It’s no secret that your company’s IT requirements can come with a hefty price tag. This is especially true when it comes to your servers, the bedrock on which your digital capabilities are built. You need to power them, maintain their physical components, cool them sufficiently, and deal with the Kafkaesque nightmare that is licensing. It might feel like your server is a giant hole into which you throw an unnecessary amount of cash. What’s worse is that you can’t avoid shoveling more money into that hole, given that the modern business relies on servers to function competitively! If you don’t have a good server setup, you flat out don’t have good IT capabilities.
You’re in luck, though. You don’t have to sacrifice server power to get a good price, even in today’s unstable markets. While a lot of factors go into why a servers price can get so high, knowing what steps to take on your end can drastically reduce the price tag. There’s no way around the fact that these things can get expensive, but knowledge is your best weapon in this arena. The smart buyer knows what to do to minimize long-term costs, and for that there are a few things you need to keep in mind.
The Right Server Type Matters
The first thing you need to think about is what kind of server is right for you and your business’s needs. They come in a few different configurations, but generally there are three setups that will be relevant to you. Tower servers are the smallest and least expensive of these. They look similar to desktop towers and are the best choice for smaller companies with less need for high computing power. The most often utilized type is called a rack server. Rack servers are a series of horizontally built computers that are mounted and organized on a metal rack designed to hold them. Most businesses use this kind of server. Finally, the blade server system is a unique wonder of modern IT engineering. Blade systems rely on individual vertically oriented servers that you place into a chassis that houses several of them. The chassis is key to the setup, providing the power and uniting the server nodes into a single computational powerhouse.
There are pros and cons to all of these server types, and you can find and in depth guide here. If your business doesn’t need a lot of computing power to perform, such as a restaurant or retail store, you might be better off selecting the tower. While smaller and not as powerful, they take up significantly less space and tend to be less expensive than the other options, both in terms of upfront cost and ongoing maintenance. The middle of the road option is the reliable rack setup, which is what most businesses end up using. While space efficient for what they are, they do take up a lot more room and usually need an entire space dedicated to them. Their design makes cooling easier and cable management simpler. They’re extremely powerful, and are the best option for companies that need between two and ten servers to get the job done. Blades are the perfect option if your business is large and requires a lot of computing power. Because the chassis is what supplies the power to the servers, you’ll have to deal with fewer cables to manage in the first place!
Efficient Data Management
You’ve probably heard your IT guys complaining about this. Well, it’s time to listen. Physical server setup is only the first step to making sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck. You need to make sure you’re consolidating your data and capabilities, as you can see at https://www.sqlshack.com/sql-server-consolidation-hosting-multiple-databases-single-sql-server-instance/. Storage is easy to overlook, but making sure that it’s as streamlined as possible is vital to maximizing your server efficiency. A common mistake is utilizing multiple servers to accomplish a task that a well-structured SAN (storage area network) could pull off better. Making sure that your data is being properly stored can save you a lot of money by reducing the amount of work any individual server needs to do, thus freeing up those capabilities for other tasks.
What data you’re saving is also something you need to consider, particularly when it comes to unnecessary redundancy. For this, I can offer a personal anecdote. Yesterday I was composing an email to a colleague that required a particular image from the internet. I knew that I had downloaded the image before, but I couldn’t remember the filename and I didn’t feel like going through all of the pictures on my hard drive. So, I downloaded the image again and sent the email. At no point did I delete the copy of the picture! We’re all guilty of doing things like that. These little things can add up over time and really hinder your business’s efficiency. Review your data for redundancy and get rid of what you don’t need, and you’ll maximize your server potential. It’s the little things that matter!
