Posts made by Shuey

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey what hypervisors do you use?

ESXi 6

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey what is your status on having potentially enough power for this? Is that a major issue, or the 10U rack space? I'm assuming that you have the capacity to physically plug it in?

Do you have any older gear that could be used to build a SAM-SD? By doing that maybe you could make this into a lab or testing environment or secondary production (treat it as a separate machine in the cluster) and provide storage in that way? That would make for a good learning project on the storage side.

Nope - We'd have to buy new equipment in order to be able to throw storage at this thing :-/...

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Jimmy9008 said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

Can you ask HPE if you can remove the kit list and just pick out your own that totals $60k? If its not useful to you, then what is the point.

My understanding is that the parts list was listed ahead of time, not a surprise. So, in theory, only people for whom a blade center with some blades in it was useful would have entered. While I'm no fan of blades, @PSX_Defector is right that lots of shops use them and would like more of them. There are people for whom this would fit their business use case and they would like to win it. The issue here, I think, is that the winner turned out to be someone for whom it did not apply and now that we are examining it, it's not useful to him.

Yep, I was ignorant of what I was signing up for. I just saw $60,000 worth of free stuff from HP and thought "Oh snap, that'd be awesome to win that!". If I had done my research and really looked at the equipment ahead of time, I would've realized that it wasn't a good fit for us

Not to mention the fact that the enclosure is a 10U!

@NetworkNerd said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I remember reading something upon entering that contest that you had to be prepared to be filmed by HPE's media team on premise at your company if you won. Hopefully management is fine with that? And could you then (if you wanted to) still get rid of the equipment after being a part of the promotional HPE video?

I don't think management would have any issues at all being filmed. As far as getting rid of the equipment after being part of the video, based on the contest terms, it sounds like there's no way of selling it (at least not in the first 3 years of owning it).

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

Blades have been beaten to death in SW. Any vendor like this giving them away knows full well that that community is aware of their total lack of applicability and value. This isn't a mistake. Even the Fortune 100 struggle to find any value in blades. I've worked in shops of over 100,000 servers and THEY stated that at their scale they couldn't make blades make sense! I've seen multiple Wall St firms make the same decision. Costly, risky, complicated, fragile.... no benefits, all negatives.

I hear ya there. The hospital I worked for several years ago actually got rid of a bunch of their blade servers and replaced them with a huge redundant VMware setup.

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

Blades are tough because they have no storage of their own that is of any use, and so you have to come up with storage to back them with. If you have that already, they are just less than ideal additional servers. But if you don't have that already or if what you have isn't adequate for the performance, capacity or reliability that you'd need from a server then these are totally useless. The storage investment is easily more than the cost of buying a new infrastructure yourself from the beginning that makes sense.

Given that blades are essentially just marketing ploys themselves, getting one as a "gift" isn't too useful. Blades are generally free to any business that is willing to "test" them because they are designed to hook you by forcing you to invest so much that you have an emotional sunk cost fallacy problem that gets the business to buy more and more of the worst stuff because they feel like they have to because they have "so much invested already."

This just keeps getting better and better!

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

Best bet is to resell the equipment. It's not that it is useless to you, but it is risky and sounds like it requires additional investment which would be pretty silly to invest in random gear that has little value for you.

Yeah, that would be the "best bet" if it was an option. Gotcha: "Prizes are non-transferable and may not be sold, redeemed for cash or otherwise substituted except as provided herein"

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

Here's another thought: Let's say they DO let this equipment be "mine" instead of the company's... The equipment is next to useless to me as is (because I would need more infrastructure added to it in order to make it "fully functional", especially based on the replies I've gotten from ML members so far). I can't afford all of those extra costs...

That's definitely the trick here, it's a blade center which is very tough to use and is meant to be a loss leader to get you to invest into it and then keep spending money on it in the future. It's actually got some financial risk to deploy just because it is so likely to encourage bad decisions in the future. It's obviously not a set of equipment meant to "improve" anyone's environment. It's equipment that no SMB would ever buy themselves and is not nearly as useful as drastically less expensive gear. And it is potentially incomplete. It's not a makeover, it's just leftover gear.

http://www.smbitjournal.com/2009/12/the-dangers-of-blade-servers-in-smb/

Well, now I feel even more excited about winning this contest!

@Shuey Here's the terms: https://xact.spiceworks.com/u/gen/Oct2016/HPE_IT_Makeover_Sweeps_Rules_Rev5_Round_3_2016_0729_a5a1ed0a8ac1ab0e1e3991987e2bd962.pdf

I'm gonna start reading through them to see what gotchas exist..

Here's another thought: Let's say they DO let this equipment be "mine" instead of the company's... The equipment is next to useless to me as is (because I would need more infrastructure added to it in order to make it "fully functional", especially based on the replies I've gotten from ML members so far). I can't afford all of those extra costs...

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said:

@PSX_Defector said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@jmaurelli said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I am not keen on putting that hardware in the production environment whatsoever! What happens if you lose you job? Or you find another? I say the new equipment is for training purposes. You also make it known somehow that the equipment belongs to you and are only "licensing" to your employer. It's a win-win. They host in their server room, you train, they reap the benefits of your experience.

Are you really that insecure with new equipment?

No, his point was not to donate $60K of his personal hardware to the business for the business to use. If he loses his job, the job would expect to keep the $60K donation.

Unfortunately, and I still haven't found out the rules and restrictions from SpiceWorks and HPE, there's a strong chance that this equipment HAS to go to the company that I work for.

Oh, what if you didn't work for one? What would have happened? What if you work for two?

