Advice with prioritising where to invest money

[tj2419]

Just after a few opinions on how you would prioritise renewing equipment.

 

We have circa £45k to spend on a server renewal and computer refresh summer 2015.

 

Current Situation

Three HP servers. Server spec running CC4 all Physical.

Xeon E5530 @ 2.40GHz (16 core)

16GB RAM

2 x Network Cards

 

Option 1

Spend about £20-25k on physical rack mounted servers. Continue on physical CC4.5.

Spend about £20-25k on replacing the desktops (70 in total)

 

Option 2

Spend more on servers, try virtualise and just buy 120GB SSD's to improve the specs on about 70 classroom computers. The machines will be out of warranty but we have a support contract with our LEA who replace parts that are broken as long as they are not classed as BER.

 

Current specs are Dell machines.

 

Dell Optiplex 380

1 Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo E8400(3GHz,1333MHz,6MB)

1 Memory : 4GB(1x4GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC

 

Opinions on the most effective way to renew the equipment would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Ric_]

It depends on what you want to achieve. If your servers aren't doing any heavy lifting they should be fine. Maybe buy Care Packs to extend the warranty by another year and budget to replace them next year.

 

You need to find out what the curriculum requirements are too. If staff need to reach stuff that requires more grunt then you should maybe be looking at upgrading desktops to i5s with 8GB RAM. I don't think that SSDs on their own would be a cost effective upgrade.

 

Another consideration is how much capital you will be getting over the next couple of years... Will you have enough to replace things next year when they are really past it?

[dhicks]

Spend about £20-25k on physical rack mounted servers.

 

Could you just upgrade your current servers - add some more RAM, maybe put SSDs in? You could buy one new physical server and move some services over to virtual machines running on that machine from one of your existing physical machines, you don't have to do a whole replace-in-one-go job. From recent experience, I'd say putting SSDs in workstations is probably the best use of your money client-side - it really does make the machines more usable with quicker boot times and less time to load applications. I'd have thought you could get a large new server, including an array of SSDs, and SSDs for each workstation, for under £20,000.

[tj2419]

Our current servers are running on Windows Server 2003 which is why we are looking at new hardware as well. We are also on cc4.2 so the upgrade would allow us to move to cc4.5.

 

The most intensive tasks carried out on the machines are using software such as adobe CS5.5 for dreamweaver, fireworks and flash. They also use Office and Serif web plus.

 

I have been asked for a budget plan as we tend to ask for what we need and they see what they can do but i have been told that it will be for crucial work rather than upgrades we would like.

 

Is Hyper-V a much cheaper option than vmware?

 

The phased upgrade is something i am trying to get my head around at the moment. Seems like it might be a good option to phase us over onto a virtual network.

[snagrat]

I would consider moving from CC4 as well.

 

Would save a bucket load of money and give you a better system.

[tj2419]

I would consider moving from CC4 as well.

 

Would save a bucket load of money and give you a better system.

 

That was going to be our main plan but there is only me and one other guy and my wife and I are having a baby just before the summer and I think a windows upgrade would take up more of the summer. Along with other reasons. Running out of time to properly test it as well.

 

So far with quotes I'm yet to see where it would save us money.

Edited December 14, 2014 by tj2419

[garethEds]

For machines you could look to someone like ict-direct.co.uk and buy refurbished HP machines - doubling your investment. An extra £10 per machine will put a three year warranty on them. We've had great service from ict-direct and would not consider buying a new machine without looking at our refurbished options first.

 

GJE

[garethEds]

Yes - Hyper-V is free (get the Datacentre edition of Windows 2012r2) - buy a couple of books and learn how to do it. @rich_tech sorted ours out and saved us a fortune.

 

GJE

[dhicks]

Is Hyper-V a much cheaper option than vmware?

 

As a school, do you have a license agreement with Microsoft for your Windows server / workstation licensing? If so, Hyper-V is probably your cheapest option - just license a couple of servers for Windows Server Enterprise Edition and you can install as many virtual instances of Windows Server as you like on each one. If you get a single new server, make that your new Hyper-V system, install new instances of Windows Server 2012 on that and start migrating functionality over - moving DCs and so on is actually no problem, it's just a case of installing a new server instance and installing the appropriate services from a wizard-driven menu. You could upgrade one of your existing physical servers to be in a Storage Spaces cluster with your new server, so if one server conks out you still have all your VM images ready to run on the other one, and your two other servers can eventually be file servers or similar. I've never used RM management layer on top of Windows, but I imagine it should run on virtual machines by now with no problems, so it should be pretty simple to move your current functionality over to new virtual machines.

