If you get them to buy into the $25/mo peace of mind, then start with a single server, but add another for every 4-7 clients that buys into the service (use a number that works to minimize your risk here). If you had 4 or 5 customers buying into this, the servers would pay for themselves in about a year.
*ASB **http://XeeMe.com/AndrewBaker* <http://xeeme.com/AndrewBaker>* **Providing Virtual CIO Services (IT Operations & Information Security) for the SMB market…*** On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Ben M. Schorr <b...@rolandschorr.com>wrote: > I’d probably offer it as a service for a nominal fee – maybe $25 a month > per customer? Of course you run the risk of having multiple customers > suffer failures at the same time and they’ll be rightfully upset if you > don’t have the spare hardware available to get them back up when that > happens…**** > > ** ** > > Ben M. Schorr > Chief Executive Officer > *Roland Schorr & Tower – Flagstaff Office > *928-526-3970 > www.rolandschorr.com * www.twitter.com/bschorr * > www.facebook.com/RolandSchorr **** > > ** ** > > *From:* David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] > *Sent:* Sunday, February 3, 2013 10:11 AM > *To:* NT System Admin Issues > *Subject:* SMB IT provider Q**** > > ** ** > > I have a couple of clients and they both run SBS2011 Premium in their > environments and in both cases I have them on Dell hardware and on top of > Hyper-V hosts.**** > > ** ** > > It makes sense to me to have “ready spare” hardware, and it seems to me if > I had one server in my lab ready to go as a temporary stand-in Hyper-V host > I could offer this as a cheaper alternative as to asking them to have a > full 2nd server onsite in a cluster. My thinking is: **** > > ** ** > > **· **Have one server, just powerful enough to work as a > “stand-in” server in either environment (16GB RAM, enough SAS disk space to > cover the biggest Hyper-V host) with an IT Garage licensed 2008 R2 Host OS > (both my clients are running this). **** > > **· **If either client has a hard server failure, I run my > hardware out and restore their backups to this hardware. This gets them up > and running while I resolve whatever the issue might be on their production > server**** > > **· **Once their primary system is back up, bring this hardware > back to my lab**** > > ** ** > > It looks like I can get some hardware in the $1000 range for this, but the > catch is I’d like to have my clients offset some if not all of the cost. > Would it make sense to offer them this “spare server available” service > with a monthly fee associated, or a one-time cost? Surely other IT shops > offer the same thing in some fashion.**** > > ** ** > > I did a proof-of-concept of this this weekend, I grabbed a client’s > SBS2011 backup and restored it to my own ITG server (has just 8GB RAM > through and SATA not SAS, so not enough oomph to run both SBS2011 and the > 2008R2 server that comes with Premium) and restored to it and it worked > beautifully.**** > > ** ** > > It’s possible of course that both clients could have an outage on the same > day, in which case I’d totally screwed in many ways, so not sure how to > handle not being able to deliver something they’ve been paying for, except > maybe a “if this service can’t be delivered then <something>” as they do > know that I am a one-man shop with a day job to boot.**** > > ** ** > > I may be overlooking some other options here as well, so I am open to > suggestions.**** > > *David Lum* > Sr. Systems Engineer // NWEATM > Office 503.548.5229 //* *Cell (voice/text) 503.267.9764**** > > ** ** > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin**** > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > --- > To manage subscriptions click here: > http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ > or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com > with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
