On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Simon Lyall <[email protected]> wrote:
> and then I can spend a few hours checking the models, working out which > support which hard drives. > > After which I'm still not sure if I'm picking the best combination > for my load and budget (which is not great). > > I was wondering what others do? Should I just work through the > requirements and explicitly list them to my sales guy with my "best guess" > as to what I need or is there a better route to go? When I have the time I like to examine all of the variations, but when that's not an option, l go to my favorite HP VAR sales rep and say something to the effect of: "I want a xU DL??? server with single/dual x CPU architecture, at least xGB RAM, redundant hot-swappable power supplies, x network interfaces at y speed, expansion for abc, and pdq hard drives that can be configured in mirrored RAID. It'll be running jkl operating system and mno applications, and needs to be able to connect to: <insert appropriate external devices that need to be directly connected>. Can you give me some recommendations and pricing on systems that will fit these requirements?" If clarification is needed I get a response that includes questions about what I want to do and what my future plans are. If not, I get a list of a few options, including caveats associated with each one. Sometimes I get an initial proposal, but an additional request for more info and sometimes I get back a response to the effect of, "For what you want to do, you probably want an x+yU DLyyy whatever because that will give you the ability to install xyz card for yadda purpose." In short, if you can build a relationship with a *good* VAR, it will save you time and effort. You don't have to stay completely up to date on the hardware technology and options because they're doing that as a full time job and you get a reasonable starting point from which to do your own research. Hope this helps, M _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