[snagrat]

That was going to be our main plan but there is only me and one other guy and my wife and I are having a baby just before the summer and I think a windows upgrade would take up more of the summer. Along with other reasons. Running out of time to properly test it as well.

 

So far with quotes I'm yet to see where it would save us money.

 

How many client machines do you have?

[mrbios]

Do you actually intend on replacing the servers or adding to the current ones? £20-25k on servers is a hell of a lot after all, especially considering you only currently have three so presumably the amount you need to do with them can't be that excessive? Have you actually looked at what your servers are doing in terms of analyzing performance over a given period of time to see what areas need improving? or are you just replacing them because they're old and you want to replace them?

[timbo343]

Spend about £20-25k on replacing the desktops (70 in totol)

 

Where are you getting these from? Thats some figure and would expect them to be the most latest spec. Surely buying ictdirect would save you a fortune so you can do something else.

[Edu-IT]

How many client machines do you have?

I would say 70 if he's looking to replace them all.

[snagrat]

Where are you getting these from? Thats some figure and would expect them to be the most latest spec. Surely buying ictdirect would save you a fortune so you can do something else.

 

Working on £20k it's only £285 a machine.

 

Won't get much cheaper.

[snagrat]

I would say 70 if he's looking to replace them all.

 

Yeh thought that after I asked lol

[timbo343]

My thought would be to get machines from ictdirect and maybe review the wireless or projectors or even the switches. Also possily look at DR too.

[MatZeRO]

Take some time and plan for what you need. Be sure about what is coming up in the future, think about what sorts of things need to upgraded and be really sure you have the best ideas in mind. Think about future ICT needs, where are the courses going, what are the teachers likely to ask for in the future.

 

Seems like a lot of money for 70 machines. We buy 2nd user machines at a fraction of the cost of a new one. We had to replace computers for our admin staff, about 30 machines. We ordered some machines from a company called EasyIT for £105 per unit. Turns out the machines were only used for a few weeks at the Olympic games. They were in perfect working order and we have had zero issues with them.

 

We also ordered 100 computers to replace some ageing RM One machines we had knocking about, we paid around £11000 for them from another company. They are only 1 year old, never had any issues with them either. Saved a fortune. If something goes wrong with them, well thats what we are there for.

 

In terms of servers, we orders ours from a company called IT in Stock. They are 2nd user servers. It seems that lots of companies upgrade there servers ever year and just chuck out the old ones, IT in Stock come in collect them up and re-sell them. A server that would have cost us thousands of pounds ends up costing us hundreds. If something goes wrong with it, we fix it. HP Servers are all modular and anyone could change parts in and out.

 

I think you can make your budget go a long way, just have the confidence to order 2nd user stuff.

 

Another example while I think about, we just moved our server room from the tiny unsuitable server room to a new room. We needed two 42u racks, we wanted HP. We priced them up with Insight and they said we would be looking at between £1500 - £2000. We had a look around and ended up paying £375 for 2x HP 42u racks.

 

Think ahead, plan, spend wisely.

[tj2419]

As a school, do you have a license agreement with Microsoft for your Windows server / workstation licensing? If so, Hyper-V is probably your cheapest option - just license a couple of servers for Windows Server Enterprise Edition and you can install as many virtual instances of Windows Server as you like on each one. If you get a single new server, make that your new Hyper-V system, install new instances of Windows Server 2012 on that and start migrating functionality over - moving DCs and so on is actually no problem, it's just a case of installing a new server instance and installing the appropriate services from a wizard-driven menu. You could upgrade one of your existing physical servers to be in a Storage Spaces cluster with your new server, so if one server conks out you still have all your VM images ready to run on the other one, and your two other servers can eventually be file servers or similar. I've never used RM management layer on top of Windows, but I imagine it should run on virtual machines by now with no problems, so it should be pretty simple to move your current functionality over to new virtual machines.

 

Yes we do use an EES agreement for our client OS, Office and Server OS. That would be an option but RM put you over a barrel and basically you cannot virtualise an RM network unless you have them do it. Our LEA who are our support service aren't approved by RM to carry out a virtual upgrade but can do physical.

 

How many client machines do you have?

 

We have around 480 in total. Its just that these 70 are reaching 4-5 years old that we are looking to replace them.

 

Do you actually intend on replacing the servers or adding to the current ones? £20-25k on servers is a hell of a lot after all, especially considering you only currently have three so presumably the amount you need to do with them can't be that excessive? Have you actually looked at what your servers are doing in terms of analyzing performance over a given period of time to see what areas need improving? or are you just replacing them because they're old and you want to replace them?