I hear ya, but I didn't make up the rules of the contest, lol. I only entered because I thought "Whether the equipment goes to me or the company I work for, who cares. $60,000 in "free" equipment is better than NO equipment

I'm just saying... how are the rules written that they cause this to work without creating a disaster? What if you are a contractor or self employed? Do you do ANY consulting yourself, ever? If so, that's a company that you work for.

Again, I see where you're coming from, and I agree. But you know how rules can be sometimes (a lot of "gotchas"). I'm subject to THEIR TERMS, whether they make sense or not

I KNOW, and that's why I'm pointing out how THEIR TERMS work, right? I'm saying, that by what you said their rules were, this is how it works. I'm not saying you aren't tied to their rules, I'm pointing out what their rules mean.

I don't even know what their rules are yet, lol. I'm still waiting for someone from SW or HPE to contact me

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said:

@PSX_Defector said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@jmaurelli said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I am not keen on putting that hardware in the production environment whatsoever! What happens if you lose you job? Or you find another? I say the new equipment is for training purposes. You also make it known somehow that the equipment belongs to you and are only "licensing" to your employer. It's a win-win. They host in their server room, you train, they reap the benefits of your experience.

Are you really that insecure with new equipment?

No, his point was not to donate $60K of his personal hardware to the business for the business to use. If he loses his job, the job would expect to keep the $60K donation.

Unfortunately, and I still haven't found out the rules and restrictions from SpiceWorks and HPE, there's a strong chance that this equipment HAS to go to the company that I work for.

Oh, what if you didn't work for one? What would have happened? What if you work for two?

I hear ya, but I didn't make up the rules of the contest, lol. I only entered because I thought "Whether the equipment goes to me or the company I work for, who cares. $60,000 in "free" equipment is better than NO equipment

I'm just saying... how are the rules written that they cause this to work without creating a disaster? What if you are a contractor or self employed? Do you do ANY consulting yourself, ever? If so, that's a company that you work for.

Again, I see where you're coming from, and I agree. But you know how rules can be sometimes (a lot of "gotchas"). I'm subject to THEIR TERMS, whether they make sense or not

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@Shuey said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@scottalanmiller said:

@PSX_Defector said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@jmaurelli said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I am not keen on putting that hardware in the production environment whatsoever! What happens if you lose you job? Or you find another? I say the new equipment is for training purposes. You also make it known somehow that the equipment belongs to you and are only "licensing" to your employer. It's a win-win. They host in their server room, you train, they reap the benefits of your experience.

Are you really that insecure with new equipment?

No, his point was not to donate $60K of his personal hardware to the business for the business to use. If he loses his job, the job would expect to keep the $60K donation.

Unfortunately, and I still haven't found out the rules and restrictions from SpiceWorks and HPE, there's a strong chance that this equipment HAS to go to the company that I work for.

Oh, what if you didn't work for one? What would have happened? What if you work for two?

I hear ya, but I didn't make up the rules of the contest, lol. I only entered because I thought "Whether the equipment goes to me or the company I work for, who cares. $60,000 in "free" equipment is better than NO equipment

@scottalanmiller said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I'm with the "set up a home lab" crowd here. It's your gear, not the businesses. Build a nice virtual lab at home.

Read my recent reply

@scottalanmiller said:

@PSX_Defector said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

@jmaurelli said in Ideas for how to use new, free gear from HPE?:

I am not keen on putting that hardware in the production environment whatsoever! What happens if you lose you job? Or you find another? I say the new equipment is for training purposes. You also make it known somehow that the equipment belongs to you and are only "licensing" to your employer. It's a win-win. They host in their server room, you train, they reap the benefits of your experience.

Are you really that insecure with new equipment?

No, his point was not to donate $60K of his personal hardware to the business for the business to use. If he loses his job, the job would expect to keep the $60K donation.

Unfortunately, and I still haven't found out the rules and restrictions from SpiceWorks and HPE, there's a strong chance that this equipment HAS to go to the company that I work for.

@PSX_Defector Cool, thanks for all the info!

I could see "making the sale" to upper management for the SAN, and possibly the rest of the upgrades as well. This raises another concern though: We don't have anything else on our network utilizing 10Gbps links. We'd like to have 10 gig links between two of our datacenter sites, but not sure if management will pay for the upgrade someday or not. The new equipment will obviously be fast at the c7000, but once it leaves that box going to the rest of the network, it'll all be travelling at 1 gig at that point :-/...

Our two existing VMware hosts are a DL360e Gen8 (hosted at "site 1") and a DL360 G7 (hosted at "site 2"). Each server has 192GB of RAM, and each has one MSA60 DAS for the guest VM storage (12-bays: 10 @ 1TB 10K SAS drives, RAID10, two drives as spares). Site 1 hosts 20 guests and site 2 hosts 5 guests (so far anyway - we plan to add more guests to each host in the future).

If HPE would let me sell the equipment, I'd be happy to. I'd rather use the money to pay off some bills. Unfortunately, one of the contest rules is that it can't be sold :-S.

@PSX_Defector I'm glad to finally see someone say something that I also found odd and have been wondering about: Why is HPE giving away this much in equipment, but the specs don't seem realistic? Two blade servers, but only TWO hard drives (total)?! And the drives aren't even flash storage/ssd. And the SAN comment you mentioned as well. This type of device is ideally supposed to be deployed in an environment where it can leverage massive amounts of storage, is it not? We don't even have a SAN where I work, lol. And 64GB of RAM (total)!? Per blade wouldn't be bad, but based on the spec list, it looks like it will be 32GB per blade.

3 months ago: https://mangolassi.it/topic/10493/rackspace-bought-out-and-now-private/1

@Veet said in Starting a Shared Web Hosting Company:

oooh ... you're entering a market that's already saturated with an entire smorgasbord of vendor types.. penetrating this market would be a challenge...

What is the key differentiator, that you have ?

It would've been nice to see what HTBase had to say, lol.