Diskless server? Thats inconceivable!
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@joe.edwards said:
See tags of first reply.
Oh right.
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Yeah, true, dat. Its the WTF here, more so then their being a stupid tool. The chat server reps, and their supervisors, had access to a tool that gave the same options. Clearly there are other options. That cost more. That would indicate higher profit. That are what I want.
The HP tool, or at least the HP QuickSpec page lists off an absolutely absurd number of options.... "Do you want a rack with that?".... I accept I live in a world of industry standards where I will get exactly 0 support for items working together, yet not purchased on the exactly same PO. Meh. Given the default is no; I'd rather the tool that allows the big PO.
Personally, my immediate past gig I worked for the local HP (and others) regional reseller. I was doing admin stuff for internal and obscure SaaS stuff for the IT sales division (for an otherwise not-IT sales enterprise). The div was 90% HW sales, the single largest HW vendor being HP. So personally, I have some familiarity (if not affinity) with HP servers. Not that it matters. But I know HP servers have on-the-mobo at no extra cost, SDHC slots. Again, maybe familiarity over actual ease-of-use, but I can lay my hands on an HP QuickSpec far easier than anything from Dell. (and the HP QuickSpecs provide a bazillion possibly related options, including things not at all related to servers like switches and racks, which Dell keeps secret)
$CURRENT_GIG_BIG_BOSS basically would require Dell servers - pre-existing relationship, pre-approved lease - but the SAN was wide open. For reasons I'm not sure I understand, I emailed my requirements to $PAST_GIG as well as $COMPETITOR_OF_PAST_GIG_WITH_HOT_REP (because I'm fair). And by "requirements" I mean "give me a price on a this exact SKU, or the price of the SKU you will bait-n-switch on me, which I'm OK with, 'cause I know how you fuckers work". $COMPETITOR replied within 6 hours, and $PAST_GIG I managed to get exactly the same inside sales rep as I dealt with as an employee, which I think was a sick joke all around. When I could pretend that ISR was being as smart as an olive when I worked their I managed to sleep at night recognizing that my business meant no profit and no bonus for her. And now, seeing how she treats actual customers, well, I'm making olive analogies because I'm drinking an 8oz martini on a Tuesday night just thinking about her.
Anyway, having experience working within 25ft of ISRs whose job it is to make my life easier, yet managed to add no value to information they provided, often incorrectly, 72 hours later (at a minimum), I was looking forward to a simple tool which just gave me a fucking answer.
I guess, to Dell's credit, their information was at least internally consistent to Dell, and returned within minutes.
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@RangerNS said:
Yeah, true, dat. Its the WTF here, more so then their being a stupid tool. The chat server reps, and their supervisors, had access to a tool that gave the same options. Clearly there are other options. That cost more. That would indicate higher profit. That are what I want.
The HP tool, or at least the HP QuickSpec page lists off an absolutely absurd number of options.... "Do you want a rack with that?".... I accept I live in a world of industry standards where I will get exactly 0 support for items working together, yet not purchased on the exactly same PO. Meh. Given the default is no; I'd rather the tool that allows the big PO.
Personally, my immediate past gig I worked for the local HP (and others) regional reseller. I was doing admin stuff for internal and obscure SaaS stuff for the IT sales division (for an otherwise not-IT sales enterprise). The div was 90% HW sales, the single largest HW vendor being HP. So personally, I have some familiarity (if not affinity) with HP servers. Not that it matters. But I know HP servers have on-the-mobo at no extra cost, SDHC slots. Again, maybe familiarity over actual ease-of-use, but I can lay my hands on an HP QuickSpec far easier than anything from Dell. (and the HP QuickSpecs provide a bazillion possibly related options, including things not at all related to servers like switches and racks, which Dell keeps secret)
$CURRENT_GIG_BIG_BOSS basically would require Dell servers - pre-existing relationship, pre-approved lease - but the SAN was wide open. For reasons I'm not sure I understand, I emailed my requirements to $PAST_GIG as well as $COMPETITOR_OF_PAST_GIG_WITH_HOT_REP (because I'm fair). And by "requirements" I mean "give me a price on a this exact SKU, or the price of the SKU you will bait-n-switch on me, which I'm OK with, 'cause I know how you fuckers work". $COMPETITOR replied within 6 hours, and $PAST_GIG I managed to get exactly the same inside sales rep as I dealt with as an employee, which I think was a sick joke all around. When I could pretend that ISR was being as smart as an olive when I worked their I managed to sleep at night recognizing that my business meant no profit and no bonus for her. And now, seeing how she treats actual customers, well, I'm making olive analogies because I'm drinking an 8oz martini on a Tuesday night just thinking about her.
