Never Let the Vendor Set Up a Server
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@Carnival-Boy - First I must unleash the legal disclaimer.
"The following statement does not constitute a quotation or guarantee or offer of goods and services"
Why won't the server come from Misco to my office? Then I build the raid? Do the config? setup remote access tools, then stick it on a courier to you.
Alternatively, I stick it on a courier, then get an engineer who just does bench work over to you, he un-boxes the server, sticks it in the rack, makes it look good, then he walks off.
I then remote in and fix any tweaks or snags.
I am much more expensive than a bog standard racking engineer, so why would you pay my rate to take something out of a box? More importantly why are the supplier doing the config work on site for you? They should do it at their bench.
If you were going to do all this, why not let that bench guy rack it before you do the setup. Where is the benefit to doing most of the setup locally at your own office and shipping twice? Just ship to the final destination right away.
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Yeah there is that as a cost as well.
Yeah we can do that here, but if @Carnival-Boy wants a body over there to take it out of the box and fit it then he has that option.
It would be using a bod closer to you, rather than sending a London bod.
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Oh wait I see.
In the ideal world that's what happens, body on site takes it out, racks it, gets the basics done, then hands over for all remote setup.
Does @Carnival-Boy want to spend the time doing that? So for convenience he'd pass it over to someone else completely to think about, if it is DOA on arrival, his provider just handles it all.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Oh wait I see.
In the ideal world that's what happens, body on site takes it out, racks it, gets the basics done, then hands over for all remote setup.
Yes, but even in a pretty non-ideal world it remains a really cost effective way to handle it while also getting the right oversight of the work. Only time that you would want to avoid this, that I can think of, is when the IT people are already local and can do the bench work effectively too.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Yeah there is that as a cost as well.
Yeah we can do that here, but if @Carnival-Boy wants a body over there to take it out of the box and fit it then he has that option.
It would be using a bod closer to you, rather than sending a London bod.
Isn't it his goal not to do that, though? The RAID and the hypervisor are the more important, but easier part. If he is looking to hand off the work at all, it seems like (to me) that the bench work would be the priority to hand off.
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Argh, I really dislike how Mac OSX can't show you what browser you are in.
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@scottalanmiller Stop multi posting
Hence why he still needs to pay for the body at some point in the chain? Isn't your suggestion that @Carnival-Boy does the bench and hands the remote over to someone else?
I'm talking about he gets whatever solution, he doesn't touch it until it's ready for production. All the work up till that point is done by others, different parts being on site or remote is a decision up to him.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Oh wait I see.
In the ideal world that's what happens, body on site takes it out, racks it, gets the basics done, then hands over for all remote setup.
Does @Carnival-Boy want to spend the time doing that? So for convenience he'd pass it over to someone else completely to think about, if it is DOA on arrival, his provider just handles it all.
Breffni, just to clear I am doing NOTHING. If the server is DOA it would be down to you to arrange a replacement with HP. I don't talk to HP. The only thing I'm doing is raising a purchase order then waiting till I'm told that the server is ready for me to install a VM on.
So you're shipping the configured server to my site and sending an engineer to rack it up, all for £100. As Scott mentioned, how much are you paying in courier fees for that?
If you're thinking it might be better to configure the server remotely, how would you do that? Plug the iLo port directly into our LAN? Then what? This is not an area I'm familiar with, I'd be interested to know how easy it is.
If you still want the job, I'm due another Proliant in the next few months.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Hence why he still needs to pay for the body at some point in the chain? Isn't your suggestion that @Carnival-Boy does the bench and hands the remote over to someone else?
No, that was not my suggestion. He's free to do that if he wants, of course, but it seems like an odd choice given his other desires. This is the easiest portion to offload. I sure don't do this work myself either, except if there is cool new gear that I just want to play with before it goes into use.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I'm talking about he gets whatever solution, he doesn't touch it until it's ready for production. All the work up till that point is done by others, different parts being on site or remote is a decision up to him.
