OT: Calling all tech gurus

byrne092 · July 2015

We are planning on purchasing a server and redundant backup along with a firewall/switch setup for our business. We just received a quote and I was curious to what some of you might think. I am obviously going to look into it more myself, but I know in the past I think I have seen a few of you that are in the IT field. If you have any thoughts or insights I would gladly take them into consideration. Thank you!

Here is the quote breakdown.

# Description Tax Qty Unit Price Total

Server

1

HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9

Server - tower - 5U - 2-way - 1 x Xeon E5-2620V3 / 2.4 GHz - RAM 8 GB - SAS - hot-swap 2.5" - no HDD - DVD -

Matrox G200 - GigE - Monitor : none - Smart Buy

Yes 1 $2,394.00 $2,394.00

2

HP

DDR4 - 8 GB - DIMM 288-pin - 2133 MHz / PC4-17000 - CL15 - 1.2 V - registered - ECC - Smart Buy

Yes 1 $150.00 $150.00

3

HP Enterprise

Hard drive - 600 GB - hot-swap - 2.5" SFF - SAS 12Gb/s - 10000 rpm - Smart Buy - with HP SmartDrive carrier

Yes 5 $557.00 $2,785.00

4

HP Redundant Fan Kit

System fan kit - for ProLiant ML350 Gen9, ML350 Gen9 Base, ML350 Gen9 Entry, ML350 Gen9 Performance

Yes 1 $137.00 $137.00

5

HP

Power supply - hot-plug / redundant ( plug-in module ) - Flex Slot - 80 PLUS Platinum - AC 100-240 V - 500 Watt

- 564 VA

Yes 1 $287.00 $287.00

6

HP

Power cable - IEC 320 EN 60320 C13 - NEMA 5-15 - black - for HP MSL2024, MSL4048; ProLiant DL380 G6,

DL380 G7, DL380p Gen8, DL560 Gen8, SL165s G7

Yes 1 $13.00 $13.00

7

HP Insight Control

License + 1 Year 24x7 Support - 1 server - Smart Buy

Yes 1 $361.00 $361.00

8

HP Foundation Care 24x7 Service

Extended service agreement - parts and labor - 3 years - on-site - 24x7 - response time: 4 h - for ProLiant ML350

Gen9

Yes 1 $807.00 $807.00

9

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

License - 2 processors - MOLP: Open Business - Single Language

Yes 1 $883.00 $883.00

10

Microsoft Windows Server 2012

License - 1 user CAL - MOLP: Open Business - Single Language

Yes 10 $34.00 $340.00

Backup

11

StorageCraft Technology - StorageCraft ShadowProtect Server 5.x - Quantity 1-4 -

Includes 1 year Maintenance

Yes 1 $1,095.00 $1,095.00

12

Synology Disk Station DS214+

NAS server - SATA 3Gb/s - RAID 0, 1, JBOD - Gigabit Ethernet - iSCSI

Yes 1 $424.00 $424.00

13

Seagate Terascale ST4000NC001

Hard drive - 4 TB - internal - 3.5" - SATA 6Gb/s - 5900 rpm - buffer: 64 MB

Yes 2 $273.00 $546.00

14

Seagate Backup Plus Fast STDA4000100

Hard drive - 4 TB - external ( portable ) - USB 3.0 - black

Yes 3 $280.00 $840.00

Firewall/Switch

15

HP 1920-24G

Switch - L3 - managed - 24 x 10/100/1000 + 4 x Gigabit SFP - rack-mountable

Yes 1 $373.00 $373.00

16

FORTIWIFI-92D HW PLUS 1YR 24X7 FC & FG UTM BND Yes 1 $1,899.00 $1,899.00

17

Fortinet FortiAP 221C

Wireless access point - 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac - Dual Band

Yes 1 $444.00 $444.00

18

Fortinet

PoE injector - AC 100-240 V - 15.4 Watt - for FortiAP 210B, 220B

Yes 1 $58.00 $58.00

Project Management

19

Project Management Fee

Flat Rate

No 1 $1,095.00 $1,095.00

# Description Tax Qty Unit Price Total

All orders over $5000 will require 40% down at the time of the order.

