Where Would You Outsource Your Datacenter? 67
An anonymous reader asks: "I want to outsource everything in our rackspace to reputable online providers. After wasting valuable time every day on mundane problems and upgrades, I'm convinced it's cheaper to pay monthly than maintain our hardware and staff time. So I ask you, Slashdot: who would you turn to for reliable and secure outsourcing of a VPN server, Exchange server, online backup, and webserver hosting?"
bad idea. (Score:2)
Re:if i had a really lot of money .. (Score:1)
Re:if i had a really lot of money .. (Score:1)
Linkage. (Score:4, Informative)
Ask there if you want to get advice from a multitude of people who deal with those decision on a daily basis.
(No, not affiliated w/WHT or EV1).
Re:Linkage. (Score:2)
Re:Linkage. (Score:2)
Re:Linkage. (Score:1)
Great Starting Place, but (Score:2)
Use this as a starting point and then jump off into research based upon what you find here.
It appears you are not looking
Verily thou shalt pay out the ass (Score:5, Funny)
I have no joke here, I just like saying "reliable and secure Exchange server".
Re:Verily thou shalt pay out the ass (Score:1)
Lotus Notes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
EricMake Easy Money with Google [memwg.com] (new book for non-techies)
Re:Verily thou shalt pay out the ass (Score:2)
Re:Verily thou shalt pay out the ass (Score:1)
Re:Verily thou shalt pay out the ass (Score:2)
You are asking the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
If you value your data, keep it internal and outsource the support to a solution provider like EDS, IBM, or any of those big firms. They will provide the expertese necessary to supply and maintain the hardware and software for you so you can concentrate on your core business.
It won't be cheaper, but you will be able to easily quantify the yearly I/T costs which will make the accountants happy, and you will be able to pull the necessary funds from a different piggy bank, keeping your payroll low.
...and you are givign the wrong answer (Score:5, Insightful)
The lesson I learned was that those tricks you use to make your accountants happy and keep your payroll low are short-sighted and ill-concieved. You should be managing the IT budget to make itemized accounting anyhow, and keeping your payroll low just off-sets the true cost of IT, which, until the software stops having bugs, the malicious code stops beign written by human beings, and active intrusion stops originating in people, will remain a something that ranges from just above menial thinking to substantial serious talent. You just can't have enough brains when running enterprise IT.
If your company can turn off the LAN and still turn profits, then they shouldn't even have an IT shop, but if that isn't the case, your company needs to look at IT as an essential horizontal business unit that sits at the table for every strategic discussion, not a cost center where savings can be made by cutting labor.
Re:...and you are givign the wrong answer (Score:5, Interesting)
My company did just that and they were stupid enough to sign a contract that doesn't include any service level agreements, just blank statements of the type that company such-and-such will provide this and this and that. When? Nobody knows - as long as they do it on the last day of contract (2 years) they're good.
What did we get? Hosted email server that is down several times a week, unstable VPN, 30 something servers still waiting replacement, lack of central backup facility, more promises and IT dept decreased to 2 people treated like shit (1 of which is me).
New GM seems to have brains, so he's started pressing very hard and looks like he's going to manage to get out of contract. Once he does that, IT dept. will shrink further because the day the contract is terminated and IT services brought back in house I shall resign with great satisfaction of being right from the beginning and the opportunity to rub few big noses.
So, my advice to Ask /. inquiry is DO NOT DO IT! Find couple of people who are competent and who care - you'll be surprised how much good work and cost saving can be made by just two guys like that.
Re:...and you are givign the wrong answer (Score:2)
How much are you paying now? (Score:2)
Stop being so anti-American (Score:1, Funny)
- hiring an under-represented minority to do the job for you even when the skill set is clearly not there
- providing all the medical and dental benefits to aforementioned worker
- providing excellent vacation hours and ability to celebrate racial/ethnic holidays
- aspire to pay top dollar to keep the jobs in the US
From what I read on Slashdot, this should bring booming su
Re:Stop being so anti-American (Score:2)
Where would you outsource your management? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a similar problem. I'm in charge of an IT department that runs a VPN server, Exchange server, online backup, and webserver hosting. After wasting our time with a management staff that doesn't want to adequately staff our department, we've decided to outsource them. Where would go to outsource your management?
Re:Where would you outsource your management? (Score:1)
Re:Where would you outsource your management? (Score:2)
http://nitix.com/ [nitix.com]
Why is parent moderated +Funny? It's true (Score:1, Interesting)
Then after a bit of growth, things rapidly turn a lot worse, because management starts to think that it's they who are providing the company's value, and that the techies are just labor.
Long before that happens, the admin and all
Totality (Score:3, Informative)
savvis (Score:1)
Check them out [savvis.net]
You'll need a job soon (Score:2)
My advice (Score:3, Informative)
My advice is to continue managing your own hardware. Having my own rack hardware in my property and my own dedicated Internet fat pipes, while being able to modify and hack the systems in any way I want is my dream. True, I'm a nerd, but I can't imagine anyone not enjoying changing some RAM or a SCSI hard disk occasionally. It may mean you may have more downtime and maybe even lose some money if your servers support your business, but money isn't everything in this world, there is happiness too, and I personally love to delve deep into hardware.
But because I'm not a yuppie I do not own my own servers, dataroom, and fat pipe. Therefore, when I wanted to start my website, I had to buy the services of a webhosting firm.
I chose WestHost [wikinerds.org] (the link leads to my affiliate page for them, their website is www.westhost.com) which is based in Utah, USA. I have my website hosted there for a year and I really like their immediate support. When you send them an e-mail you can usually except an answer within hours. The services they offer are VPS and dedicated servers, all with ssh access of course, but I am not sure whether they do colocation. It's not a big firm, I think it's family-owned, but they have a beautiful professional datacenter (they have photos somewhere on their site) with P4-3GHz servers with Redhat-based OS (equiped with a nice control panel they have developed) and a very useful forum [westhost.com] where existing customers and prospective new customers can discuss, so perhaps you can go there and ask us (the existing customers) about our experiences with them.
Therefore if I was in your shoes, I would first reconsider and try to continue managing my own hardware, and if I could not, then I would ask WestHost whether they can help you.
Re:My advice (Score:3, Funny)
True, I'm an anatomy geek, but I can't imagine anyone not enjoying a self-performed heart bypass or defibrillation. It may seem like you are on the brink of death and maybe ev
themaninthemirror.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Since you put it that way: I'd turn it over to no one but myself. Every time I've tried "outsourcing" some component of my online presence (web hosting, DNS, e-mail account), I've come to regret it. I'd rather pull what's left of my hair out fixing something myself than put up with someone else's incompetence. Your Mileage May Vary, but I've found the minuses outweigh the plusses.
Somebody in town... (Score:2)
Putting the cart before the horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the situation I think you want avoid:
Company: keeping vending machines stocked and maintained is a pain in the butt and it costs us $5000 a month.
I know there are companies that provide this service for $2500.
Concusion : Let's oursource!
Gather requirements, ask for bids to do soda and candy machines.
Best bid $6000 a month. Ooops - the $2500 we knew about was only for Soda.
You have to have your requirements together to get bids to make the initial decision to outsource.
Not to this guy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not to this guy... (Score:1)
I use EV1 but thats not what you want (Score:2, Interesting)
What you need is to outsource all of the day-to-day grunt work. My other company could do email for you but we don't do webservers.
Have you considered splitting it up?
You need to dump Exchange. its the most horrible, time-consuming, labour-intensive and expensive email system possible.
If you must stick with Windows (horrible server OS), "Rackspace.com" does Windows and I've never heard any complaints about them. They aren't cheap, but they
Beware the False Economy (Score:3, Insightful)
At a POPE, one of my Major Projects was bringing inhouse all of our datacenter operations that we had been paying (dearly) for outsourcing.
The reason is simple: Nobody cares as much about your business as you do. Any outsourcing or insourcing vendor you choose is going to maximize their profits by providing cookie-cutter solutions, and hiring worst-in-breed talent to maintain them.