Anyway, having experience working within 25ft of ISRs whose job it is to make my life easier, yet managed to add no value to information they provided, often incorrectly, 72 hours later (at a minimum), I was looking forward to a simple tool which just gave me a fucking answer.
I guess, to Dell's credit, their information was at least internally consistent to Dell, and returned within minutes.
My computer has been dying a slow, painful electronic death for a while now. I think I first mentioned it six months ago or so... The touch pad stopped working... and it kept crashing... and takes about five minutes to load each page. The whirling circle of death appears frequently (pretty much every time I click on a new site... or type too fast..). And then the keyboard started to go, particularly the letter "h" which as a key player in the word "the" made typing particularly difficult and slow going (but hey, at least I wasn't typing too fast anymore!). I knew that it was only a matter of time before the entire thing kicked the bucket and I was left computer-less. And that, when your business is online, would have been a major problem. So I moaned and groaned and started saving. The money that I make from my shops is going to stay in the paypal account until I have enough to replace this computer, I said, apparently delusional, along with an occasional whispered "Mother Cabrini, please, please, please pray that my computer doesn't die before I can save enough for a new one!"Business was slow during January and the start of February. I complained around the house that you can never tell how things will go... last year January was one of my busiest months. This year it's been one of the slowest. Gradually I watched the balance creep up and thought: At this rate... May. Will my computer last until May?
All along I was clinging to one word: Apple. After an unfortunate incident when I was attending the University of Cape Town, involving a ton of research, a hundred page research paper and my Dell eating it (one day the computer was full, the it was completely blank like a brand new computer), I had become a loyal Apple customer. You see, my friends Apple crashed at the same time. We both contacted the manufacturer. Apple told my friend, bring it in, and proceeded to rush the order through so the computer was fixed in a matter of days. Dell's response was basically: "Not our problem." Thus I fell in love with Apples customer service (a few months and $500 later the paper was recovered). My last two computers, as a result, have been Apples. And they've been great. I would love to stick with the brand. But as the past weeks have dragged by I've slowly realized that when things come up, like paying the gas bill or buying food, a computer that's well over a thousand dollars, even refurbished, just isn't in the cards. In fact, it's a ridiculous fantasy at this stage in our lives. I'm just not heartless enough to tell Mae Bae to toughen up and stop shivering so I can turn the heat off when the kid is already bundled up, if there's a way I can afford to pay that gas bill if I just move the money over from Paypal.
Still, something had to be done. I won't be making money if I can't get online to sell my products.
I know, I told myself, I'll get one of those cool little flippy computers that doubles as a tablet. I checked out prices. I checked our budget.
An $800 computer.
Maybe by May. Maybe if the craft fair accepts me (they haven't refunded my booth fee, which as to mean something!) and I do exceptionally well... Maybe then I can take the money and dash across the street to Best Buy before something else comes up.
Maybe I can stick my fingers in my ears too and hum really loud to drowned out the sound of all the others things that money could go to instead.
I imagine my computer giving a death rattly cough over in the corner. We aren't going to make it to May. Feeling a bit guilty I finally admitted to myself that an Apple was out... there was no way to justify the expense.
Then an ad appeared on TV. The new Google Chrome. $249. I jumped up and grabbed my computer and managed to get to the Amazon page. The reviews were sure to be horrible. $249. What else could I expect? The reviews for the $800 computers were all solidly mixed.
But the Chrome results weren't. They were largely positive. And the negatives were often things that wouldn't bother me (like that the screen resolution isn't worthy of a HDTV). They especially didn't bother me at that price. I clicked over and stared at the Bank Account Balance... and saw that the state refund had just come through. I did a little dance, called Paul, and ordered the computer that night.
Now I'm waiting, like a kid at Christmas, for it's arrival. I expect that barring any disasters, my little Apple should putter along until it arrives.
In April of 2005 we took a mini family vacation to York Beach. It was great! We had fun and the kids loved the huge hot tub IN our room! It overlooked the ocean.
The sad part is that we took that vacation as a way to heal/make-up/recover from me finding the first bottle of vodka. THE BOTTLE. It is like the ONE RING from The Lord of the Rings in that it wields enormous amounts of control over my wife and I. My wife because she is powerless over alcohol and me because the alcohol and the lies have consumed my thoughts, emotions and actions for 5 years now. It affects me when I look at the thousands of pictures I have taken over the years and I find myself wondering if she was drinking during that period of time. It has ruined memories of the past because I don’t know what was true and what was a lie. Was she lying to me then? I don’t know how long she has been drinking, it may have been the whole 17 years of our marriage and I suspect it was. I am starting to realize that the details don’t matter much, the damage has been done.
