Cheaper alternative to Azure

[freedomit]

A client has an RDS and SQL server on Azure supporting around 60 concurrent users and are paying around £3.5k per month for it. They have asked me to look into an alternative cheaper option for them as the monthly costs are so large. The best solution i can currently think of is a very high spec HPE Server hosted in a data center and then replicated to Azure Site Recovery. Its not something ive ever done before but from an hours research it all seems possible.

Has anyone got experience with Azure Site Recovery? Anything to be wary of? Does anyone recommend a UK data center that rents supported rack space? Any advice welcome...

 

[freedomit]

Ok so this is progressing and the client has accepted a rough quotation, the next stage is to produce a detailed quote but its being up more questions.

The plan is to put a HP DL180 G9 Server (2xXeon,256GB Ram, 16x1.2TB HDD, 24x7) into a local data cent re, and use both cloud backup and Azure Site Recovery for DR. The Server will be used by around 120-150 users and they have

A few questions i have...

1) What virtual servers would you run? I was thinking the following...
VM1 - Domain Controller
VM2- SQL Server & File Data
VM3 - RDS
VM4 - RDS - used for load balancing and testing

2) Does the Server hardware spec seem ok? Would i be better swapping the server hard drives for a smaller number of SSD's and a rack mount NAS for cold data?

2) What should I charge for 2nd line support? I normally base support on number of Servers & computers, but this is 5 Servers (1physical, 4 virtual), no computers and 120 users. How do you normally quote for support on RDS Servers?

Any help or advice appreciated...

 

[seedubya]

I'd be interested to know what the colo is costing you.

As for support. You need a value based approach rather than a cost per item. The infrastructure that you're supporting is essential to the running of their business and a 120 user business is minimum €6k a week in wages probably significantly more, so your bill will just be small change. You're charging them to keep their business running all day every day and to ensure that, if the worst does happen, they can recover in the shortest time possible. I'd probably charge something like €2K AYCE per month with 15 minute response time, guaranteed resolution times, maintenance and adds\moves\changes (not physical obvs). Really it shouldn't take more than a day per month

I hope that you're selling the Azure stuff to them as well. You should be buying that through CSP and making some recurring revenue on it. I

 

[freedomit]

I'd be interested to know what the colo is costing you.

I used the below website for my rough quote and budgeted for £150 a month but im now looking into companies more local...

https://www.host-it.co.uk/hosting_dedicated/customer_supplied.asp

As for support. You need a value based approach rather than a cost per item. The infrastructure that you're supporting is essential to the running of their business and a 120 user business is minimum €6k a week in wages probably significantly more, so your bill will just be small change. You're charging them to keep their business running all day every day and to ensure that, if the worst does happen, they can recover in the shortest time possible. I'd probably charge something like €2K AYCE per month with 15 minute response time, guaranteed resolution times, maintenance and adds\moves\changes (not physical obvs). Really it shouldn't take more than a day per month

Thanks for your input on this...£2k seems like alot to me, our normal charge is £50 a server so 5 x £50 = £250 and then maybe £2 a user so £500 a month in total. With the data center, Azure and Cloud Backup it would put everything at about £1,000 a month

I hope that you're selling the Azure stuff to them as well. You should be buying that through CSP and making some recurring revenue on it.

At the moment we only do consultancy work for them and they actually already had there Azure in place so unfortunately not. To be honest the Azure Site Recovery is only £100 a month anyway so not much to be made from it.

 

[Mike_IRE]

Hi Freedomit,

Might be a little late replying to this. All id say is be very careful with price you charge for supporting this. I have quite a lot of experience hosting system like this using RDS and Citrix for customers.

If your providing first level support it can become a nightmare.

In terms of your VM set up you don't appear to have much redundancy built in. If i were hosting this I wouldn't want to leave myself open to any single points of failure. For the RDS Server spec I'd advise looking at the work load on the users PC's to give you guidance on the spec of server you need.

Thanks
Mike