Shipping charges on quotes are for

budgeting purposes only - actual freight

charges will be billed. Unless stated within

the quote, installation labor is not included and

will be billed as incurred.

Subtotal: $14,931.00

Tax (6.250%): $864.75

Shipping: $57.00

Total: $15,852.75

Sorry it is much harder to read like this, if you want I can try to upload a picture.

DMW · July 2015

I work for one of the manufacturers of some of the above products. I would be happy to offer an opinion, but it would be severly biased.

byrne092 · July 2015

@DMW thats fine, since it is kind of out of our wheelhouse we contracted a company that we have worked with a little bit in the past to give us a quote. You can be as brutally honest as you want. I just want to make sure we are not paying way over and above what we should be. It just gets a little overwhelming trying to associate a cost with what we are receiving. Thanks

DMW · July 2015

Ok, I'll take a look at it.

nolaegghead · July 2015

I would FRP the specifications on what you want and send out to a few vendors to drum up some competitive bidding. Make sure they know they're not the only vendor submitting proposals.

DMW · July 2015

Ok, here's my take. I'm not sure on pricing, but like @nolaegghead said, get the specs out to a few VAR's in your area to compare. To make it easier, just send them the above parts list without the pricing info.

I work for HP, so keep that in mind.

The server is a solid build. However if this is going to be your only server, and not one in a fleet of servers, you don't need Insight Control. Insight Control is a default in our quoting systems (resellers use the same tools), so you just need to ask for it to be removed.

I'm not familiar with StorageCraft ShadowProtect, but it looks like the intention is to backup the server to the Synology NAS. This is fine for onsite backup and rapid restore/recovery. However, this does not provide protection against physical disaster such as fire/flood/etc. I would ask your solution provider what the plan is for off-site backup. For many SMB's, your data is second in value only to your employees, so be sure you are protecting it.

Now that I continued reading, I saw the external Seagate Backup Plus drives. That is probably the plan for offsite backups.

The 2920 is a solid switch, perfect fit for an SMB. It can be stacked with additional switches as you grow and need additional capacity. It also has 10Gig ports for high speed uplink to the server if needed in the future. You could add a 10G NIC to the server if the 1G interface becomes a bottleneck. In fact you may want to ask how much it would be to have 10G on the server initially, it shouldn't be that much more.

Fortinet makes a solid UTM for SMB, no concerns there.

I would ask what the project management fee is for, considering that installation is not included. I would also get some kind of estimate of installation costs. Leaving a project like this to an open T&M quote can be a good deal, or a really bad deal. It all depends on the honesty and integrity of the solution provider. If you have an existing business relationship with them and they have provided exceptional service, that's one thing. If this is Joe's PC shop that you haven't done work with, check around.

For an SMB without an IT staff the solution provider plays that role. It's almost like they are part of your company. Choose a solution provider like you would hire an employee. I used to work for a solution provider and had to clean up messes from others many times. As an FYI, solution providers typically make very little margin selling hardware, it's all in services.

DMW · July 2015

Just a correction to the above. The 2920 does not include 10G ports, 10G can be added via one of the option slots in the rear of the switch. So for 10G server connectivity you would need to add the 10G module to the switch and also to the server. 10GBase-T is an option on both, so that would probably be simpler than using SFP+ direct attach cables.

byrne092 · July 2015

Thanks a lot @DMW. I really appreciate the insight. Its good to know that all the components selected were solid choices. Thanks for letting me know about the Insight Control because we will only have a single server.

You are correct on the backup. They offer a cloud solution or a physical drive solution where we just store it offsite.

I want to question the PM fee and T&M structure as well. I have no idea what the PM would be unless they are trying to charge that as a fee for a providing the quote and working with us, which would be kind of ridiculous.

