Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 26 to 50 of 51
  1. #26
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Sunny California
    Posts
    1,679
    Quote Originally Posted by linuxredux
    ...hardware platform which is capable of providing 4 hour onsite parts in every significant data hub in the country.
    Yes, and we can provide onsite parts in...oh, about 10 minutes...without wasting our time making phone calls. This is why I'm not interested in using Dell.
    Erica Douglass, Founder, Simpli Hosting, Inc.
    »»» I founded Simpli Hosting, and sold it in 2007 to Silicon Valley Web Hosting after over 6 years in the business.
    Now I'm blogging at erica.biz!

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Posts
    2,780
    Both Dell and Supermicro are nice. Their failure rate is rougly equal, but Dell does give our customer peace of mind. Also, the Dell hold their value much better than supermicro counterparts. Even if the supermicro are able to resell for about the same value, their liquidity is still much less. Nowadays, a 2 year old 1750 dual xeon still sells for 1K. When we brought it new from Dell, it was below 2K...
    http://Ethr.net jay@ethr.net
    West Coast AT&T / Level3 / Savvis Bandwidth, Colocation, Dedicated Server, Managed IP Service, Hardware Load Balancing Service, Transport Service, 365 Main St, SFO / 200 Paul Ave, SFO / PAIX, PAO / Market Post Tower, 55 S. Market, SJC / 11 Great Oaks, Equinix, SJC

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    North Kansas City, MO
    Posts
    2,694
    I would assume the reason for the "appliance" is due to the SNMP polling that has to take place. That's to resource intensive to be located off site in a remote enviroment. Much easier to offer it as a hardware solution that sits in the DC it's servicing.

    As for the Dell box. I'm all for it. It's much easier writing for a single platform, both hardware and software then trying to accomodate everyone's different preferences. If they fully support it, which they do, then it makes perfect sense and even gives me more confidence in the product knowing they're working on features and fixes for the product, not spending all their time on one customer's basterdized setup.

    Alot of the complaints and concernes seem to stem from people who don't run datacenters. Cabinets and cages in Equinix or Switch and Data don't count. At this point this product is geared towards customers that can take a crap on the floor next to a rack and not get in trouble. (The true test of DC ownership) Once this product is in release I'm sure they will develop a version for smaller operations that addresses issues like not being able to afford the hardware or having some personal gripe against Dell.

    Aaron
    Aaron Wendel
    Wholesale Internet, Inc. - http://www.wholesaleinternet.net
    Kansas City Internet eXchange - http://www.kcix.net

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Nov 2001
    Location
    London
    Posts
    4,931
    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron
    I would assume the reason for the "appliance" is due to the SNMP polling that has to take place. That's to resource intensive to be located off site in a remote enviroment. Much easier to offer it as a hardware solution that sits in the DC it's servicing.
    That is 100% correct. You still need seperate servers to host the Ubersmith database and portal itself.
    Matthew Russell | Namecheap
    Twitter: @mattdrussell

    www.easywp.com - True Managed WordPress, made easy

  5. #30
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron
    Alot of the complaints and concernes seem to stem from people who don't run datacenters. Cabinets and cages in Equinix or Switch and Data don't count. At this point this product is geared towards customers that can take a crap on the floor next to a rack and not get in trouble. (The true test of DC ownership) Once this product is in release I'm sure they will develop a version for smaller operations that addresses issues like not being able to afford the hardware or having some personal gripe against Dell.
    I don't actually expect that we will be seeing any sort of lesser version of Ubersmith DE. I also believe this product's sweet spot is the company who is operating 500-2000 server range, which is all very doable in someone else's data center in your own cage. At this level, you have significant issues with tracking, billing, monitoring, etc and Ubersmith DE is actually pretty affordable for what it offers. The company who has their own IDC is already likely to have significant, robust control and monitoring systems in place for everything from phsyical security, HVAC, UPS, genset, switches, routers, and servers.
    Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
    AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
    Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
    Current specials here. Check them out.

