On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 21:46:18 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>>> Most server-class hardware also comes with a support contract with
>>>> fast turnaround.
>>>
>>> Yes, but you can perfectly well get tower servers with that too. So
>>> comparing that to a rack-mount server would seem to nullify this
>>> point.
>>
>> I've never seen a tower server with hot-pluggable power supplies or
>> hot- pluggable PCI.  (Doesn't mean they don't exist, but I've yet to
>> see one).
> 
> Our old server towers had hot-swap PSUs. In fact, one of the tests in
> the disaster recovery plan verification procedure that I wrote was to
> physically unplug one and make sure the server doesn't die. ;-)

I'd buy that.

> No hot-swap PCI though; IIRC, it had ISA, not PCI.

I had some of the first Proliant 6500 servers to come off the assembly 
line - the hot plug PCI was a nice feature, but we never actually needed 
to use it.

>>>> Service is like insurance - expensive, and you hope you never need to
>>>> use it.
>>>
>>> Yep - usually because when you /do/ need it, you find out it isn't
>>> very good. ;-)
>>
>> That's also usually true. :)
> 
> Ah, you too have bitter experience, I see. :-)

Well, right now I don't have health coverage at all because I'm just 
doing contract work.

But yeah, I've had situations where insurance coverage really didn't help 
much.

I've also had experiences where support was less than stellar on hardware 
and/or software. :)

Hard to work in this industry and not have that happen, sadly.

Jim

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>>>>> Service is like insurance - expensive, and you hope you never need to
>>>>> use it.
>>>>
>>>> Yep - usually because when you /do/ need it, you find out it isn't
>>>> very good. ;-)
>>>
>>> That's also usually true. :)
>>
>> Ah, you too have bitter experience, I see. :-)
>
> Well, right now I don't have health coverage at all because I'm just
> doing contract work.
>
> But yeah, I've had situations where insurance coverage really didn't help
> much.
>
> I've also had experiences where support was less than stellar on hardware
> and/or software. :)
>
> Hard to work in this industry and not have that happen, sadly.

Forget /this/ industry; just "industry". Tried getting warranty support 
on your car? It doesn't fare much better.

It still amuses me that I just bought a new phone for £80 and they 
offered to charge me £6/week for insurance. Or I could... just buy a new 
phone? For a fraction of the cost? And no danger of the insurance not 
covering it? Gee, let me think about that for a moment... :-P

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On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:00:38 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>>>>> Service is like insurance - expensive, and you hope you never need
>>>>>> to use it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yep - usually because when you /do/ need it, you find out it isn't
>>>>> very good. ;-)
>>>>
>>>> That's also usually true. :)
>>>
>>> Ah, you too have bitter experience, I see. :-)
>>
>> Well, right now I don't have health coverage at all because I'm just
>> doing contract work.
>>
>> But yeah, I've had situations where insurance coverage really didn't
>> help much.
>>
>> I've also had experiences where support was less than stellar on
>> hardware and/or software. :)
>>
>> Hard to work in this industry and not have that happen, sadly.
> 
> Forget /this/ industry; just "industry". Tried getting warranty support
> on your car? It doesn't fare much better.

I've had good experience with my car - even now that the manufacturer 
(Saturn) has gone belly-up.  Of course, the car is out of warranty now 
(as a '99 model), but when it was under warranty, I never had a problem - 
which is one reason why I bought two cars from them in succession.

The guys who do the work on it now used to run the dealer's service 
center, so I still get the same level of service.  I'm really pleased 
with that. :)

> It still amuses me that I just bought a new phone for £80 and they
> offered to charge me £6/week for insurance. Or I could... just buy a new
> phone? For a fraction of the cost? And no danger of the insurance not
> covering it? Gee, let me think about that for a moment... :-P

Yeah, that kind of 'extended warranty' is nothing but a scam.  I have 
only once bought it, and it was as much a waste of money as I thought it 
would be (I was buying a router to put alternative router firmware on and 
thought I might brick it, so having the warranty seemed like a good 
idea.  It wasn't - the reason I bought the router in question was because 
it was very difficult to brick....)

