Dell Sales Reps and NikNaks?

Our current primary server and client provider is Dell. Mainly because they have great pricing and the machines are very scalable, at least for now is my guess. Opposed to some IBM machines which are expensive and not as scalable. Whatever, I won't get into an IBM vs Dell discussion, just get what works!

Anyway, my ADR tape drive finally broke rofl. The face came off and it is no longer capable of backing up all my data, even in compressed mode. We are a small business so we are only backing up about 40 GB of data, but our databases are growing quickly. Anyhow, apparently, the company from which we bought this device from is now out of business. The devices are no longer supported or made anyway, so I'm screwed.

So next it is time to look for a new backup solution. I have not made a real backup for about 3 weeks. *shame shame* So I finally get a quote from Dell, and one from IBM. The Dell NAS won in my opinion by means of scalability which really is my primary focus. Here is an article on it if you are interested, we went with a PowerVault 745N. We are a small company, but we are growing, so we can not afford to upgrade an entire server on a whim in future events. So this Dell solution seems to fit for us very nicely, it is upgradable enough that it should take care of us for about 5+ years is my estimate...maybe even longer. So yes, I get the quote, I persuade the CEO to go for it. I brought out to him a few points that helped me persuade him, otherwise he would have just said, "just buy an external hard drive and backup to it!" Here are my points:

• NAS always online, no need to wait for connections
• It acts as a file server on its own
• It comes with a RAID configuration, level 5 (then explained how that worked)
• It uses SATA, instead of SCSI
• Hotswappable Hard drives (specific config)
• This one in particular is a "true server" aka rack mount type, so this means, we use less space, less power and less heat from it, saving money in all areas

I added a few more points, but you get the idea, he right away leaned toward the solution. Then since I already had him going I was able to bring up some "future investments" that we may be looking to soon meet. A new primary server running our main services, such as Exchange 2003 for email, Active Directory for our authentication and things alike. My plan is to separate our services, we currently run the following on the Primary server:

1. Exchange Server 2000 - Email
2. Active Directory - Authentication/Object Access/Group Policies etc
3. DNS
4. ISA Server 2000 - Proxy/Firewall
5. IIS 5.0 - FTP
6. GFI SPAM Filter
7. SUS (Systems Update Server, currently broken *boohiss*)

Then we have another server, running the following:

1. DHCP - Auto IP Addressing (moved it from the primary server^)
2. Anti-Virus Server software
3. RIS
4. Backup Exec 10 (as discussed earlier, the ADR tape device is broke)
5. Printer Spooling
6. Misc

So I have my servers pretty well balanced, I also have a Fax server and a voicemail/directory server for our phone system, and a video surveillance server which hosts for two hi-quality cameras from Axis, namely the PTZ 213 and a 210 model.

Anyway, I show him and literally draw out for him what I plan to do with our network. I say, "We need to strongly give consideration to seperate our file sharing from our primary server. If the server crashes, like it does at times, people lose access to their data which causes downtime for employees. If we separate the data into another NAS we eliminate that problem. So we will have two NAS servers, one for backups and one for file sharing. Then we would logically consider to buy another server to handle our primary services. This would be 3 rack servers, all consolidated into one space, one rack. Currently we have two big and bulky tower servers taking up much space, they are noisy because of the fans and create much heat. We can eliminate all that by slowly transisting over to rack mount servers."

This information would have overwhelmed him before, but I have been slowly educating him on how the network and servers run everytime we have meetings (without him even knowing it *chuckles*), in order to prepare him for big technical talks that could not be made into "laymens terms" any further. So he got the point and understood what I was trying to do. Save money and resources, which always rings sweetly in a CEO's ear.

I get the "OK" to do the purchasing. I call Dell, and of course they are very happy to assist me in buying a server. Though, lately I have noticed a few things which I was not paying attention to with my Dell Sales reps previously. They kept changing. Also, with every change of rep, their quality of service got worse! WTF?!

I went through my archived emails to actually read what they were saying, *shame shame* and everytime they gave me a new sales rep they mentioned how my "purchasing has not met the requirements" to be in their 'Gold-Business' level of service. How do you like that? Basties! *waves fist*

See, when we first "hooked" up with Dell we purchased about 30+ PCs from them, we were doing a PC Rollout. Scrapped out all the old crappy PCs and replaced them with new Optiplex towers with P4 CPUs and legal software. Whoops. So we put about 25-26 thousand dollars in one day into our Dell account. So I assume, they considered us 'big spenders' aka 'Gold-Bussiness' level. So because of that, they gave us a very good and professional Sales rep. Her name was Deon, and she sounded hot too *shame shame*. Anyway, after that purchase, we did not buy much from them since we were all set, for a while. Small purchases for software and maybe some Memory upgrades we went through another company, PC connections. So over the months and years, Dell kept notifying me that since I had not purchased or "spent" as much money as I did the previous years, my business purchasing level was dropped to "small-business" from "medium-business." So I said, "well ok, I'm not going to buy a lot of crap just to keep that status, *shrugs*." Little did I know though, the lower I was put in their "status" I was given a crappier Sales Rep. *misses Deon* *chuckles*. Now I got some other nitwit that half the time tells me incorrect information! So yes, I figured it out, the less you spend, the lower you are in this Dell "status" and you get worse service LOL. You'd figure though, if you are not purchasing much, they would give you a better sales rep, perhaps to persuade you to purchase more, right? I guess not.

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