not designed that way. Your IT provider would need to clarify with you the local access speeds your desktops need to the server for the application to run effectively. If it is anything like sage in its crappyness then putting it in the cloud would mean you need virtual desktops in the cloud, which is more cost. And then throw in some heavy data document scanning and your internet connection is getting hammered. It all needs considering properly and scoping, which I presume your supplier has done as they know your setup and usage.
And going to cloud is fine to a point, but your costs will just keep going up over time as MS push up pricing once you are onboarded. At least with a server you have a fixed cost which you can write off over 5-7 years and you know exactly what that is.
Back to the original question, on face value that price looks reasonable and I dont think the charges are high at all. You can pay less I'm sure, but peanuts gets you monkeys. As IT is critical to your business I wouldn't recommend entertaining the UK small business mindset of 'cheap as poss' as the way forward.
I am not anti cloud at all, we sell azure alongside on-prem, but it is not the answer to everything all the time.
Additionally, your accounts package, if its anything like Sage (or the myriad of other server based professional accounting packages like Iris and CCH) trying to run a client-to-server over the web is like walking through superglue, it works really badly, they are not designed that way. Your IT provider would need to clarify with you the local access speeds your desktops need to the server for the application to run effectively. If it is anything like sage in its crappyness then putting it in the cloud would mean you need virtual desktops in the cloud, which is more cost. And then throw in some heavy data document scanning and your internet connection is getting hammered. It all needs considering properly and scoping, which I presume your supplier has done as they know your setup and usage.
And going to cloud is fine to a point, but your costs will just keep going up over time as MS push up pricing once you are onboarded. At least with a server you have a fixed cost which you can write off over 5-7 years and you know exactly what that is.
Back to the original question, on face value that price looks reasonable and I dont think the charges are high at all. You can pay less I'm sure, but peanuts gets you monkeys. As IT is critical to your business I wouldn't recommend entertaining the UK small business mindset of 'cheap as poss' as the way forward.
I am not anti cloud at all, we sell azure alongside on-prem, but it is not the answer to everything all the time.
dirty boy said:
Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's st loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.
I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
When you say document management, is this a specific application with some sort of database attached? Can you get a report on exactly how much storage you are using ? Do you know how big the backup is?To confirm, back up is to a server 25 miles away, so no that close.
We don't do remote working (productivity - easily measured person by person) went down too much, so it's more incidental stuff, such as logging on to our computer from a laptop once or twice a week.
The document management is probably memory heavy, there's s
t loads of it, but not compared to massive companies.I'll try a couple of quotes and see what happens.
You will have a maximum of 8 Terebytes, but hopefully that will be reduced if they have configured a redundant RAID system (where if 1 disk fails the server carries on and no data is lost)
Document management is a pretty lightweight use case, and so I am not sure you need to spend 5k on a server., would suggest at a minimum that 64GB of RAM is overkill (ask them how much is in use at the moment)
7 years old, however, is pretty old for a critical piece of hardware, and so the idea of replacing it before any failure is not without merit.
Would suggest the idea above of a lightweight server connected to a good NAS (Synology / QNAP etc) would be worth looking at
Edited by Burrow01 on Thursday 8th February 17:44
Edited by Burrow01 on Thursday 8th February 17:46
dirty boy said:
Morning all
Just after a bit of advice if possible please, don't want our pants pulled down as it were.
For context, i'm in an office with 15 computers and one server in a small room.
Everything is running okay, but that serve is now 7 years old and so things are slowing up a little (not much), we have an IT company that we have a maintenance contract with, they back up off site and give us a hand and update stuff on the server (I assume) and that's £350+vat a month.
They've quoted us £5000+vat for an HPE Proliant ML110 Gen 11 server 64gb - 8x1TB (no idea what this is) plus £450+vat to install that server.
Then a futher requirement to upgrade from our current 2012 server software to 2023 software at £800+vat, £600 for 15 users and a further £1,300 to install that.
So £8,150+vat.
Does this seem reasonable? Wouldn't ask, but sometimes feel they take advantage of us not knowing anything with other small things, feels like a lot of a single server, but don't know what's involved compared to a standalone PC which is pretty basic stuff.
Oh and they're 20 yards away, so no travel as such lol.
Cheers :-)
Owner of an IT company for 20 years. Just after a bit of advice if possible please, don't want our pants pulled down as it were.
For context, i'm in an office with 15 computers and one server in a small room.
Everything is running okay, but that serve is now 7 years old and so things are slowing up a little (not much), we have an IT company that we have a maintenance contract with, they back up off site and give us a hand and update stuff on the server (I assume) and that's £350+vat a month.
They've quoted us £5000+vat for an HPE Proliant ML110 Gen 11 server 64gb - 8x1TB (no idea what this is) plus £450+vat to install that server.
Then a futher requirement to upgrade from our current 2012 server software to 2023 software at £800+vat, £600 for 15 users and a further £1,300 to install that.
So £8,150+vat.
Does this seem reasonable? Wouldn't ask, but sometimes feel they take advantage of us not knowing anything with other small things, feels like a lot of a single server, but don't know what's involved compared to a standalone PC which is pretty basic stuff.
Oh and they're 20 yards away, so no travel as such lol.
Cheers :-)
Thats a good deal, you are not being ripped off.
I find it shocking that there are people on here commenting on its spec, who have no idea what you are running on your server. If the existing server is 7 years old, your supplier has probably considered a spec that will also carry this new server forward for the business for 7 years. What you are running today will likely be more in the future as you and your data grows.
As others have mentioned, we have migrated many of our clients to the Cloud and it works fine for some. Interestingly, Accountants that we support have not gone in that direction. This is mainly because they don't like Sage Cloud though.
Your servers operating system went end of life in Oct last year. So it's important that you get moving in a direction, whether its this or something else.
M1AGM said:
Before the OP goes down the cloud route, the starting point should be just how good and resilient is your internet connection.
No it shouldn’t. The first thing the OP should be doing is clearly detailing their business processes and which of them they want wholly or partially supporting by technology to make them easier/faster/cheaper. Without that, any technology solution suggestions made are meaningless and you can’t make a business case for them.
Decide what the problem is that needs solving first, then work out how to solve it.
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