A brief history of us. I grew up the son of a Baptist Pastor, we went to church Sunday morning and evening and also Wednesday nights for prayer meeting, plus lots of church activities. My Dad and Mom have never even had a drink! I always thought we believed drinking is a sin, but after discussions with my Dad realized that he thinks it is OK in moderation, he just never used it. My wife grew up in a family with 5 girls. Her Dad left them when she was around 8. Her mother’s parents were alcoholics. Her mother is an alcoholic and became a flagrant one once the girls were out of the house. She hardly ever went to church. When we got married I wasn’t attending church, kind of a black sheep. We would drink with friends etc. Then I started going back to church and she followed after a year or so. We stopped drinking because it was quite literally “against our religion”, it was a requirement in the church constitution!. During this time of church attendance I found that first bottle. After a long time of feeling her hiding the drinking was my fault we agreed that we would drink, but only in moderation. She still was hiding her drinking. I found two bottles of vodka hidden in the house and multiple times she had her diet coke with alcohol in it? I was mystified and at my wits end. We agreed it was OK to drink and she is still lying and hiding it? I know the story is crazy. We did drink, we didn’t drink, then we did drink, now we don’t drink because we finally realize there is a problem! ?!?!?!?!?
I feel like I have to verify in my head that she really is an alcoholic. So I am going to ramble off all the incidents I can recall.
The first time I remember is once I came home from work (she was 19) and she was passed out on our bed. I thought she was dead, I was going to call 911, but called her sister instead. Her sister calmly told me she was drunk and to put her in the shower. I should have woken up then!!
Yet the more I think about it I have this one picture of her sleeping at her house and now realize she wasn’t sleeping she was passed out drunk! This was even before the incident I just mentioned.
She has ended up passed out more times than I can count.
I found bottles multiple times over the past 5 years. These bottles were usually water bottles filled with vodka.
I have been “checking” her drinks obsessively and found many, many times that she had “something” with her diet coke.
She always has gum/mints in our vehicles and in the house.
I have had to cancel dinners out, soccer games etc. when she was slurring her speech and stumbling while walking.
She drinks at her family functions and to some extent her family helped her hide this drinking.
THIS IS A BIG ONE TO ME AND MAYBE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT PROBLEM: AFTER ABOUT THREE YEARS OF ME CATCHING HER DRINKING, WHEN I WOULD CATCH HER SLURRING HER WORDS OR STUMBLING, SHE WOULD TELL ME IT WASN’T ALCOHOL BUT LOTS OF IBUPROFEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH. THIS HAPPENED NUMEROUS TIMES OVER A TWO YEAR PERIOD 2006-2008.
My kids have come to know what is happening and have told me stories of sipping mom’s drinks and knowing something wasn’t right. They tasted funny!
My wife and the kids vacationed each summer at Hampton Beach with her Dad. I would go for a few days, then go back home for work. After a few years, I came to realize she was drinking there when I left. My son told of one instance when he knew mom was drunk and when he said something about it she yelled at him.
Thanksgiving 2008 at her Uncles, another night of me being paranoid knowing she was drinking behind my back. She seemed fine the whole night, but when we got home she passed out almost immediately on our couch. She told me she had chugged three beers outside of the garage.
January 28, 2010 Drove home drunk (about 4 miles) after visiting Katie’s grave. She told me everyone grieves in different ways.The thing that amazes me is that is took me this long to figure out and admit that she is an alcoholic. FIVE YEARS. I attribute some of that to the fact that I was totally unfamiliar with alcohol. I also attribute it to me feeling like I had contributed to it by our “belief” that drinking is a sin. I felt that if we had the drinking in moderation belief she wouldn’t have to hide it.
She has been going to AA for a month. But she does not admit she is an alcoholic. She says she has a drinking problem, first she said she was a binge drinker. She says she is not an alcoholic because she doesn’t drink everyday. I think she is wrong and needs to come clean with the whole problem. She needs to admit she is an alcoholic and needs to determine never to drink again. As of now she is determined to get her drinking problem under control.
This is not acceptable to me as I know she cannot control her drinking. I have come to realize that for my sanity I need her out of my life. We have 4 kids and I do not know how to accomplish this without hurting them.
I went to an AA meeting with her for the first time yesterday and it outraged me. It humiliated me. I wanted to stand up and yell, “Just STOP!”, but I didn’t. Last night I went to an Al-Anon meeting to try and find the answer to why I felt so angry after going to the AA meeting. There were a few gems from the readings that I identified with completely but overall the folks who talked were all over the place. One young girl was mad at the state for something to do with using a new therapist instead of her old one. One 30 something guy who lives with his Mom is mad at his Mom for controlling his life. I didn’t hear much in the way of how to deal effectively with an alcoholic spouse. I don’t know if I will go back.