  6. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Simpli-Erica
    Yes, and we can provide onsite parts in...oh, about 10 minutes...without wasting our time making phone calls. This is why I'm not interested in using Dell.
    Anyone can keep spare parts lying around regardless of the server build. With all due respect I'm going to put my business critical applications on a Dell 6850 with Gold/TAM support services well before one of your supermicro servers assembled in the datacenter.
    Thomas Brenneke | Network Redux, LLC | http://www.networkredux.com
    • Proud sponsors of the SimpleMachines ImageMagick and AdiumX projects.

  7. #32
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    Quote Originally Posted by linuxredux
    Anyone can keep spare parts lying around regardless of the server build. With all due respect I'm going to put my business critical applications on a Dell 6850 with Gold/TAM support services well before one of your supermicro servers assembled in the datacenter.
    With all due respect, for the absurd prices one pays for Dell 6850 and Gold Support with TAM, you could purchase a completely functional hot spare to have online. But I understand, 4-6 hours of downtime is acceptable when you can blame Dell.

    Aside from all of that, it is patently disgusting that the list price on rails for the 6850 is $349. Talk about having blatant disrespect for your customers...
    Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
    AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
    Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
    Current specials here. Check them out.

  8. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Suds
    With all due respect, for the absurd prices one pays for Dell 6850 and Gold Support with TAM, you could purchase a completely functional hot spare to have online. But I understand, 4-6 hours of downtime is acceptable when you can blame Dell.

    Aside from all of that, it is patently disgusting that the list price on rails for the 6850 is $349. Talk about having blatant disrespect for your customers...
    It doesn't sound like you have any working experiencing with upper echelon dell servers, or gold support packages. Dell customers purchasing 6850 components are typically working through a premier page account and not the list prices on their site.

    Do you have any working familiarity with these systems and services, as well as how the premier page functions?
    Thomas Brenneke | Network Redux, LLC | http://www.networkredux.com
    • Proud sponsors of the SimpleMachines ImageMagick and AdiumX projects.

  9. #34
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    Quote Originally Posted by linuxredux
    It doesn't sound like you have any working experiencing with upper echelon dell servers, or gold support packages. Dell customers purchasing 6850 components are typically working through a premier page account and not the list prices on their site.

    Do you have any working familiarity with these systems and services, as well as how the premier page functions?
    I certaintly do. We have Dell account managers (a couple new ones a month, in fact), premier pricing, etc. At the end of the day, Dell is all about games and gimmicks. I can go to my hardware distributors and get consistent pricing on parts (with the exception of memory) 365 days a year. With Dell, we have to wonder what they are going to pull out of their hats on any given day/week/month. We have repeatedly asked them to provide us with a program where we get consistent, reasonable pricing on their products and they have refused. Thus, they get very few of our dollars.

    That being said, even with an account management team and premier access there still is a significant mark up on their higher end systems when compared to a build your own supermicro kit that is built using all off the shelf components. When you add in their gold support, etc ... the cost is really not even worth considering because we can build two for the price of one. Anything rack mount from Dell is roughly 20% more on the low end and up to 100% more on the high end after support + maintenance are factored in.

    Now, I hope you are you ready for some games and fun. Dell PowerEdge SC440. http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...c440-min&s=bsd. $499. The price on our premier page? $1086 for a system with LESS MEMORY.

    You want some more fun? Dell PowerEdge 6850. http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...6850sapp&s=bsd

    2x Xeon 7110M
    4GB RAM
    Active ID Bezel
    Rails
    73GB 10K SCSI
    Gold Support
    NO Open Manage
    NO Modem
    NO RAID Controller
    NO HBA Riser

    TOTAL PRICE RETAIL: $8497
    Dell Premier, same config: $10,348

    Why am I going to price out something 4 different ways with Dell (retail, premier, and then ask my rep for a quote, and then ask him for another quote after the first one comes back higher than both web site pricing), when I can get parts at reasonable, fair and consistent prices and have them at my door in 3 business days or less for at cost shipping??? Tell me, why should I do it the Dell way?
    Why should I waste hours a day/week to Dell with Dell, so I can pay more? Why should I wait hours for Dell to come fix my server, when I can build two systems for the price of one Dell system?
    Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
    AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
    Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
    Current specials here. Check them out.

