September Bits-N-Bytes

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Why Buy Name Brand Servers?
By Leo Bletnitsky

Many computer resellers recommend that their clients buy the clone computers and servers that the reseller builds. They sight higher specs and maybe a couple hundred dollars less in price. It may seem like a great way to save some money, but we highly recommend against it.

At Desktop Valet we always recommend that our clients go with a name brand (IBM, HP, Lenovo, Dell) for their computing infrastructure for one main reason. Support!

No matter how good your consultants or resellers are, they can't offer the kind of 24/7 hardware support that the big guys can. Additionally, since the big guys sell hundreds of thousands of system and servers, they will most likely have encountered your problem previously and can help you faster.

Over this holiday weekend I have a perfect example of the kind of support I am writing about. Our monitoring system reported that a clients primary database server had gone down late Sunday. Lucky me, it was my turn to be on call over the holiday, I drove across town to see what had happened. After spending some time diagnosing the problem and getting no where, I call IBM support.

The english speaking engineer asked for the server's model number and serial number, and after checking its availability for support proceeded to assist with diagnosing the problem. We determined that a controller on the motherboard had failed, and the only way to fix the problem was to replace the board. However according to IBM's records, there was no board available for this particular server for at least 200 miles.

Here's the solution that IBM chose to take for this two and a half year old server. They flew the part in the same night, couriered it to my house at 6am, and the IBM technician will be at the server site to install it at 9am Tuesday morning. While there will probably be one or two hours of downtime, our client will not loose one or more business days of productivity.

The alternative could have been that there was no monitoring system in place to report a failure over the holiday, the consultant that came onsite around 10am to look at the clone server, built by an out of business reseller, would daignose the problem in a few hours and then realize he needed to order a replacement board. Due ot the age of the server, the board would have been discontinued and a new board would have been ordered that should work. Down time would be measured in days and not hours.

What is this kind of service worth? Are the big guys great at everything? Absolutely not! They can't provide the personalized service and support that you need and get from Desktop Valet and your inhouse IT department, but when it comes to supporting the products they sell, its a no brainer.

Just to set a few things straight, if you want to purchase clone desktop PC's, we really don't care too much. If a PC fails, only one person is effected, and most companies can wait a few days for one computer. Also, PC support is not as fast and comprehensive as server support, and if you buy a name brand PC from a superstore, you'll be calling India for support, so stick with business class computers from Business Resellers.

Happy computing!

Leo Bletnitsky has been in the IT Consulting and Management business for over 12 years and is CEO/President of Desktop Valet and LBA Networking, Inc.
Leo can be reached at Leob@DesktopValet.com or 702-553-3200 x101.