The reason we received a quote from the company was because our parent company has used them for 20 years and they recommended them. This can be a good thing or a bad thing (not exploring other options over the years), that's why I was curious of the validity of the price. They are a very reputable solution company in the STL area that's been in business for around 40 years, so I think they have good credibility.

We recently purchased and are splitting from our parent company, which is why we are looking for our own standalone setup. I think it might be a good idea to shop around just to see what's out there. With being near the city I am sure there are plenty other reputable dealers that could provide a similar solution setup.

Once again thank you DMW for taking the time to give me a breakdown of your thoughts on the subject. I'll make sure to update when I find out some more info.

Skiddymarker · July 2015

@DMW - nice touch, what this forum is all about, help with what you can.

lousubcap · July 2015

@DMW- +1 with @Skiddymarker. Most eggcellent!

lousubcap · July 2015

Bump-to keep in the fore-front what this forum is really about-especially given a few recent threads. And I have no clue about what all that tech stuff is about

byrne092 · July 2015

@DMW it looks like the switch is actually a 1920, is that good or should I ask about the 2920?

DMW · July 2015

I was wondering how you were getting that price on a 2920.

The 1920 does not have any options for 10G or stacking. It also features only basic Web driven management, not advanced command line interface. However, for an SMB, the web management is typically sufficient. And for the price, when you need 10G, you could upgrade at that time.

Another option would be to go in between and take a look at the 1950. It has 10G interfaces built in and is priced between the 1920 and 2920. In looking at MSRP, I would probably say 1950 would be the way to go and upgrade the server to include 10GBase-T.

The part number for the 1950 is JG960A.

byrne092 · July 2015

Thanks again @DMW I will have to ask more about that when the time is right. I fired off some questions to the solution provider today, mainly about the service/protection plans. Here was his responses.

1. HP Insight Control – From my understanding HP Insight Control is only necessary for fleets of servers, not standalone. Is this a line item we can remove?

The main feature of the Insight Control is the ILO advanced functionality. The only reason we do the Insight license is that it’s cheaper than buying the ILO license outright. ILO will allow for remote control of the server in a KVM like atmosphere. I.E. – If the server crashes, we can still attach to it at a BIOS level and do reboots and rebuilds to get things going faster than jumping in the car. You can remove it if you don’t want this feature.

2. HP Foundation Care 24x7 Service – 3 Years – Obviously this looks like it is for parts and labor the components we are purchasing, but is this something that is going to be handled by **** or HP? We would just like some clarification.

The Warranty is provided by HP, but fulfilled by ****. You will work through us for an issues and we will work with HP on the backend.

3. FORTIWIFI-92D HW PLUS 24x7 Service – 1 Year – Once again it looks like some sort of service protection plan. Does this cover parts, labor, or both? Will this be handled by ****? What exactly is this protection/support service for?

This will supply you with parts replacement, system updates, and Technical support access at Fortinet. It doesn’t include the **** labor.

4. Project Management Fee – Considering that installation is not included, what is this fee for?

This is the fee we bill for all of the time that goes into planning, development, tracking and oversight for the project. With our project management model, projects go smoother, faster and cost significantly less overall.

5. Installation Cost – Since we will need a complete setup of the system (Server, Backup, Firewall/Switch, Employee computers, etc.), what type of cost can we expect for this service?

Here is a budget for labor – we will only bill the actual incurred time though.

Server – 40 hours @ $140/hr (includes Switch, backup and connecting up users)

Firewall – 8 hours @ $140/hr

6. Warranty/Service Period – Other than the protection/service plans listed above, does **** include a warranty/protection/service period to Controlco?

We work within the warranty from the manufacturer, and guarantee all of our labor to be done correctly.

