SIMS server spec

Just received this for our new sims server, Capita are charging £2450, what do you guys think:

Dell PowerEdge 2950 Rack Server
2 x Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5410, 2X6MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB Processors
16GB Memory, 667MHz (4x4GB Quad Ranked FB DIMMs)
4 x 146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive (Hot Plug)
DVD+/-RW Drive, SATA
C4 Integrated SAS / SATA, RAID 5 using add in internal PERC controller, min3/max6or8 Hard Drives

PERC 5/i, x4 Backplane, Integrated RAID Controller Card
Rack Chassis with Sliding Rapid/Versa Rails, Universal

3Yr Warranty - Next Business Day


Many thanks

How big is the school? How many pupils, how many users of sims? Is this going to be just for sims?

Does that price included any setup, or is it just the hardware?

Steve

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Originally Posted by steveg

How big is the school? How many pupils, how many users of sims? Is this going to be just for sims?

Does that price included any setup, or is it just the hardware?

Steve

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Hi Steve

This is just for SIMS application delivery, nothing else.
Currently there are 700 pupils, set to rise to 900 over the next 3 years
There are currently about 60 SIMS users

Lots of Ram for 900 Kids. we have 1200 in ours and it happly runs on 4GB ram.

I would get better warrenty, get the 4 hour gold one.

Seems almost a little over specced to me, (unusual for me, i'm great at over spec'ing servers!) I don't think you'll notice much of a benefit from the second cpu, or from at least 8gig of that ram. - Also check the sql licencing, i'm not an expert but I know some versions are licenced per cpu, so it may not even use the second one.

Steve

Another note, the Dell 2950 are a good server they just go and go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KWestos

Just received this for our new sims server, Capita are charging £2450, what do you guys think:

Dell PowerEdge 2950 Rack Server
2 x Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5410, 2X6MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB Processors
16GB Memory, 667MHz (4x4GB Quad Ranked FB DIMMs)
4 x 146GB, SAS, 3.5-inch, 15K RPM Hard Drive (Hot Plug)
DVD+/-RW Drive, SATA
C4 Integrated SAS / SATA, RAID 5 using add in internal PERC controller, min3/max6or8 Hard Drives

PERC 5/i, x4 Backplane, Integrated RAID Controller Card
Rack Chassis with Sliding Rapid/Versa Rails, Universal

3Yr Warranty - Next Business Day


Many thanks

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That's pretty cheap, I got this a couple of weeks ago (from our LEA ICT dept) :


Dell Poweredge 2950 3 Year ProSupport for IT and 4Hour Mission Critical
Rack Mount Chassis with redundant power supply
2 x Intel Quad Core Xeon E5405 2.0GHz/2x6MB 1333 FSB Processor
4GB FB 667MHz Memory
4 x 3.5” 300GB SAS Hard Disk Drives
PERC 6l Integrated Controller
16x SATA DVD-ROM Drive
2 x integrated 10/100/1000 Network Card
DRAC5 Controller
C4 – RAID 5 PERC6i Cntlr 3-8 HDD
MS Windows 2008 Standard Server Licence (Downgraded to a supported
Sever 2003 install)
Symantec Backup Exec Quick Start Edition Software £ 3,309.88
Installation/ configuration £ 398.00

Thats not a bad price for the kit.
I agree with what others are saying about the spec. For a school with 60 users and 900 pupils this is a very high spec server

With Server 2008 64bit installed this would quite easily run terminal server application delivery for all the staff and then some.

Spooky, just been pricing up a replacement SIMS server myself..

Been offered the following, for approx £2700.00

PE 2950 III Quad Core Xeon E5420 (2.5GHz, 2x6MB, 1333MHz FSB)
4GB (2x2GB Dual Rank DIMMs) 667MHz
PE2950 III Additional Quad-Core Xeon E5420 (2.5GHz, 2x6MB, 1333MHz FSB)
2x 146GB SAS 15k 3.5" HD Hot Plug 2 (RAID 1)
2x 450GB SAS 15k 3.5" Additional HD Hot Plug (RAID 1)
PE2950 III - Chassis 3.5HDD x6 Backplane 1
PERC 5/i, Integrated Controller Card (8 ports, 256MB cache, battery backup) x6 backplane
DVD+/-RW Drive SATA with SATA Cable
PE2950 III Redundant Power Supply No Power Cord
TCP/IP Offload Engine
Rapid/Versa Rack Rails
PE2950 III C7 MSS R1/R1 Add-in PERC 5/i / 6/i
5Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day

May well drop the second CPU (as initially will go for SQL 2005/2008 Express edition, but may keep if upgrade to full version in future).

Only 4GB RAM, compared to your 16GB, but our LEA SIMS Team have advised there has been reported problems with Windows 2008 64bit edition, although they said it runs ok on Windows 2003 R2 64Bit.

SQL will only use 1 processor per database, so might want to look at faster CPUs. 16GB ram might be a bit much now, but it really helps in 3 yrs time. Are you going to run terminal services on it? SLG2? Lesson monitor?

How much extra overhead is Lesson Monitor?

For the same spec server you have mentioned we pay about £2131. Speak to a few of the resellers on here, they normally get very similar pricing so can probably beat what you've been quoted.

Removing the second cpu takes about £189 off the price. Personally i'd add a second redundant power supply @ aprox £90.

Is next day warranty going to be adequate? You might want to consider 4 hour instead?

Steve

I would not use RAID 5 for SQL, as it adds more overhead. Instead have a raid 1+0 array, which will increase speed, and provide a nice amount of redundancy.

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Originally Posted by localzuk

I would not use RAID 5 for SQL, as it adds more overhead. Instead have a raid 1+0 array, which will increase speed, and provide a nice amount of redundancy.

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Really? I though you would make more reads then writes, so RAID-5 would be better. I do like RAID-10 (RAID 1+0) tho, still a split backplate with a RAID-1 (OS) and a RAID-5\10 (DATA) would be best.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Geoff

How much extra overhead is Lesson Monitor?

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Nothing really, it's just more concurrent connections and a larger DB size

(eg. 7 marks a day per student x 1000 students 7,000 marks a day... rather then the 2,000.)

I'm pricing up a new SIMS server now as well.

Where are you guys going for quotes?

HBJB