Jim

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Le 2012-03-06 10:23, Invisible a écrit :
>>> What "special connectors"?
>>
>> I was talking more about "blade servers"
>
> Oh, right.
>
> Yes, those really /are/ expensive. If nothing else, each manufacturer's
> blades only fit in their own blade centre. So once you have their blade
> centre, they are the only people who can sell you blades. So they can
> charge any arbitrary price they want.
>
>> but even if we are talking about a "desktop" PC case vs. a
>> rack-mountable server with a similar CPU. The rackmountable server will
>> have a lot more consideration put into its ventilation and heat
>> disspation since it is made to be in a closed space full of other
>> heat-generating devices. Secondly, rack-mounted servers usually come
>> with a lot of extra feautres not usually found on classical desktop
>> hardware, such as hot-swappable disks, power supplies, and in some
>> cases, memory and CPUs.
>>
>> You need to realise that these things also contribute to the price of a
>> rack-mountable server.
>
> When I joined the company, we had floor-standing servers with hot-swap
> drives, dual redundant power supplies, a floor-standing UPS, and all the
> rest. It still didn't cost anywhere near what a rack-mountable setup
> would cost.

Of the same brand and model?  Last time I looked at server costs (over 
10 years ago), the price difference between a Compaq Proliant 2500 with 
feet and a compaq Proliant with mounting brackets was the price of the 
mounting brackets.

>
> My original point was, /anything/ sold as rack mountable seems to
> suddenly jump drastically in price, regardless of whether it's anything
> special beyond having the necessary mounting points.
>
> Heck, a USB keyboard costs, what, £2 maybe? Oh, but if you want a
> keyboard draw for a rack? Suddenly it isn't £2 any more. More like £200.
> Sure, the draw runners clearly cost money. Do they cost £198? I don't
> think so.

Are.
They.
The.
Same.
Brand.
And.
Model?

If not, your comparison is useless.

>
>> Maybe besides size there are other factors to consider... Let's compare
>> a "home" unit, vs. a rackmountable unit of the same power rating and
>> same supplier.
>>
>> "Home" UPS
>>
>> Output capacity: 450W/750VA.
>> Run time @400W: 3 min.
>> Run time @100W: 40 min.
>> Recharge time: 16 hrs.
>> Alarms: power/on battery/replace battery led display.
>> Management: N/A
>> Price: ~100$
>>
>> "Rackmountable" UPS
>>
>> Output capacity: 480W/750VA.
>> Run time @400W: 8 min.
>> Run time @100W: 50 min.
>> Recharge time: 4 hrs.
>> Alarms: Audible alarms when on battery/low battery/Replace battery
>> Management: vis DB-9, RS-232, SmartSlot or USB. Network management card
>> optional.
>> Price: ~500$
>>
>> So the rackmountable unit recharges 4x faster and has much better
>> management capabilities - I mean what good does a LED display do you in
>> an unattended server room? - for 5x the price. Seems reasonable to me.
>>
>> The "entry-level" rackmountable unit has a lot more to offer than the
>> "top-of-the-line" standalone unit, besides mounting brackets.
>
> I don't see why management facilities should cost 5x extra. If somebody
> can make something as complex as a mobile phone and sell it for £10,
> building something which closes a connection when a voltage goes below a
> threshold can't be that damned expensive.
>
> I don't know why there's such a massive difference in recharge time.
> Since I don't know what's different about the second unit which allows
> it to recharge so much faster, I can't say whether or not that justifies
> the price difference.
>

Are you being willfully dense?  You don't understand why two different 
types of batteries might be responsible for the price difference?

>>> Buy a 12-port desktop switch. £30, maybe? Now buy a rack mountable one.
>>> That'll be £200 please. Sure, it's physically bigger. There's more metal
>>> in it. Metal costs money. But does it cost /that/ much money?
>>
>> What's the MTBF of your 30$ desktop switch?
>
> Isn't MTBF an arbitrarily-chosen marketing number?
>

No.

>> Does it have remote management capabilities?
>
> Unlikely. (Although not impossible, believe it or not.) But then, for
> £200 your rack mount unit probably won't either.
>

Why not?  My $99 dollar Linksys router has remote management.

>> What about problem diagnostics? How many
>> packets per second can it process? Does it support vlans? QoS? PPPoE?
>> 802.1x authentication? Etc...
>
> Same statements as per management.
>

Same answer as above.