  10. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Suds
    I certaintly do. We have Dell account managers (a couple new ones a month, in fact), premier pricing, etc. At the end of the day, Dell is all about games and gimmicks. I can go to my hardware distributors and get consistent pricing on parts (with the exception of memory) 365 days a year. With Dell, we have to wonder what they are going to pull out of their hats on any given day/week/month. We have repeatedly asked them to provide us with a program where we get consistent, reasonable pricing on their products and they have refused. Thus, they get very few of our dollars.

    That being said, even with an account management team and premier access there still is a significant mark up on their higher end systems when compared to a build your own supermicro kit that is built using all off the shelf components. When you add in their gold support, etc ... the cost is really not even worth considering because we can build two for the price of one. Anything rack mount from Dell is roughly 20% more on the low end and up to 100% more on the high end after support + maintenance are factored in.

    Now, I hope you are you ready for some games and fun. Dell PowerEdge SC440. http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...c440-min&s=bsd. $499. The price on our premier page? $1086 for a system with LESS MEMORY.

    You want some more fun? Dell PowerEdge 6850. http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...6850sapp&s=bsd

    2x Xeon 7110M
    4GB RAM
    Active ID Bezel
    Rails
    73GB 10K SCSI
    Gold Support
    NO Open Manage
    NO Modem
    NO RAID Controller
    NO HBA Riser

    TOTAL PRICE RETAIL: $8497
    Dell Premier, same config: $10,348

    Why am I going to price out something 4 different ways with Dell (retail, premier, and then ask my rep for a quote, and then ask him for another quote after the first one comes back higher than both web site pricing), when I can get parts at reasonable, fair and consistent prices and have them at my door in 3 business days or less for at cost shipping??? Tell me, why should I do it the Dell way?
    Why should I waste hours a day/week to Dell with Dell, so I can pay more? Why should I wait hours for Dell to come fix my server, when I can build two systems for the price of one Dell system?
    I don't want to ask this publicly so you could PM me the info, what's your yearly purchasing volume? This greatly impacts your premier page discounts as well as the cycles you will go through for new account reps.

    With that info I can better answer your questions.
    Thomas Brenneke | Network Redux, LLC | http://www.networkredux.com
    • Proud sponsors of the SimpleMachines ImageMagick and AdiumX projects.

  11. #36
    To give you an idea, pricing out an MD1000 came to ~12,000 -- $6,900 via premier page.

    I'm taking this to PM so we can discuss further details and perhaps help each other with info.

    Thanks for the discussion.
    Thomas Brenneke | Network Redux, LLC | http://www.networkredux.com
    • Proud sponsors of the SimpleMachines ImageMagick and AdiumX projects.

  12. #37
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    Quote Originally Posted by linuxredux
    To give you an idea, pricing out an MD1000 came to ~12,000 -- $6,900 via premier page.

    I'm taking this to PM so we can discuss further details and perhaps help each other with info.

    Thanks for the discussion.
    ~13,300 retail (we chose diff options, of course). 18,643.00 for the same config through Dell Premier. Oh, the joy of being a valued customer I have PM'd you as well.
    Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
    AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
    Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
    Current specials here. Check them out.

  13. #38
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    1,241
    Quote Originally Posted by Jay Suds
    ~13,300 retail (we chose diff options, of course). 18,643.00 for the same config through Dell Premier. Oh, the joy of being a valued customer I have PM'd you as well.
    … It sounds like the two of you are clearly on very different playing fields. Either: Thomas is lying (in an attempt to make himself or his business model look/feel better – which I doubt), Jay has a horrible Dell representative(s), or (as Thomas began to imply) Jay is simply purchasing less hardware from Dell on a yearly basis and thus does not receive the same lucrative pricing.

    There are providers that use exclusively Dell hardware, HP hardware, etc. and are receiving prices comparable to how much it might cost you to build a similar-spec SuperMicro server in addition to having Dell’s “support” behind the product. Whether or not you think the support is valuable or worthwhile is a whole different issue. With that being said, for the average company that isn’t purchasing servers/networking gear/etc. in large (relative) volumes, often a company like Dell simply will NOT be the cheapest/best solution and purchasing server parts from various online retailers and assembling a server yourself ends up being much cheaper.