I really think I need to divorce my wife, but am afraid to do so because of the kids.
She is staying at her dad or grandmothers house for the night. Funny thing is before yesterday we had been getting along very well. The meeting seemed to show me that she is not sincere, she doesn’t go up to get her “coins”, she has no sponsor, she is not doing the steps. She is going to simply be able to say she is “trying”. She hasn’t had a drink that I know of since January 28th. The night she DROVE home wasted from the cemetery, after “drinking a few beers with Katie” her sister who committed suicide on January 30, 2008.
I am happy for her not drinking for a month, but also angry that I should have to “praise” her for doing what she should have been doing all along.
It is like praising your kids for not hitting each other.
The horses have decided it's Spring even if I can't see it.Our horses are out 24/7 except in the winter when they are brought in at night. This is that time of year when you don't really know when exactly to make that transition to staying out all night again. A couple weeks ago we had a nice warm stretch of weather, 50's at night, 60-70 during the day. So, going in for the night was done... then the weather reverted back to winter about a week ago... teens to 20's at night with wind and snow, so back in they go.
Now, our usual routine is to wait until almost dark, then I go over to the barn and start putting feed in buckets, a little hay in each stall, etc. The lights on in the barn and the sound of pouring feed usually has the horses waiting at the gate by the time I'm ready for them. I just open the door and let one in at a time, give it a chance to go to it's stall, then let the next one in, etc. Nice easy routine we got here.
Well, not last night. I had Mikey with me. We didn't see the horses when we walked over so we whistled and called and figured they'd be coming right along. We went inside and got the barn ready. No sigh of the horses. Very odd. They're always anxious for their evening feeding even if they're not going in for the night. I was just a little concerned.
We walked outside and called and whistled again. Nothing. We walked out behind the barns and called and whistled again. Nothing. So we started walking. It's about a 15 minute walk (20 minutes if your 4 year old is with you) to the back of the farm. We have lots of hills and patches of woods so there are a lot of areas you can't see from the barn. But, it's dinner time, I'm whistling my head off. This is so unusual. They're always waiting at the gate by now. Something must be wrong. By this time it's almost dark. So we walk whistling and calling the whole time. The further we go with no sign of them the more I'm thinking something's not right.
Finally we get to the farthest back field and there they are happily grazing away as fine as can be. It's all but dark by now. When they see us they all look up like "What?". Hello! It's dinner time! Aren't you guys forgetting you get fed about now? Even when they saw us and heard me calling they just looked at us. So, we had to walk down into the field and try to convince them to come along.
Of course I hadn't brought a lead rope. And of course every one of them stayed just out of reach. I thought if I could just get ahold of Shadow the rest would follow her back to the barn, she is the undisputed leader of the herd. After walking in circles thru the field trying to grab a halter, I just stopped and said "Shadow, please stop that. Mikey is tired and would like a ride back to the barn. We have your feed and hay all ready. If you don't want the feed, could you please at least give Mikey a ride back?" Wouldn't you know it, bless her heart, she stopped, turned to me and walked right up to us and let me take her by the halter. Mikey was amazed. He was totally sure without a doubt she understood every word I had just said. I threw him up on her and we started for the barn.
But, no, the rest decided not to follow. Even after we were out of sight, they just stayed down in that field. So, back we went. This time I was able to get ahold of Cricket's halter. She's #2 on the pecking order. Surely if I get both of the mares heading back to the barn the boys will follow. But, oh yeah, I don't have a lead rope. Not a big deal except have I mentioned I have a broken elbow? It's completely dark by now and I don't think I'm up to leading two mares by the halters up and down hills and through muddy areas with my 4 year old son on bareback and with one good arm.
So I give up. They can stay out. I'll take Shadow back to the barn so Mikey doesn't have to walk back, I'll give her her feed then send her back to the field. We were about half way back when the herd finally decides to join us and come barreling up behind us in the dark sliding on the soft ground... oh brother!
On a side note - Mikey did very good. I am proud of him. He didn't get flustered. Nights like this, riding bareback in the dark... he's going to have a good seat on him.
When we did get back to the barn, I practically had to beg them to come in. I think I get the hint, they're ready to be out 24/7 again. Pay no attention to those snow flurries in the air, Spring is here.
I've loved the sound of EL84 based amps since I first heard one-something about that shimmery, glassy, always-slightly-distorted tone just did it for me. I have a few really good amps including a blackface Pro Reverb, but finally decided I'd buy something a little lighter and easier on the back. I auditioned several and ended up with the Bugera V22. (THIS ISN'T A BUGERA THREAD.)
