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Spike productivity with a server boost

by Sara White

As businesses look for ways to improve productivity and increase efficiency as they face an exponential growth in data, there is good reason to make sure that the IT infrastructure is up to the task. As soon as a company has more than five computer users, it is time to consider investing in server technology.

A server is a system specifically designed to hold, manage, send and process data, allowing users to share files and databases. Servers manage files and printers, host an email server and secure the network. Servers have faster processor, more RAM memory and larger hard drives, as well as redundancy in power supplies, network connections and storage devices.

Planning for the future

When you are considering investing in a server, assess your hard disk space needs and your ongoing data requirements and plan for future expansion by investing in a server that allows you to add additional drives as needs change.

If you have five or more computer users on your network, a server should be considered as a key part of your intrastructure, providing a central location for files and shared applications. If you use Microsoft Exchange or another email server, a firewall or run a website, you will need a server.

It is important to consider what software applications you use and their specific system requirements such as processor speed, memory allocation and hard disk space. Don't forget to check out the type of server management tools available to monitor server usage and capacity.

"SMBs want to deploy server resources in a short period of time and are looking for infrastructure which can be adapted easily," said Peter Mansell, HP "One of the things to do is to take a long-term view of where the business will be in four or five years - you need to ask whether the vendor will be able to support your company moving forward? From a server support perspective, there are plenty of options for customers to maintain servers on-site and there is a lot of server architecture which can be remotely managed," said HP server business development manager Peter Mansell. "From a budget point of view, entry-level boxes start at a £200 price point. It is the job of the channel to work with customers to create the right configuration for their particular business.

"In spite of the reduction in budgets, it has become even more important for customers to make server infrastructure as effective as possible, allowing SMBs to be more responsive to change in a short period of time," he added. "SMBs want to be able to deploy server resources in a short period of time and are looking for an infrastructure which can be adapted easily and management tools which enable people to deploy systems quickly."

Look at what services vendors offer such as pre-sales consulting and server virtualisation assessments, deployment assistance and the level of ongoing support and training.  For example, Dell Managed Services for Small Business is designed for customers that need a lot of high touch IT with management from Dell, including server patching and on-site support.

Servers: what they do

• Reconfigure and update hardware and software
• Allow users to exchange files and data
• Advanced backup facilities for regular and frequent online backups of critical data
• Enable transparent data transfer between different volumes or devices
• Flexible and advanced networking capabilities
• Tight system security with advanced user, resource, data and memory protection

Server selection

The market is split into three segments, tower, rack and blade servers. 

Server types

Tower: suitable for small, remote or branch office environments and offer flexibility and all-inclusive server/storage solutions

Rack: used in data centres and with external storage. They offer maximum computer power in a space-saving design

Blade: suitable for data centres with maximum computer power designed to minimise space, power and cooling requirements

"From the technical point of view, there are a number of server choices. First among those is the form factor of the server," said Dell EMEA product business manager servers Hugh Jenkins.

"The key ones on the market are tower or pedestal form factors. In years gone by these have been strongly associated with SMBs and were initially the area where manufacturers were offering the most aggressively priced products.

"The most popular form factor is rack-mounted - the package is a much smaller unit but it offers enough expandability in terms of memory and storage expansion. Standardisation, price competition and price to value in the x86 server market have made technology that was only available to corporates now available to SMBs. They can buy the same kind of technology and get best in class servers.

"Companies can start off running a small scale application - this class of platform is built with a reasonable amount of expandability. By adding multi core processor technology, at the top end you can have up to eight of these processors within a single server."

Processing power

The latest servers to come to market are powered by Intel's new Xeon 5500 series processors, previously codenamed Nehalem-EP. These offer exponentially faster processing power and effectively can replace up to eight existing servers, providing significant financial and energy savings. The new enterprise-class chips can automatically adjust to specified energy usage levels, and speed data center transactions and customer database queries.

"If people are refreshing servers, they can get the return on investment back in eight months. They can achieve incredible performance and greater efficiencies," said Richard Curran, Intel

Intel director, digital enterprise group, Richard Curran said: "With the Nehalem processors you are going to see an incredible uplift in performance. We are in tough times and customers are split between those customers who have no money to spend but can identify with savings, and others who need to spend but are looking very closely at budgets.

"For SMBs who want to invest in servers, we need to look at how we can help them understand that they can become more efficient and make savings," he added. "If people are refreshing servers, they can get the return on investment back in eight months. By investing in the technology they can achieve incredible performance capabilities and greater efficiencies."

Based on the new Intel processors, Dell's 11th Generation PowerEdge servers are designed to help businesses become more efficient throughout the IT lifecycle. "We are focusing on taking the cost out of servers and storage, not just the acquisition cost but the running costs," said Dell VP software solutions, Rick Becker. "For every dollar of acquisition costs, there is $8 of costs associated with products and service."