Me too. I'm only talking about making sure that the bench work is cost effective if possible (which could include having the IT staff do it or bench people, depends on volume mostly) and that the IT work has proper oversight. Not suggesting that he do any more or less work that he wants.
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On my phone now so replies will be briefer.
Courier fee is extra, the £100 is for the engineer on site to fit only and it's a ballpark not a quote but I doubt it will be more.
You are very welcome to look at other IT providers and Id encourage you to do that. NTG could do what you are asking as well, don't want to turn this into touting for business as I know I am not the only one here who offers this.
The "how" we do it im happy to talk with you but conscious this might not be the platform.
@Danielle-Ralston is a good place that start for NTG.
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@Breffni-Potter you are the localest, though.
FF says localest isn't a word. It should be. I'm starting a campaign.
Localest having the greatest locality.
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And the courier fee does go up and down like a yoyo but it has been £25 for next day with insurance at one time, ballpark £75 at most.
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This thread is pretty popular. We have a good chance of it entering the "all time most popular threads" list by the end of the day!
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@Carnival-Boy said:
If you're thinking it might be better to configure the server remotely, how would you do that?
Personally, this is how I would recommend handling it.
First of all, we agree the details on how you want the host setup, IP address, ect.
Server goes to our office, it is then DOA tested, RAID configured and prepared, virtual host setup, then the performance on each item measured, network cards behaving over the LAN on Gigabit? Disk IOPS where they should be?
It's then powered down, given to a courier and delivered to your site, usually the day before the engineer is scheduled to arrive so if the courier is delayed, it does not delay the project or the engineer can be re-scheduled.
All the engineer is supposed to do, is arrive on site, unpack the server, get it into the rack, plug in the extra cabling and make it neat, then power it on, his laptop OR one of your machines is then used for us to remote onto your LAN, where we then talk to the ESXI host to check that everything is working as it should be.
Engineer leaves, you then enjoy your new server.
Now, the main question "How do I setup a cold brand new server without physical access to it"
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@Breffni-Potter said:
Engineer leaves, you then enjoy your new server.
Are you using the term "engineer" here to be the racker? There should be no engineering once you are done with the server, right? Just plugging in cables and putting rails in the rack. No engineering, not even administration. Not even IT. Purely physical labour, right?
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Here's an older video on what ILO is and why it is cool.
In the blunt non technical terms, it is a webserver and RDP client on the HP firmware which allows you to see the status lights, error warnings and tell the server what to do the same as if you had direct access via keyboard and mouse and were in front of it.
So if you were to do this cold it would go like this.
- Server arrives direct from HP to you
- Engineer racks the server, connects it up, does the initial ILO config (which you must do!)
- ILO is then tested with the engineer standing by when the server is powered up, he should not touch the server from now on.
- Remote engineer shutsdown and powers on the server 100% remotely.
- On site engineer leaves, all the same setup then happens in the rack.
This video might be more helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJN0mm0TQzM
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@scottalanmiller said:
Are you using the term "engineer" here to be the racker? There should be no engineering once you are done with the server, right?
The pure physical labour guys have had a tendency to do....interesting things. Clumsily knocking a server with force, yanking out a cable whilst being clueless.
Think closer to 1st line tech rather than warehouse worker.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Are you using the term "engineer" here to be the racker? There should be no engineering once you are done with the server, right?
The pure physical labour guys have had a tendency to do....interesting things. Clumsily knocking a server with force, yanking out a cable whilst being clueless.
Think closer to 1st line tech rather than warehouse worker.
Well you can get good or bad people anywhere. But in both cases, I think engineer is a pretty misleading term. Like calling the garbage man a "refuse engineer." There isn't any engineering being done.
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@Breffni-Potter any server without an ILO/DRAC/IPMI I consider to be hobby class. Out of band management is really a minimum bar for a business class server. Every enterprise server has had that for decades. Every SMB class server has had it since the 1990s. Even SuperMicro has been shipping that for free for well over ten years.