I liked it. I liked it with my G&L strat, I loved it with my Les Paul.
Shortly thereafter I sold the G&L and bought an original issue Highway One strat. I tried out the strat with a Fender tube amp: it sounded great, price was great... I went back home and low and behold hated the sound of the highway 1 thru the V22. Thin, brittle, harsh, "too articulate" if that makes sense. It was OK with some overdrive and could be passable for chords but I just couldn't love the single notes clean. The MFD pickups on the G&L sounded way meatier. To make a long story longer, one day I ran across an Aerodyne strat in a pawn shop for $90.00 I'd never heard of an Aerodyne but figured I'd take a chance. The Aerodyne was everything the Highway 1 wasn't: meaty, ballsy, just the tone I was looking for.
Still, the Highway 1 was "supposed" to be a pretty good guitar. I called up Seymour Duncan. Well not Seymour, but somebody there who answers the phone. I explained that wanted something a little rounder, thicker, not so bright and articulate but not a humbucker sound since I had that with the Les Paul. He suggested some Alnico 2 pickups might be what I was looking for, so I put together a whole 'nother pickguard with the APS1 or something like that and just couldn't wait to fire her up again. Crap. Same basic tone: thin, bright, brittle...
So OK, it's not the end of the world. I have a $90 strat that's perfect; I should just be happy with that. And I am. Mostly.
So the other day I load up for a gig. My V22 and Aerodyne are in the trailer, and I decide to go over a lick or 3. My highway 1 is still in the practice room, right beside my Pro Reverb. OMG! WTF! and all those other things. It sounds freaking GREAT!
OK, my question is why can't I get that tone out of my V22 with the Highway 1? I've tried every combination of knobs and can't seem to get there. I'm afraid to try the Aerodyne thru the Pro-it might sound bad, and the Pro NEVER sounds bad. On the other hand, it might sound good and then I'd have to start carrying that beast around again.
I think it's Karma. I think every player is entitled to 1 great pawnshop find in his lifetime and once you get one you need to shut up and play. When you keep shopping for killer deals you anger the guitar gods and that's not good.
I would accept a less mystical explanation if it was well-founded and reproducible.
I should start out with a couple of days ago I was extremely freaking out. Now I’m still freaking out, but no where near as much. This story also really started a couple of years ago, well really a little over a year. Seporah has a tough time with eye contact to begin with, so we honestly didn’t notice anything wrong with her eyes until about a little over a year ago. We noticed that occasionally her left eye wouldn’t look at you when you she was talking. I brought her to 6 different optometrists to get her eyes checked out, each saying the same exact thing they wouldn’t check her eyes until she was 5 year old and no there’s not a pediatric optometrist on the island who does. After the 6th one (Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Clubs, and 3 private ones), I figured I better just wait until she was 5 and then I would get it looked at. The past couple of months though it’s gotten worse, so I decided to just make an appointment and see if they would care that she was only 4 years 10 months. They didn’t question us until we walked into the appointment, but let us see the optometrist anyways. The optometrist very nicely sat down and talked to us for about 15 minutes, but didn’t look into Seporah’s eyes or make her look at a chart. The optometrist told me she couldn’t help us, but that she knew who could. Apparently what I actually needed was a pediatric opthamologist (hello, that would have been nice to know a year ago, they could see I don’t wear glasses and probably don’t know the difference, I’ve actually only been to an optometrist once in my entire life that I know about). So after talking for 15 minutes and not looking into Seporah’s eyes, she very calmly told me she didn’t think Seporah could see out of her left eye. I laughed and totally dismissed her, but thanked her for the number of who I was suppose to call. We got an appointment with the opthamologist after talking to a few people, including insurance. Get there and I was informed insurance had not completed the necessary paperwork and would we like to reschedule until they could. I thought about it ($275 is a lot of money), but figured since we had been wanting an appointment for quite some time I would just pay it. We get in there and Seporah goes to read the chart, she puts on the special glasses that cover up the left eye and starts reading. She didn’t do so well, but I figured oh well maybe that’s just because she was only using one eye. And then we covered the right eye, so she was suppose to read with the left eye. “I can’t read it, there’s a black spot on my eyes,” she said while pointing to her right eye. At this point I think I was breaking out in cold sweats and possibly hyperventilating as I’m remembering what the optometrist had said. She could not see out of her left eye. Holy crap. And I had no idea. So what actually happened is her left eye has probably always worked very, very, very poorly and eventually her brain stopped recognizing it at all. So she’s blind in her left eye without there being any actually physical damage. And to top it off her right eye doesn’t work so well either (BTW, thinking this is why teaching her to read has been such a struggle). Her right eye is 100/20 and her left eye is worse than 400/20. Her prescription for lenses is right eye +3.25 and left eye +7.5 (and a couple other things that I can’t understand at all). Apparently her lenses are extremely rare and difficult to make (please read very expensive). Steven had to go to 3 different stores before he found one that had a set of lenses (read “a” as in one) that could be made without special ordering. They actually called in their best lens crafter to do them on his day off since none of the other lens crafters felt comfortable doing it. She seems to like them ok, we just said she was going to be cool like Daddy and we’ve totally hyped them up. I’m worried about how she’s going to do in school, ESPECIALLY in 6 weeks when we have to patch her right eye to try and make the brain recognize the left one more. Found this site where we’re going to get the patches, I thought they were pretty cute, way better than the pirate patches you can get at Wal-mart. I'm sure there's a lot more, but I think I'll cut off here, otherwise I'll just go on forever. Just my two-cents... probably all been said a million times before, but I'm sure it's worth reiterating.