    I know someone who works financing for Dell, and believe me - they are very willing to slash “list” prices to get your business if they think you could be a valuable client. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is how they do business, and it works for them.

    Now, which servers are actually designed better, use less power, etc.? That is always an interesting (and irrelevant) discussion/debate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Simpli-Erica
    Yes, and we can provide onsite parts in...oh, about 10 minutes...without wasting our time making phone calls. This is why I'm not interested in using Dell.
    It is worth noting that most (sensible) providers that are using exclusively Dell servers *also* happen to have onsite spare parts that can be used to replace faulty hardware in about 10 minutes. They also have the ability to have Dell send a spare to replace the spare within X hours.

    I have used SuperMicro servers and I am a tremendous fan of their quality - but going with a bigger "brand" such as Dell/HP/IBM can also be used from a marketing standpoint. Like it or not, most people have never heard of "SuperMicro", but unless you live under a rock it is hard not to have heard of "Dell". Often, people will automatically assume that Dell/HP servers and equipment are of a much higher quality. Call those people idiots, wrong, whatever - that's fine, but they're still potential customers. Maybe your business model does not target those customers, and in that case, it doesn't matter.

    There are clearly both advantages and disadvantages to using either Dell or building your own servers.

  14. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by Brendan Diaz
    … It sounds like the two of you are clearly on very different playing fields. Either: Thomas is lying (in an attempt to make himself or his business model look/feel better – which I doubt), Jay has a horrible Dell representative(s), or (as Thomas began to imply) Jay is simply purchasing less hardware from Dell on a yearly basis and thus does not receive the same lucrative pricing.
    It doesn't sound like we are in different playing fields per se, we just choose Dell as our primary brand in turn all of our server business goes to Dell. He's correct in that the premier page can be nonsensical when your rep hasn't updated it to reflect your current discount levels, I've seen better pricing on SMB than our premier page on more than one occasion, and it does piss me off to be "price shopping" with my direct vendor.

    Ultimately the argument towards list prices can't really be substantiated, I've never seen a customer, or directed a friend/colleague dell's way and had them pay list price for anything, and yes I realize "list" is merely a point of marketing and not necessarily a derivative of any meaningful value.

    We always have our eyes peeled with IBM/HP, however for now, purchasing in quantity and using the resources Dell provides from customer service to Silver/Gold support has proven to be working well for our organization.

    Thank you,
    Thomas Brenneke | Network Redux, LLC | http://www.networkredux.com
    • Proud sponsors of the SimpleMachines ImageMagick and AdiumX projects.

  15. #40
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Bay Area
    Posts
    1,211
    I stay loyal to RME .

  16. #41
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Sunny California
    Posts
    1,679
    Quote Originally Posted by WII-Aaron
    Alot of the complaints and concernes seem to stem from people who don't run datacenters. Cabinets and cages in Equinix or Switch and Data don't count.
    Huh? I don't believe Voxel has their own datacenter either -- http://www.voxel.net/network/ indicates that they do not, at least.

    Running your own datacenter is not cost-effective in a metro area like NYC (where Voxel is) or San Jose (where we are). Also, I haven't seen any literature from UberSmith to indicate that this is the specific market they are targeting. Like Jay said, most companies running their own datacenters already have systems in place to handle all of this (custom-built, from what I can tell of the datacenter owners I've talked to.)
    Erica Douglass, Founder, Simpli Hosting, Inc.
    »»» I founded Simpli Hosting, and sold it in 2007 to Silicon Valley Web Hosting after over 6 years in the business.
    Now I'm blogging at erica.biz!

