Is the Time for VMware in the SMB Over?
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@Dashrender said:
I didn't think it included the server, but perhaps it did and I didn't understand.
Colo does not include the server. It is priced per server that you install (a 1U server costs X, a 2U server costs Y or 22U costs Z.) When you get into "per U" pricing it is not per U but goes down as the size gets bigger. A full cabinet is only a tiny bit more than a half cabinet.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
That's more for the file and print serves than AD.
File and print are generally the last things to go out to colo. They both are the bandwidth hogs of the organization and the space hogs. Both things that lean away from colo (but can be done, just the last workloads to go there.) Those are the things that you hold back and do last.
Things like AD, applications and databases are ideal colo workloads and should go first.
How many SMBs have separate AD from File and Print? Sure I can see applications and db's going there (assuming there isn't a need to pull large amounts of data out of the db to the end user machines).
As for the prices you're mentioning.. 10U for $275/month, this assumes I supply my own servers, right? And you're right, I can easily get myself to under 10U (retire the old IBM 3U windows server, and eventually retire the IBM P series).
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
That's not right - the 10Mb we have now barely supports our VPNs and Cloud EHR. There is a noticeable drag when someone is downloading large files from the internet.
So that limits it for use by AD how? AD is a low bandwidth, low priority protocol. It does not need to be responsive at all. Unless you are actually out of bandwidth all the time, this should not be a factor.
And what is the VPN for? Wouldn't going to a colo fix VPN issues rather than exacerbate them? This should reduce the load between sites as the colo will have 100Mb/s or more - able to saturate all sites at once and not kill the main site while trying to service the other sites.
I think colo fixes more than you imagine.
Hadn't considered that - good point - thanks!
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@Dashrender said:
Oh we definitely have sprawl right now because we have an old tower style P Series converted to rack mount (with luck gone in 1 year - but I've been saying that for a year already), we have another old 3 U IBM that will be docomp'ed this year, two 2-U VMWare servers and two - 2U physical servers (could be virtualized down to a single machine but would require more storage) for our old EHR product, keep for lookups.
If you have old servers and physical servers why do you need even more than two servers? It sounds like this workload could be reduced to no more than 4U and possibly, but probably quite a stretch, down to 2U (storage needs get tough at 2U.) And that's only 4U to give you failover. If you didn't need failover or wanted one half of your failover on-premises you are looking at only 1U to 2U max.
Assuming 4U, which really should be the most you would need it sounds like, you should be able to do $200/mo or less!
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@Dashrender said:
How many SMBs have separate AD from File and Print?
Hopefully zero as you get two VMs per license so who wouldn't have them separate? What's causing you to have them together?
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@Dashrender said:
Sure I can see applications and db's going there (assuming there isn't a need to pull large amounts of data out of the db to the end user machines).
Well apps, not desktops, should be talking to databases. If desktops talk to databases at all, something is seriously wrong.
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@Dashrender said:
As for the prices you're mentioning.. 10U for $275/month, this assumes I supply my own servers, right? And you're right, I can easily get myself to under 10U (retire the old IBM 3U windows server, and eventually retire the IBM P series).
Colo MEANS you supply your own servers. There are other terms for things where you don't supply the servers. Colo means you buy space, power, network, etc. for equipment that you supply.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I didn't think it included the server, but perhaps it did and I didn't understand.
Colo does not include the server. It is priced per server that you install (a 1U server costs X, a 2U server costs Y or 22U costs Z.) When you get into "per U" pricing it is not per U but goes down as the size gets bigger. A full cabinet is only a tiny bit more than a half cabinet.
OK, I Don't know what we pay for power/HVAC, but I find it difficult to believe (but I'll dig into it after my phone project) that we pay even $200/month for my data closet.
Granted we will get several other benefits by moving there (once we consolidate) I'd still most likely be stuck with at least one VM host onsite handling File and Print.
In fact, I'm trying to consider the best option for providing print servers at my new location without dropping a server there. I suppose I could use GPO to publish IP printers and have the drivers come from a printer setup on the main server in my office. Might make for a bit of a slow install the first time out, but after that should be OK. I can probably get away from printer queues.
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@Dashrender said:
OK, I Don't know what we pay for power/HVAC, but I find it difficult to believe (but I'll dig into it after my phone project) that we pay even $200/month for my data closet.
Once upon a time NTG built a datacenter in my house (dedicated room, concrete enclosed, fully enclosed, six foot viewing window, full rack, dedicated commercial pipe, etc.) and we found that HVAC and power costs were closing in on $400/mo back in the early 2000s around 2003, probably. That was for probably 18U, but only about six servers.