 

We are planning on replacing the current ones. Replacing them because they are old and running server 2003. With the support ending in July 2015 it seemed a good point to replace them.

 

 

I think you can make your budget go a long way, just have the confidence to order 2nd user stuff.

 

We have only ever ordered new in the past. So will have a look into second hand stuff.

 

Any companies people would recommend dealing with? We are based on the Wirral near Liverpool.

 

I would love to go windows and move away from RM but seems like a massive task to undertake with only 6 months to plan for it.

[MatZeRO]

http://www.ITInStock.com and http://www.EasyIT.co.uk

 

Whatever price they give you, haggle and push them down.

[synaesthesia]

I strongly suspect that in the long run, moving from CC4 would be a great cost saving measure, and will also boost the speed of things considerably. CC4 is so heavy, if it was dropped next to some feathers in a vacuum, it'd hit the ground first. (Yes, that's agains the point of physics of course but I'm fairly certain CC4 breaks quite a few laws of physics anyway).

Considering the circumstances you describe, paying a 3rd party to do the migration for you would still save money in the long run and free you up to concentrate on the little things.

[tj2419]

I strongly suspect that in the long run, moving from CC4 would be a great cost saving measure, and will also boost the speed of things considerably. CC4 is so heavy, if it was dropped next to some feathers in a vacuum, it'd hit the ground first. (Yes, that's agains the point of physics of course but I'm fairly certain CC4 breaks quite a few laws of physics anyway).

Considering the circumstances you describe, paying a 3rd party to do the migration for you would still save money in the long run and free you up to concentrate on the little things.

 

We started looking at this in September but other things took over and i am only just now getting time to get back on it.

 

Would 6 months be enough time to learn to set the network up from the ground up? We have no experience of setting up a virtual network let alone a SAN. I don't think our budget would allow for a third party to come in and set it up for us unfortunately

 

Would need to set up all the restrictions, GPO's etc from scratch.

 

Can the likes of RM tutor be used on a windows network? We are licensed for version 5 at the moment.

 

Anyone recommend any third party companies who could assist in setting up a Windows network?

[snagrat]

Where you based?

[mrbios]

We are planning on replacing the current ones. Replacing them because they are old and running server 2003. With the support ending in July 2015 it seemed a good point to replace them.

 

So you only have literally 3 servers, that's with no virtualisation? Is each one doing multiple tasks?

 

Sounds like you only need a pretty basic setup if that's the case. Check out server specs on broadberry.co.uk, Hyper-V, two hosts, dual quad cores (such as E5-2623v3 cpus which are pretty cheap and very good performers - to be perfectly honest you'd find a single one of those CPUs would do the job fine and never be pushed.) and 64gb ram, about £6-7k in total cost + support fees if you wanted it to extend it beyond a 3 year offsite + drives dependent on how much storage you needed unless you have a san or nas you can use as central vm storage..or even invest in one specific to the task. (Quite a few possibilities, more information needed really about growth and performance requirements as to what avenue you should go down)

 

Be interesting to see what others comments are on this idea, as i've found HP and Dell to be giant rip off merchants in recent times (Certainly when it comes to support + drive costs).

[tj2419]

So you only have literally 3 servers, that's with no virtualisation? Is each one doing multiple tasks?

 

Sounds like you only need a pretty basic setup if that's the case. Check out server specs on broadberry.co.uk, Hyper-V, two hosts, dual quad cores (such as E5-2623v3 cpus which are pretty cheap and very good performers - to be perfectly honest you'd find a single one of those CPUs would do the job fine and never be pushed.) and 64gb ram, about £6-7k in total cost + support fees if you wanted it to extend it beyond a 3 year offsite + drives dependent on how much storage you needed unless you have a san or nas you can use as central vm storage..or even invest in one specific to the task. (Quite a few possibilities, more information needed really about growth and performance requirements as to what avenue you should go down)

 

Be interesting to see what others comments are on this idea, as i've found HP and Dell to be giant rip off merchants in recent times (Certainly when it comes to support + drive costs).

 

In total we currently have:

 

Admin server - Runs SIMS, DHCP and our admin network on Windows 2008R2

Curric svr 1, 2 & 3 - Runs a CC4.2 curriculum network. Users split over the three servers, Staff on svr1 and students over svr2 & 3.

NAS Server - QNAP TS-870U 6TB used for shared documents for users on curric network.

 

At present i only manage the curriculum network as the admin network is managed by our LEA.

[LukeC]

can anyone else recommend EasyIT, as the prices look very good and are very competitive with ICT Direct.