  17. #42
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    4,618
    Quote Originally Posted by Simpli-Erica
    Huh? I don't believe Voxel has their own datacenter either -- http://www.voxel.net/network/ indicates that they do not, at least.
    Voxel actually does have their own datacenter at 150 Varick, labeled "Voxel CORE" in the network map. They also have points of presence at the large carrier hotels in the area.
    Scott Burns, President
    BQ Internet Corporation
    Remote Rsync and FTP backup solutions
    *** http://www.bqbackup.com/ ***

  18. #43
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    Sunny California
    Posts
    1,679
    Quote Originally Posted by bqinternet
    Voxel actually does have their own datacenter at 150 Varick, labeled "Voxel CORE" in the network map. They also have points of presence at the large carrier hotels in the area.
    That page indicates that it is a Looking Glass POP... I know Looking Glass will build into private datacenters... but who actually owns the facility?
    Erica Douglass, Founder, Simpli Hosting, Inc.
    »»» I founded Simpli Hosting, and sold it in 2007 to Silicon Valley Web Hosting after over 6 years in the business.
    Now I'm blogging at erica.biz!

  19. #44
    Join Date
    Feb 2002
    Location
    New York, NY
    Posts
    4,618
    Quote Originally Posted by Simpli-Erica
    That page indicates that it is a Looking Glass POP... I know Looking Glass will build into private datacenters... but who actually owns the facility?
    Looking Glass has a POP at 150 Varick, which is the same building the Voxel DC is in. Voxel has a full DC within the building with their own self-managed infrastructure (UPS, cooling, fiber conduits, etc.), and they gave me a tour a while back. As with the majority of NYC datacenters, the physical building that the floor is leased from may belong to someone else, possibly Looking Glass.

    In New York City, it is not uncommon for multiple independent DCs to co-exist within the same building. For example, 111 8th Ave. contains datacenters for Switch and Data, Level 3, Sprint, Google, and a number of other companies. The typical NYC datacenter is usually contained within a floor of suite of a building, usually with the rest of the building used for multi-tenant office space.
    Scott Burns, President
    BQ Internet Corporation
    Remote Rsync and FTP backup solutions
    *** http://www.bqbackup.com/ ***

  20. #45
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    385
    Quote Originally Posted by Simpli-Erica
    That page indicates that it is a Looking Glass POP... I know Looking Glass will build into private datacenters... but who actually owns the facility?
    We have a 5 year lease on our own 3KSQFT space within what used to be a Looking Glass core POP (now it is a Level(3) node since Looking Glass was acquired by Level(3)).

    We put a lot of work into the space, and have our own support systems that we purchased (such as UPS, CRAC units etc etc).

    Hope that clarifies things. Scott was pretty much spot on.
    Raj Dutt // CEO // Voxel dot Net Inc
    http://www.voxel.net // sales@voxel.net

  21. #46
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    5,525
    DE looks really sweet but I can't justify paying four times as much as I pay now for Pro just to get a few more features.

  22. #47
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    5,662
    Quote Originally Posted by IRCCo Jeff
    DE looks really sweet but I can't justify paying four times as much as I pay now for Pro just to get a few more features.

    Yeah, to say the least I was unimpressed with their pricing model and feature set. Instead we've decided to just extend the modernbill v4.x code base to meet all our needs.

  23. #48
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Denver, CO
    Posts
    3,302
    $1/mo/device is definitely costly. We actually have our own mashup between Ubersmith, Kayako and our own internal systems for asset management, ip tracking, etc. It works well enough...
    Jay Sudowski // Handy Networks LLC // Co-Founder & CTO
    AS30475 - Level(3), HE, Telia, XO and Cogent. Noction optimized network.
    Offering Dedicated Server and Colocation Hosting from our SSAE 16 SOC 2, Type 2 Certified Data Center.
    Current specials here. Check them out.

  24. #49
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Ashburn, VA
    Posts
    172
    You can always create a lot of the DE functionality on your own and integrate it using their API. We were able to add Remote Reboot, Bandwidth Graphs, etc. to our user interface without any problems...
    Alexander McMillen
    President and CEO - Sliqua Enterprise Hosting, Inc. - AS32740
    Serving up scale and service since 2002. Is your mission critical?
    1-877-4-SLIQUA - http://www.sliqua.com - http://www.isyourmissioncritical.com

  25. #50
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    Atlanta, GA
    Posts
    464

    After long looking

    At the DE product we went with FreeSide and adapted it for bandwidth graphs and billing. The integration was a little hard, but it is working great! We will have a howto up soon on how to do it.
    Linn Boyd

Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •