@rtfm said in ESXi cluster, advice needed:

BTW your comment about how "system integrators" try to sell bare metal and certifications instead of brains was more than appropriate!

It's where all the money is. As a consultancy... I can sell you a full IT department for a year. But I have to pay those people and my profits are small, but they can provide you with a wealth of work, advice, etc. building, maintaining, and supporting whatever you need.

But for the same money, I could just sell you a product that you don't need, that sounds good but doesn't do a good job for you, and earn easily triple the profits because I don't need to pay staff.

So the challenge is, if I resell those products, how do I make myself "do the right thing" when the customer is literally paying me only if I screw them over? The customer effectively demands, through how they pay and choose solutions, to only get the bad solutions. As a company, it's all but impossible to resist selling the product because the customer never knows the difference, and you earn so much more money as a salesperson than in provided sound IT. That's why companies like NTG and Bundy Associates simply don't sell any product at all, so that that incentive to do so isn't there at all. Because if it was, it's all but irresistable.