Unless your needs are truly mundane, you are better of swallowing the bitter pill, and using all of the experience you have already paid for to keep the systems going yourselves.
Re:Beware the False Economy (Score:2, Insightful)
"Worst in Breed"?
That may be true of a backyard operation, but any business that wants to keep its customers doesn't hire dorks.
Some businesses will do this, of course, but you shouldn't outsorce to them without checking that they know what they are talking about.
Remember also, that you only sign a contract that you agree to. You can get lots of interesting things into a contract, such as performance guarantees.
If they won't agree to a reasonable performance guarantee, t
Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Analyze value of vpn. Is there really a need to connect just like you are in the building? If no, eliminate.
3) Engage managed services firm to handle your application servers. Put them in another NOC only if you have bandwidth to have decent quality of service.
4) Web hosting depends on the size of the site. Most sites can easily be handled by shared hosting like this example [incredible...ngdeal.com]. If you need a server, you can get decent linux boxes for $129/mo or less and windows boxes for about $20 more per month. I'm always amazed when I see someone host a website in house when you can host somewhere else for exponentially less money.
Re:Solution (Score:2)
I wrote a system for our customers to use the Internet to request a support call. I had to link it to our phone call tracking program. What I did was to have just that one page hosted on a server in house with the majority of the website at a hosting firm.
Re: (Score:2)
InfoStructure (Score:1)
Let me be serious for a moment (Score:3, Insightful)
I've already given the fatuous response, so let me go back and try a serious one.
Think about this statement for a minute. The costs you are identifying are hardware and software maintenance. Well, those aren't the costs you save by outsourcing your data center.
Outsourcing is about saving head count, and not needing expertise. Unless your hardware is way over capacity, there's probably no money to be saved there; so all you're hoping to do is save on hardware and software support costs. Well, there might be some savings there, but there's not a huge economy of scale, and remember that hosting companies are in business to make a profit. So, will the economy of scale of shared support offset the profit margin? I'd be doubtful.
Maybe what you ought to do is ask yourself WHY your support costs are so high. Start reducing some of those costs, don't just hide them in some third party contract. I've already pointed out one big cost in my other posting--Exchange servers. Depending on the size of your organization, it might be possible to keep the Exchange client, drop the Exchange server, drop in a replacement server, and consolidate half a dozen crashy Windows boxes into one reliable Linux server.
Re:Let me be serious for a moment (Score:2)
The real question isn't what the costs are but what will we save; if IT budget is direct plus indirect costs, outsourcing will just shift a bunch of over-head around which will dilute any expected savings. Moving the severs out of the data-center won't necessarily repurpose the data-center to something more useful like production space.
Great provider in Dallas (Score:1)
Call the Planet (Score:2)
http://www.theplanet.com/ [theplanet.com]
Call 1-800-377-6103 and Ask for Enterprise Sales
Also to those who say drop Exchange, what would recommend in place of it? Lotus blows (the client does anyways) so that leaves groupwise in the Groupware product market. I've yet to find a decent GPL groupware product that has a client on Windows that isn't some plugin for exchange.
Next Door Neighbors (Score:2)
Re:Next Door Neighbors (Score:2)
Re:Next Door Neighbors (Score:2)
You could outsource your rackspace to... Rackspace (Score:2)
Rackspace [rackspace.com] is expensive but they've never let me down. And it's the only place I know where you can call their toll-free number at 3am and the first person who picks up the phone can have an intelligent conversation with you about FreeBSD kernel tuning.
In five years there's never been any unexpected downtime or network problems, and scheduled downtime has been measured in minutes per year. In the one case where one of the drives in one of our servers failed, they worked hard to get it taken care of ASAP.
Perspective of an outsourcing provider (Score:1)
If a local admin is personally responsible for the operation of an email system at a non-IT company, if it's down for an extended time, it's time to update the resume. In other words, email is perceived to be worth a $75K job to someone, and hopefully the admin provides $75K of value to the company. Also during an outage the admin's e