Arguably, an existing infrastructure of 10 older servers could be replaced with two or three of the latest Dell servers, reducing maintenance costs, warranties and licensing costs. There are not only the savings in upfront costs either. As more and more companies are grappling with soaring power costs, the benefits of lower power consumption are worth considering. Up to 30% of SMBs' power bills can be related to IT infrastructure so energy saving and power consumption reductions can be a real boost to the bottom line.

One of the challenges for any server administrator is systems management. Addressing this issue, the latest Dell Management Console (DMC) is an open standards based software solution powered by Altiris from Symantec, which unifies systems management and monitoring for Dell servers, storage, clients and third party vendor hardware through a single browser window. "DMC is an open platform using web-based services; users will be able manage assets from a single console so there are less things to license and servers can be configured online," added Becker.

"DMC will be extended across all storage and server lines. This infrastructure gives SMBs the right tool set. IT is going to a strategic level; SMBs are concerned about what they can do to make themselves more competitive," said Dell director, advanced systems group SMB, Aamir Paul.

Buying advice

Before you invest or upgrade your servers, there are a number of issues to consider: Here HP provides a checklist for SMB buyers:

How many employees do you have?

What software do you need for the number of staff you have?

How fast does the server need to process data (CPU speed)?

How many processors do you need?

How much memory (RAM) do you need?

How much hard disk space does data require, now and in the future?

What kind of hard disk controller (SATA, SCSI or SAS) do you need?

Do you want a rack mount server or a tower?

Do you plan to attach additional backup and storage drives such as tape to the system?

What level of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) do you want to support?

What kind of server management tools do you need?

What level of maintenance and support do you need?

Competitive market

With increasing competition for customers and the growth in affordable open source server appliances, Microsoft has responded with the launch of an entry-level server system for small businesses, Windows Server 2008 Foundation. Built for small businesses with 15 or fewer users, it will allow small companies to run business applications and databases, host web sites and provide basic server functionality such as file and print sharing, and remote access.

Windows Server 2008 Foundation will be sold preinstalled on servers like the Dell PowerEdge and HP ProLiant series, aimed at small business users. The first products featuring the new operating system will be available this summer with prices starting at $1000 (£680).

"By offering Windows Server 2008 Foundation preinstalled on Dell PowerEdge servers, customers will have access to cost-effective IT resources, free training and ongoing updates to help them run their businesses more efficiently," said Dell PowerEdge Platform Marketing director Sally Stevens.

As the business grows, customers will be able to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Small Business Server, for example, which provides additional functionality such as integrated email, simplified management, virtualization and other advanced features.

"Microsoft is filling a crucial hole at the low end of its Windows Server portfolio by delivering a simple, low-cost solution geared for small businesses and first-time server users," said IDC program vice president, Al Gillen. "Windows Server 2008 Foundation really rounds out Microsoft's server platform and provides a solution for a key market segment."

While the big names in servers are HP, Dell and IBM, not to mention new blade server entrant Cisco, there are signs that businesses, in the search for value for money, are looking for alternatives to the big name solutions.

Take Bigred, for example, which targets SMBs with its bigredbox server solution offering cost savings based on an open source, licence-free model. It is a pre-configured server appliance pitched as an alternative to Microsoft Small Business server or any Microsoft Server with Exchange. It is built to work transparently with existing servers and provide services like Active Directory and Exchange, either replacing or complimenting traditional servers, without user licenses. Support and maintenance includes security alerts, software updates and technical support.  

Bigred commercial director Neil Barnett said: "Bigred has been rolled out by customers across a range of markets including education. Its simple approach of plug and play enables end users to install a solution that will not be high maintenance; it works straight out of the box.  Most importantly, they can also enjoy very healthy cost savings."  

Virtualisation

One of the big issues gaining traction is server virtualisation, which allows organisations to consolidate their server platform with virtual servers and offers compelling total cost of ownership (TCO) arguments.

"Even in the tough times we are in at the moment, customers are still pushing ahead with virtualisation projects, consolidating the number of servers and at the same time consolidating applications and storage," said Jenkins. "In the current climate people are reining in investment and discretionary spend on IT is on ice, but customers are able to establish a business payback in eight or nine months on virtual projects.

"Once applications are virtualised, the cost of rolling out new applications and upgrades is cut and this saves on ongoing capital costs and helps organisations to manage their environments. The uptake of virtualisation has been very strong in the UK, even in medium sized businesses.

"Where there are 20 servers, for example, they can virtualise applications on two or three servers. Where companies are ecommerce based, it is very quick to deploy a new virtual server. There are operational benefits and capital cost savings."

Financing

With budgets squeezed, vendors are seeing increasing demand for leasing finance and are offering some very favourable terms for server acquisition with a number of 0% financing deals from both HP and Dell.

Mansell said:  "HP has leasing offers on servers and we have seen an acceleration in leasing as opposed to purchasing outright. There is a 0% finance leasing option over three years, for example."

Server vendors: contact file

Dell

HP

IBM

Microsoft Windows Foundation Server

Bigred

With pressure on companies to rein in budgets, the value argument has to play hard when it comes to any investment, but the latest systems illustrate how the latest technology can save money and reduce power consumption over a short payback period.