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The answer is to purchase the "diskless" nodes with one disk each, but to spec that one disk as being the special type that you want in your SAN. Then, you order the SAN with only one disk, and load it up with the ones that came with all the servers.
If your SAN holds 32 disks and you order it with one disk, that means you can order up to 31 compute nodes with one disk each in order to fill the storage node up.
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@RangerNS said:
Incomprehensible wall of text.
Wow, I used Firebug to add white-space: pre-wrap to that, and it still made no sense.
@RangerNS said:Filed under: paragraphs? Why you need paragraphs?
Without the paragraphs I wasn't about to even try to read it.
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@Ronald said:
You stayed on the line for 30 minutes trying to shave a $100 disk off the purchase of a $1000 server. Maybe you think saving $100 in one hour is great if you earn less than that, but it's not. The $100 expense will go in the Capex column; it will be spread over 12 fiscal quarters and with depreciation and various other accounting factors it will end up eating maybe $8 of the annual budget. While your time comes out straight from this year's budget.
Depends: was it only ever going to be the one server to that spec, or would it be hundreds of them? The place I work at orders our hardware by the rack; even at the discounted rates we get (I happen to work for the same company that makes the hardware in the first place), a small configuration difference or error in the sub-$100 range could end up costing you $250,000 or more. I happen to know this, because someone did that, and that's what it will cost to put right.
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@Vanders said:
@Ronald said:
You stayed on the line for 30 minutes trying to shave a $100 disk off the purchase of a $1000 server. Maybe you think saving $100 in one hour is great if you earn less than that, but it's not. The $100 expense will go in the Capex column; it will be spread over 12 fiscal quarters and with depreciation and various other accounting factors it will end up eating maybe $8 of the annual budget. While your time comes out straight from this year's budget.
Depends: was it only ever going to be the one server to that spec, or would it be hundreds of them? The place I work at orders our hardware by the rack; even at the discounted rates we get (I happen to work for the same company that makes the hardware in the first place), a small configuration difference or error in the sub-$100 range could end up costing you $250,000 or more. I happen to know this, because someone did that, and that's what it will cost to put right.At $100 per server mistake, a $250k mistake means that you buy 2500 servers. That's more than buying "by the rack", that's buying data centers. Even if you use blade servers this means buying 40 racks. I don't know where you work, but that's a lot of servers and this does not sound legit.
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@joe.edwards said:
I used Firebug to add white-space: pre-wrap to that, and it still made no sense
I believe that's the official motto of this place.
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@Ronald said:
That's more than buying "by the rack", that's buying data centers.
But only small data centers, and not with any truly interesting kit inside. Or maybe buying it but never switching it on (the running costs of a serious data center are really quite high, particularly because every watt you push into it needs to be heat-pumped back out again).
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@dkf said:
@Ronald said:
That's more than buying "by the rack", that's buying data centers.
But only small data centers, and not with any truly interesting kit inside. Or maybe buying it but never switching it on (the running costs of a serious data center are really quite high, particularly because every watt you push into it needs to be heat-pumped back out again).Also any company spending money on a lot of hardware will do all it can to increase density, so they will beef up each server to be able to run multiple VMs. Let's say a typical high-end ESX node can host 100 VMs; 2500 servers x 100 = 250,000 VMs. Even for a company like Hostgator or Rackspace that's a lot. And there are not a lot of companies like Hostgator or Rackspace.
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@Ronald said:
Also any company spending money on a lot of hardware will do all it can to increase density, so they will beef up each server to be able to run multiple VMs. Let's say a typical high-end ESX node can host 100 VMs; 2500 servers x 100 = 250,000 VMs. Even for a company like Hostgator or Rackspace that's a lot. And there are not a lot of companies like Hostgator or Rackspace.
