Things To Be Considered Before Buying A Rackmount Server
A server is needed to meet your business"s growing needs. Buying a rackmount server is the best option for almost any business networking solution.
So you have come to the point where your business needs have gone beyond the capabilities of your small network and file sharing tactics. Computers are starting to bog down when using the internet, employees are sitting on each other"s laps because only one computer has the software that everyone needs and no one knows what happened to spreadsheets the accountant has spent days updating. It"s time to implement a server.
With a little overhead, a server can greatly enhance your existing network. If you"ve already done some server research, you"ll notice that there are a few different kinds of servers available. The desktop server is basically a "supercomputer" when compared to a conventional computer. It has the capability to run and host applications for several computers, it has a plethora of storage and the Microsoft Server operating system allows everything inside to be micromanaged and secured anyway you see fit. In additional to the traditional design of a desktop server, there are also rackmount servers which operate in the same way. The biggest difference lays in the physical design of the machine. To the untrained eye, the aesthetics may seem trivial but the rackmount server has a few benefits over a traditional desktop server.
Saving space and planning ahead for future expansions should always be taken into consideration when adding more hardware to your arsenal. A rack server is designed, as the name implies, to sit on a rack. A rack unit has a specified physical size (as do the server modules) and allows for further integration of new server modules when the need arises. Additional server units can be added to the rack and made to play nice with the existing system. If you"re in a cramped office with no immediate plans of relocating, this is a no brainer. The design of a rack is also geared to reduce eyesores like stray cabling running amuck the office. This also saves your IT people frustration when performing maintenance on the system as everything is consolidated to one area and won"t require running from room to room when diagnosing issues. The design of a rack itself is inherently one of preventative maintenance. Servers get hot. Having such a machine in a wide open space allows more heat dissipate thus preventing costly hardware failures.
When looking at hardware specifications there is no real "one size fits all" solution in any field of computing. The server you choose should be contusive to your business, not to a salesman commission rate. Let"s say you"re a small medical facility: a lot of your business revolves around Microsoft Office applications. You mostly create documents in Microsoft Word and Excel and you have patient records that require a substantial amount of storage space. Your associates have reports that scan into their computers; you have MRI reports, X-Ray records and perhaps comprehensive blood analysis reports. In this case, your computers really only need to be able to access these files and a huge amount of processing power is not needed to do such things. Consider a server that at least has high storage potential. In this particular case, available hard drive space and the capability to expand the existing system should be the primary concern.
Sit down with your IT personnel and pick their brain over concerning the business needs.
So you have come to the point where your business needs have gone beyond the capabilities of your small network and file sharing tactics. Computers are starting to bog down when using the internet, employees are sitting on each other"s laps because only one computer has the software that everyone needs and no one knows what happened to spreadsheets the accountant has spent days updating. It"s time to implement a server.
With a little overhead, a server can greatly enhance your existing network. If you"ve already done some server research, you"ll notice that there are a few different kinds of servers available. The desktop server is basically a "supercomputer" when compared to a conventional computer. It has the capability to run and host applications for several computers, it has a plethora of storage and the Microsoft Server operating system allows everything inside to be micromanaged and secured anyway you see fit. In additional to the traditional design of a desktop server, there are also rackmount servers which operate in the same way. The biggest difference lays in the physical design of the machine. To the untrained eye, the aesthetics may seem trivial but the rackmount server has a few benefits over a traditional desktop server.
Saving space and planning ahead for future expansions should always be taken into consideration when adding more hardware to your arsenal. A rack server is designed, as the name implies, to sit on a rack. A rack unit has a specified physical size (as do the server modules) and allows for further integration of new server modules when the need arises. Additional server units can be added to the rack and made to play nice with the existing system. If you"re in a cramped office with no immediate plans of relocating, this is a no brainer. The design of a rack is also geared to reduce eyesores like stray cabling running amuck the office. This also saves your IT people frustration when performing maintenance on the system as everything is consolidated to one area and won"t require running from room to room when diagnosing issues. The design of a rack itself is inherently one of preventative maintenance. Servers get hot. Having such a machine in a wide open space allows more heat dissipate thus preventing costly hardware failures.
When looking at hardware specifications there is no real "one size fits all" solution in any field of computing. The server you choose should be contusive to your business, not to a salesman commission rate. Let"s say you"re a small medical facility: a lot of your business revolves around Microsoft Office applications. You mostly create documents in Microsoft Word and Excel and you have patient records that require a substantial amount of storage space. Your associates have reports that scan into their computers; you have MRI reports, X-Ray records and perhaps comprehensive blood analysis reports. In this case, your computers really only need to be able to access these files and a huge amount of processing power is not needed to do such things. Consider a server that at least has high storage potential. In this particular case, available hard drive space and the capability to expand the existing system should be the primary concern.
Sit down with your IT personnel and pick their brain over concerning the business needs.
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