Another server question

[Big Jim]

Revisiting this now.

What would you spec for this customer?
5/6 office workers,
Server is used to run sage and active directory (including user account folder redirection)

I have setup network shares but they don't really use them, the 2 most important people in the office (in terms of work not hierarchy) use the same windows user account (I can't get them to change this behaviour) and so just save everything in my documents and share that way.

I'm trying to get the server under £2k if poss as I know their budget isn't great.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm trying to get the server under £2k if poss as I know their budget isn't great.

I don't do a server below 5k (US)....plus labor. I can't grasp doing it all for 2k.
Sage, like most accounting software, is heavy. Clients we had on Sage would have a dedicated server just for Sage...in addition to an infrastructure server for AD/etc...including folder redirection.

But if I were faced with this now, I'd M365BP them and do "Hosted Sage".

 

[Big Jim]

I don't do a server below 5k (US)....plus labor. I can't grasp doing it all for 2k.
Sage, like most accounting software, is heavy. Clients we had on Sage would have a dedicated server just for Sage...in addition to an infrastructure server for AD/etc...including folder redirection.

But if I were faced with this now, I'd M365BP them and do "Hosted Sage".

There will be labour cost on top of the server.
They will be gauging this upgrade vs the current one which i believe cost in the region of £1000 - £1500
Sage runs absolutely fine on the system they have so my thinking was that if spec it higher than that then we are good to go.

Just been plumbing some specs into Dells site and come up with this

£2106 (inc VAT)
Poweredge T150
Xeon E-2336
16GB 3200 ECC
RAID 1
2 x 4TB SATA drives
Windows Server 2022 Essentials

that is cost to me, I don't think I am big enough to get any further discount from Dell, but it won't hurt to try, customer may opt for finance if I suggest that as an option, so I'll probably just charge 2 hours labour to sit and configure it with them

 

[Markverhyden]

Is leasing a thing across the pond? Maybe look into that.

 

[Big Jim]

Is leasing a thing across the pond? Maybe look into that.

not sure about leasing, but they can certainly finance it.

How does the spec above look to you guys ?

Also, contacted Dell yesterday, they are useless!! Asked them simply to provide the best price possible (as they have previously contacted me and asked me to contact them directly for any future purchases) I was told they would email me back with a price within an hour, 24 hours later I get a phonecall asking for the details of who I was reselling it to as they wanted to invoice it directly to them, I asked how I was supposed to make my margin on it if they invoiced directly, the guy put me on hold for about 10/15 minutes then came back and said he would call me back, which hasn't happened.

 

[Markverhyden]

not sure about leasing, but they can certainly finance it.

How does the spec above look to you guys ?

Also, contacted Dell yesterday, they are useless!! Asked them simply to provide the best price possible (as they have previously contacted me and asked me to contact them directly for any future purchases) I was told they would email me back with a price within an hour, 24 hours later I get a phonecall asking for the details of who I was reselling it to as they wanted to invoice it directly to them, I asked how I was supposed to make my margin on it if they invoiced directly, the guy put me on hold for about 10/15 minutes then came back and said he would call me back, which hasn't happened.

Specs look fine. But the RAM is a little low for me. I'd rather have 32gb. I'm guessing you plan on mirroring the drives?

I'm not surprised by their response. Those are sales people you were talking so thats all they care about. Years ago I looked at trying to get lined up directly with HP to be an ASP for printers and servers. They wanted something like 25k USD in sales every quarter. Obviously nothing happened there. Everyone has their own business model. In my case I charge customers to spec out a system, typically 1-2 hours, and then the setup, including migration if needed. The labor is usually a good bit more than the hardware cost(s)

 

[Big Jim]

Specs look fine. But the RAM is a little low for me. I'd rather have 32gb. I'm guessing you plan on mirroring the drives?

I'm not surprised by their response. Those are sales people you were talking so thats all they care about. Years ago I looked at trying to get lined up directly with HP to be an ASP for printers and servers. They wanted something like 25k USD in sales every quarter. Obviously nothing happened there. Everyone has their own business model. In my case I charge customers to spec out a system, typically 1-2 hours, and then the setup, including migration if needed. The labor is usually a good bit more than the hardware cost(s)

Thanks for this Mark.

Current server is on 8GB so I assumed 16 would do the job, I can easily change it to 32 though.
Drives will be mirrored yes.
It will likely run bare metal with it being essentials, so won't have multiple VMs to deal with.
I also need to improve their backup regimen, not happy with the one they currently have in place.
any recommendations for this ?
In terms of sourcing, it is looking increasingly like charging a couple of hours for spec/sourcing is the route I will have to take as well.