OTOH, you can't usually pack that many VMs per server unless you're only dealing with trivial unit loads (like parked domains and other stuff like that). Too many loads require rather more resources than you get in a centiserver.
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@TDWTF123 said:
@joe.edwards said:
If I have five apples and Susy has eight apples, she has more apples than me even if her budget won't let her eat more than two this year.
If you have five apples, and the government says they'll give you an extra one for each you eat this year, but not for those you turn into juice, how many apples do you have? The answer now depends on how many you eat and how many you juice.It's not mathematics that changes the amount of money, but tax laws and accountancy. Your sniff-sense is right to detect that there's something odd going on, but it's not the accountancy so much as the ridiculously complex corporate tax system(s) Europeans and Americans unfortunately have, and which results in stuff like this actually working.
Well obviously now you juice all 5 of your apples because you like juice, then buy 5 apple cores on the black market at 1/10th the price of a normal apple - to serve as proof to the government that you ate the 5 apples; and wash your juicer really well. The apple cores are exported from countries where the government doesn't subsidise apple eating and are on the black market to avoid import tax.
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@Mo6eB said:
Filed under: Milo buys eggs at 7 cents and sells them for 5 thus making 3 cents profit
We all know and secretly envy at least one Minderbinder in our lives.
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@Ronald said:
At $100 per server mistake, a $250k mistake means that you buy 2500 servers. That's more than buying "by the rack", that's buying data centers. Even if you use blade servers this means buying 40 racks. I don't know where you work, but that's a lot of servers and this does not sound legit.
I work for a cloud provider, who also happens to manufacture the hardware in the first place. It was only 20 or so racks (48 servers per. rack; half-width blades, so 2 per. U plus network gear etc. in a single rack) and the $250k included the cost of the incorrect part in the first place, and the cost of the replacement part ($100 for each part, $200 total). "A rack" is the smallest unit of hardware we order, although it's usually more like "20 racks" at any given time unless it's the odd one-off configurations.
It really isn't all that unusual to order hardware by the rack.
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@Vanders said:
@Ronald said:
At $100 per server mistake, a $250k mistake means that you buy 2500 servers. That's more than buying "by the rack", that's buying data centers. Even if you use blade servers this means buying 40 racks. I don't know where you work, but that's a lot of servers and this does not sound legit.
I work for a cloud provider, who also happens to manufacture the hardware in the first place. It was only 20 or so racks (48 servers per. rack; half-width blades, so 2 per. U plus network gear etc. in a single rack) and the $250k included the cost of the incorrect part in the first place, and the cost of the replacement part ($100 for each part, $200 total). "A rack" is the smallest unit of hardware we order, although it's usually more like "20 racks" at any given time unless it's the odd one-off configurations.
It really isn't all that unusual to order hardware by the rack.
So you make mistakes ordering hardware from your own company and then you pay $250k to yourself to fix the mistake? Are you guys into money laundering? Got lots of people from Juarez or Cali on the board?
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@Ronald said:
So you make mistakes ordering hardware from your own company and then you pay $250k to yourself to fix the mistake? Are you guys into money laundering? Got lots of people from Juarez or Cali on the board?
Yes, people make mistakes. Amazing. Who knew? And yes of course you pay; have you ever worked for any large company? Internal accounting is just as bad as paying external suppliers. You don't just rock up and say "Give us all your servers and we're not going to give you any money for them, it can all come out of your budget". Strangely, they get a bit grumpy about that.
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@Vanders said:
@Ronald said:
So you make mistakes ordering hardware from your own company and then you pay $250k to yourself to fix the mistake? Are you guys into money laundering? Got lots of people from Juarez or Cali on the board?
Yes, people make mistakes. Amazing. Who knew? And yes of course you pay; have you ever worked for any large company? Internal accounting is just as bad as paying external suppliers. You don't just rock up and say "Give us all your servers and we're not going to give you any money for them, it can all come out of your budget". Strangely, they get a bit grumpy about that.
Yeah, the company I work for passes money between org units all the time, and we're fairly curmudgeonly about it. No one's cutting anyone any good deals.
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@Vanders said:
@Ronald said:
So you make mistakes ordering hardware from your own company and then you pay $250k to yourself to fix the mistake? Are you guys into money laundering? Got lots of people from Juarez or Cali on the board?
Yes, people make mistakes. Amazing. Who knew? And yes of course you pay; have you ever worked for any large company? Internal accounting is just as bad as paying external suppliers. You don't just rock up and say "Give us all your servers and we're not going to give you any money for them, it can all come out of your budget". Strangely, they get a bit grumpy about that.Departments billing each other is one thing. Departments billing each other $250,000 over a mistake is something else. I'm calling bullshit on this story. Either the numbers were made up in the first place without thinking about what they meant, or this company has a showback policy instead of a chargeback and this makes the anecdote irrelevant.