Not only did we improve performance and lower the manpower needed, but we paid for our move to colo 100% out of the power cost savings and all the other benefits were totally wins.
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@Dashrender said:
In fact, I'm trying to consider the best option for providing print servers at my new location without dropping a server there. I suppose I could use GPO to publish IP printers and have the drivers come from a printer setup on the main server in my office. Might make for a bit of a slow install the first time out, but after that should be OK. I can probably get away from printer queues.
I see more and more places not having print servers. I run into them pretty rarely in the SMB these days. Just not that much printing being done and all printers (more or less) have built in print servers for the past decade so the need for a print server hooked to print servers instead of printers directly rarely makes sense. In a huge environment, maybe, but in the SMB, just use the print server in the printers - it's free!
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File serving is always going to be the hardest thing to deal with because files are big. Although more and more I see companies not working with files in traditional ways. I've worked with a lot of companies recently that have no file servers (or NAS) at all and it is great. Doesn't work for everyone, but it works for a lot.
NTG has no primary file server and hasn't for years. We moved away from file serving as a concept long ago.
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Current work load on servers
VM1
__Appassure backups
__secondary AD, File and Print
__Gateway software for phone system
VM2
__CentOS-mediawiki
__Spiceworks
__ISA server protecting Exchange
__Exchange (yeah I know - move to O365, probably will after our current SA expires)
__primary AD
__accounting system - used with PC based app
__WSUS
Physical 1
__User personal drives
Physical 2
__Old EHR DB
Physical 3
__Old EHR IIS and image storage
Physical 4 (IBM P series)
__ Old practice management -
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
In fact, I'm trying to consider the best option for providing print servers at my new location without dropping a server there. I suppose I could use GPO to publish IP printers and have the drivers come from a printer setup on the main server in my office. Might make for a bit of a slow install the first time out, but after that should be OK. I can probably get away from printer queues.
I see more and more places not having print servers. I run into them pretty rarely in the SMB these days. Just not that much printing being done and all printers (more or less) have built in print servers for the past decade so the need for a print server hooked to print servers instead of printers directly rarely makes sense. In a huge environment, maybe, but in the SMB, just use the print server in the printers - it's free!
I do this at my current remote locations, they never have more than 4 people, and there haven't been any problems. My new location will have more like 10 people over 2 printers, but I'm sure with the Lanier machines I'm looking at it should be no problem.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I didn't think it included the server, but perhaps it did and I didn't understand.
Colo does not include the server. It is priced per server that you install (a 1U server costs X, a 2U server costs Y or 22U costs Z.) When you get into "per U" pricing it is not per U but goes down as the size gets bigger. A full cabinet is only a tiny bit more than a half cabinet.
OK, I Don't know what we pay for power/HVAC, but I find it difficult to believe (but I'll dig into it after my phone project) that we pay even $200/month for my data closet.
Granted we will get several other benefits by moving there (once we consolidate) I'd still most likely be stuck with at least one VM host onsite handling File and Print.
In fact, I'm trying to consider the best option for providing print servers at my new location without dropping a server there. I suppose I could use GPO to publish IP printers and have the drivers come from a printer setup on the main server in my office. Might make for a bit of a slow install the first time out, but after that should be OK. I can probably get away from printer queues.
I don't have a print server at a remote location. I use GPO to deploy the IP/drivers for the printer when they first launch. Makes it very easy to setup new machines.
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Spiceworks you would not run remotely as it is a scanner but would move that to a desktop in house, generally.
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Move to Office 365 and one huge workload (Exchange) and one small one (ISA) go away completely. That's a huge first step.
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Don't look to migrate "old" workloads, get the "new" or "current" workloads to the colo then focus on retiring the old stuff.
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WSUS should not go to colo. But Microsoft is offering a WSUS replacement option soon that will make you likely not want to run that at all, which is nice.
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From what I am seeing here, retiring some stuff, making some changes, you probably can't EVEN justify colo but should go to cloud. There is too little here to make owning a physical server justified.
But if you HAD to keep physical servers for some reason, I don't see any reason to have more that two 1U servers for this tiny workload (in addition to a storage device on-premises probably.)
That reduces the cost even further. Maybe as low as $100/mo but no more than $140/mo.
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But to me, it looks like you could probably drop to just 2-3 cloud servers. This doesn't shave cost over the colo hosting, but it makes the cost of buying and maintaining the servers themselves go away.
We use Azure for AD, for example. Two small Azure Windows servers and all of our Windows licensing is included in the cost. If you go 100% cloud, you don't need to deal with server licenses or CALs anymore! That's pretty huge.
You could consolidate workloads a little and get everything onto two cloud instances, likely.