So if we were not to alter the quote at all, and assumed full hours proposed, it would bring the total to roughly $23,000. Maybe since this is somewhat new to me I can't wrap my head around it, but DAMN, that seems like a ridiculous amount of money for a server, backup, and switch/firewall. Also I can't say a lot about the hourly rate because ours is close to that and we are fairly specialized as well; but 6 full days...oh and we only have 9 employees, so not a large amount of users to connect. Anyone want to comment. I would really like to believe it is reasonable, and it very well could be, because shopping companies can definitely become cumbersome. I also **** the companies name.

DMW · July 2015

Ok, the Insight Control thing is valid, no worries there.

Everything looks legit, except the time estimate. Unless you have some really goofy apps that need to be migrated from an old server this seems high. That switch sets up in about 15 minutes. Server shouldn't take more than a day, including setting up users. Migrating 9 PCs to the server and moving data another day. Backup 4 hours. Firewall, 2 hours unless you are hosting internet facing servers with lots of custom port forwarding, etc. I see 3, maybe 4 days of work here. Hourly rate is fair.

byrne092 · July 2015

Thanks again for the info, appreciate it. Yeah we don't have anything goofy that would be transferred. He said he said the labor estimate was probably a little high. The one thing I forgot to mention this will be our first actual server. Finances were/are on parent companies system right now and we are currently running a makeshift server for everything else (project files and such).

nolaegghead · July 2015

I apologize if I missed what the business needs are (applications) you're serving, but depending on your needs, another option is to use external data services. Google and Amazon have business class services that host email, file sharing and even some popular application services. You can also host web services offsite in a server farm. With this route, you are guaranteed security and backup, and any applications will be virtualized so you don't have to worry about long down times if there are hardware failures - they just re-virtualize your server(s) and redirect.

If you're running a very thick client on an Oracle or Microsoft database, you probably do want to be local. The other factor in this equation is the cost of bandwidth, which will be highly dependent on your location and the available communications services.

byrne092 · July 2015

@nolaegghead that's kind of the predicament..I don't know if we actually need a server. I think it would be a good idea for reliability and security, but maybe above and beyond what we truly require. There is no applications that we use that are accessed/shared by multiple employees. Right now we do all our file sharing on a common drive through a desktop. The drive is being virtualized/backed up through Dropbox, this way we can actually access files remotely (2 of our employees work permanently offsite, sometimes from home, but most of the time in the field). We have our email and web hosting from an online service, network solutions. This is the way we have been operating for the past 4 or so years and seems to be working just fine. Now I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of purchasing a server and determine if it justifies a 20-25k investment.

DMW · July 2015

If you can avoid a server in house, do so. If all you are looking to do is share files around the office, I don't think I would invest in a server. At the most a NAS with offsite backup services. If you have a business application (accounting, CRM, etc) that requires a server, that would be a reason to invest in a server.

byrne092 · July 2015

DMW said:

If you can avoid a server in house, do so. If all you are looking to do is share files around the office, I don't think I would invest in a server. At the most a NAS with offsite backup services. If you have a business application (accounting, CRM, etc) that requires a server, that would be a reason to invest in a server.

That is what I am going to find out this morning. We are separating from another company that handled our accounting, and that is what prompted us to look into getting our own server. The only difference is, how some companies might need 2, 3, 4 or more people with access to the accounting system at one time, ours will only require one person, MAYBE 2. We are a small contractor, but do a fair amount in terms of revenue, but it is generated from large contracts, not a lot of service or material sales (no CRM model). I am going to speak with the accounting system company today and find out if we do in fact need a server for our specific needs at the time.

And once again thank you for the insight @DMW

nolaegghead · July 2015

Sounds like the most you need is a NAS, if that, but don't think reliability and security is better on-site. It is worse....on average. It's only as good as you are with updating software, backing up, organizing your backups, etc.

byrne092 · July 2015

Yeah I have been looking into a NAS solution ever since I received that quote and reevaluated what the business needs really are. Seems like Synology has some great products. Thanks nola.

OT: Calling all tech gurus

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