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What if, you know, the replacement parts actually cost money? And installing them actually takes time of people who get paid?
A asks B to do something, B does it. A realizes they are morons, and asks B to fix. B does so. The overloads have to play real money somewhere, somehow, but why should B suck up that mistake, and look bad to the overloads when it was A at fault?
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@RangerNS said:
What if, you know, the replacement parts actually cost money? And installing them actually takes time of people who get paid?
A asks B to do something, B does it. A realizes they are morons, and asks B to fix. B does so. The overloads have to play real money somewhere, somehow, but why should B suck up that mistake, and look bad to the overloads when it was A at fault?
The story was not about ordering the wrong part; it was about B including a part that A did not need and A spending a lot of time arguing about it with B to save $100. If you change the story and make it about B sending the wrong part then you just orphaned the entire thread.
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@Ronald said:
Departments billing each other $250,000 over a mistake is something else. I'm calling bullshit on this story.
I've seen stupider things happen. It's part of the bikeshed effect; get a committee of eminent leaders together and they'll pass through millions of spending on a new building with barely a murmur (which can hide a lot of $250k “mistakes”), yet spend ages discussing the color of the bikeshed that rests against the back of the building next to the service entrance, and which only costs a few thousand bucks (assuming it's made of steel here; wood's probably cheaper, but doesn't last as well). Wily project managers always make sure that there's a bikeshed in their proposals for the great and good to discuss…
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@Ronald said:
The story was not about ordering the wrong part
I see we're taking pedentic dickweedery to a whole new level. My post was in reply to everyone saying "Oh it's only $100, who cares?". My point, which I explained at the time, was that $100 can add up and everyone was just assuming that the guy was only buying one server. I'm not sure I need to explain the context when it's already all there, just a few posts up, but apparently you continue to spectacularly miss the point.
A (my department) ordered the wrong part, B duly obliged and built 20 racks of servers with that part in them, then A realised its mistake and it will cost $250,000 to put right. B isn't going to take the old parts back; they've been inside a server for over a year at this point. The cost to clean them up, test them and repackage them for resale would exceed the money we could make from reselling them, and even if we did that I doubt other customers would be happy to receive second hand parts sold as-new. That's even assuming the accountants wouldn't have kittens at the idea of re-stocking a thousand items that were "sold" in an entirely different financial year. The number isn't made up: it's precisely the figure that was costed up by people more senior than me, and I was on the call when they delivered the bad news to the boss.
This really is the kind of shit that happens in large companies.
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@Vanders said:
My point, which I explained at the time, was that $100 can add up and everyone was just assuming that the guy was only buying one server. I'm not sure I need to explain the context when it's already all there, just a few posts up, but apparently you continue to spectacularly miss the point.
A (my department) ordered the wrong part, B duly obliged and built 20 racks of servers with that part in them, then A realised its mistake and it will cost $250,000 to put right. B isn't going to take the old parts back; they've been inside a server for over a year at this point. The cost to clean them up, test them and repackage them for resale would exceed the money we could make from reselling them, and even if we did that I doubt other customers would be happy to receive second hand parts sold as-new. That's even assuming the accountants wouldn't have kittens at the idea of re-stocking a thousand items that were "sold" in an entirely different financial year. The number isn't made up: it's precisely the figure that was costed up by people more senior than me, and I was on the call when they delivered the bad news to the boss.
This really is the kind of shit that happens in large companies.
Ok so not only is this not a story about arguing about a useless $100 part, it's a story about ordering the wrong part and finding out about it 1 year later...
This reminds me of a scene in the movie Who's Harry Crumb:-Why is there no mention of the stolen jewelry? -Because it's a kidnapping case!
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@rjk said:
The answer is to purchase the "diskless" nodes with one disk each, but to spec that one disk as being the special type that you want in your SAN. Then, you order the SAN with only one disk, and load it up with the ones that came with all the servers.
If your SAN holds 32 disks and you order it with one disk, that means you can order up to 31 compute nodes with one disk each in order to fill the storage node up.
And be subject to all sorts of warranty and support issue...over the long run it could actually be cheaper to just leave them in the original servers, but unplug them.
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In a parallel universe, there is an accounting forum (The Quarterly WTF) with a thread where a bunch of accountants talk about IT and either pretend that they understand the buzzwords they use or significantly overestimate their knowledge in that area. They say things like "a netadmin would never let you reconfigure the network RAM" or "it would be more optimal to use 4GL Server because the ping is faster".
