Currently I’ve been Studying Server Machines (to clarify the difference between Server Operating Systems)

Servers Machines
I’m learning a lot about servers. Its best to start with the most basic of basics: desktops and home networking. From there its an easy leap business standards. What happens is that you just have to deal with more brands, more constraints and larger costs.

Servers are more durable, depending on how much a days of operation can make. If your a Small Tech  business, you might make about Php4-11M a year 12k-30k a day and how loaded business days can be worth of your entire revenue for the year. The difference is cost of quality servers at 40k up vs powerful Desktop Tower CPUs worth around 3/4 or 2/3 as much.

  • Tower Type (costing Php40-60,000 to Php80,000 ) there are both single and double
    • Pros. Cheaper. Especially when you build Server Clusters for smaller  
    • Cons. Bulky – as you scale up a business bulky becomes more a problem because its harder to cool these servers and they eat more energy. 
      • The only way around this is creating Hubs for small and seperate clusters. Also maybe getting a rack and slots to hold these Towers on their side and to “rack”-ify them to save space. 
      • On its side a tower server is a 4U server, with some modification to make it slide into the Rack Mount. 
  • Server Rack Type (costing Php80,000 for the single processor model, and Php120,000, +50%, for the two processor version). The current generation of rack servers are capable of running the 6-core CPUs. 
      • Units of Measure. These are measured in 1U or 1.75 inch or 4.45cm (44.5mm). 
    • Pros. Space Saving. As you scale up, a small room (the datacenter) which houses all these can easily cool them and keep them in order, secure and protected. 
    • Cons. Expensive.
    • Cons. PCI cards can’t fit.  special functional cards help making a server a special appliance like that of a PBX machine. Its better to fit these in a Tower Type server or the Thickest Rack type 
  • Blade Type (costing Php500,000 to Php1M). Basically its so compressed and modular that the individual servers within the Blade Server are like little “blades”. I have no experience with this, because its not something the business I’m in uses. 
  • Processors. Most of the servers I see say the run the Intel CPU 5600 Series. Particularly the E5606 (google passmark E5606). Always check the passmark rating of the CPU. 

Important notes for purchasing servers.

  • Reliability vs Cheapness and Availability of parts. You can buy HP or IBM, or you can buy MSI, Acer, AsusTek, etc… if its not reliable make sure you learn about RAID 0, 1, and 5 and understand and create a process of redundancy. Sometimes its way cheaper to have cheap but redundant systems than Expensive and Reliable ones. Labor in the Philippines is relatively cheaper. 
  • Stock vs Custom Order. If you design your business around custom, you have to wait 30-45 days. If you work with the Stock equipment type (like if you go around you notice a lot of HP servers on stock in vendors) you only need to worry about next day delivery. Some vendors allow for 30 days processing of pruchase (get it now pay later in the month). 
  • Hidden Costs.
    • Heat and Space translates to Air-conditioning Cost. In Air-conditioning is 60% your electrical expenses. If you have basic physics and electrical skills (and web savy enough to google) you can do an infrastructure due-diligence of your workplace and business. In a spreadsheet you can account every item and how much energy it consumes and how long it is used per day. If your ingenuitive you can make processes where your IT (OJTs) sweep the area for stuff that shouldn’t be or should be on at various time intervals. 
    • Time to Set up -Depending on your IT manpower, setting up servers is a physical task that might take a while because of testing and the bulkiness and weight of the expensive material, as well as the time to update the network diagram and notes. 
    • Networking and Cabling. These all use up slots. Category of Cabling these days are in transition from 5 to Category 6 and up. You may have to upgrade your cabling if your business is more data intensive. 
    • Your Location. When you use servers extensively then you might be the type of business that really needs good internet. Areas with good Telcom infrastructure are a relatively good investment. Asumptions are always made here, its best to get clear answers. Get the vendors of the area to do on-site inspections and reports or and get the rates of the 

Server Brands.
Note: if you are a company that sells expensive items like, its better to really make yourself accessible. Freaking have an email address at the very least. When probing who would want to waste money on a phone call to your country. The MSI, and ASUS are hard to contact for a Philippine buyer, despite supposedly being close by regionally.

HP w/ ~50% market share. I guess you can figure out how this works, because of economies of scale, HP has the largest market share and they can produce more at a lower profit margin while maintaining good quality yet make enough profit in the end. Everyone else has to fight for a niche or make significant strategic sacrifies. No wonder you find so much HP servers in the Philippine market.

  • ML series – Tower Servers, as you are familiar with the Tower shaped CPU 
  • DL series – DL160 1U, while DL180 2U. The higher the rating the bigger. 

IBM w/ ~20% market share. Too rich for my blood, estimates were at x3 the price as above.

ACER. the Acer website is awesome in the sense they give you preliminary prices! Which is about 10-15% cheaper than HP. The question now is if their local supplier can give the prices and discount at your economies of scale and repeat business if you buy plenty and if they give good after sales support and a good resupply inventory.

MSI and ASUS can provide servers BUT… no prices and no way to easily or effectively inquire. I’ve emailed them since last week. I might have to call, but I’m trying to figure out how much that will cost and the chance it will prove fruitless.

Caution – Resellers of Resellers. We had a vendor who brought in their assigned Dell agent to the Meeting. So the Dell agents sells to them and they resell to us. DUH! they are more expensive. I did no want to mention there was a Dell agent already assigned to our company, so we could already get it directly to them. Given how convoluted the reseller and distributor relationship.

What else to study.
Right now I’m consuming as much Vendor Price lists and Vendor Brochures on the matter I can find. Also I’m looking for potential supply chains by looking at vendors and feeling out how they get replacement and store inventory.  I’m using the weight and size of my company to get compliance, if I did it without a big company behind it, I would be mostly ignored and vendors will give half a thought about being competitive by making the margins bigger.

Pro-Tip
So I guess if you have a friend or a great relationship with another business who’s big and gets supplies from a vendor at a good rates and service, its better to piggy-back on that. Its going to be always harder for the little guy.