>>> (Before anyone asks - no, just because it can be rack mounted, that does
>>> /not/ mean it has management features. When I joined the company, we had
>>> a whole rack full of switches, all rack mounted, none of them managed.
>>> And all about £400 each.)
>>
>> Not manageABLE or simply not managed? Also [citation needed] brand and
>> model?
>
> No management features. You just plug them in, turn them on, and they
> work. (Once they finished learning MAC addresses, anyway...)
>
> I don't recall the exact model off the top of my head. They were
> definitely SMC "EZ switch", but I can't remember the precise model
> numbers. A mixture of 12-port and 24-port units.
>

They are probably not the exact same model as what you had, but the 
SMC8505T is currently listed both on the standalone and the 
rack-mountable sections of the SMC website.  Unless it's an error, I 
suspect the price will be very similar...

On the other hand, the "smallest" SMC switch that actually looks like a 
rackmountable is the SMCGS16, whic DOES have a lot of extra features 
besides drill holes for mounting brackets.

>>> Redundant power supplies cost extra. RAID controllers cost extra.
>>> Hot-swap drive bays cost extra. And yet, a server that has these costs
>>> nowhere near as much as a rack-mount server.
>>
>> [citation needed] Brand and model?
>
> A cursory inspection of the nearest product catalogue indicates that the
> starting price for a HP server is about £200, while the cheapest
> possible rack-mountable unit is £400. Which, actually, isn't nearly as
> bad as I'd expected. (I was thinking nearer £2,000. It /is/ HP, after all.)
>

Is the £200 server THE SAME as the £400 one, apart from the mounting 
brackets?  If not, your comparison is flawed.

>>> Now sure, making something
>>> like a server actually small enough to be rack mounted is nontrivial.
>>> There's a reason laptops cost 5x the price of a similar desktop. I
>>> understand that. But for goodness' sake, if you make a /wire clamp/
>>> that's rack mountable, suddenly it goes from being £2 to £80. It's like
>>> it's a license to print money...
>>
>> Then make one and sell it for only £50 and drive the £80-clamp guy out
>> of business, if it's that easy.
>
> It just seems that being rack-mountable is one of those "premium"
> features that makes manufacturers instantly put the price up, just
> because they can.
>
> It's like printers with network cards. A network card costs, what,
> £0.0016? And yet, a printer without one is £30 or something, but one
> with it is £150. Presumably because they figure that your average home
> user doesn't give a fig whether there's a network card, they just want
> the cheapest one in the shop, but your average business user cannot
> afford to do without one, and won't think twice about splashing a few
> hundred pounds for something they actually need...

It couldn't possibly because the USB printer at £30 prints only 6 pages 
per minute at 300dpi, while the networkable printer does twice as much 
at twice the resolution, has two paper trays and does automatic 
two-sided printing, can it?  No... It HAS to be because of the built-in nic.

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>> When I joined the company, we had floor-standing servers with hot-swap
>> drives, dual redundant power supplies, a floor-standing UPS, and all the
>> rest. It still didn't cost anywhere near what a rack-mountable setup
>> would cost.
>
> Of the same brand and model?

No.

Generally manufacturers will make one model that's floor-standing, and 
another, different model which is rack-mount. That makes it quite hard 
to compare the same model in both configurations.

> Last time I looked at server costs (over 10
> years ago), the price difference between a Compaq Proliant 2500 with
> feet and a compaq Proliant with mounting brackets was the price of the
> mounting brackets.

And if that were the case, I'd have no complaints. My point is that this 
seems emphatically /not/ to be the case. It seems more like rack 
mounting is a "premium feature", and you have to pay a serious amount of 
money for it.

That said, for a /server/ there is at least some justification; it's not 
easy to fit all that stuff into such a small space. For other devices, 
there's really no way to justify it.

>> Heck, a USB keyboard costs, what, £2 maybe? Oh, but if you want a
>> keyboard draw for a rack? Suddenly it isn't £2 any more. More like £200.
>> Sure, the draw runners clearly cost money. Do they cost £198? I don't
>> think so.
>
> Are.
> They.
> The.
> Same.
> Brand.
> And.
> Model?
>
> If not, your comparison is useless.

Since when do keyboards have "models"?

> Are you being willfully dense? You don't understand why two different
> types of batteries might be responsible for the price difference?

I'm saying, not knowing how the batteries are different, I can't say 
whether or not that justifies the price difference. It might do, I don't 
know.

>>> Does it have remote management capabilities?
>>
>> Unlikely. (Although not impossible, believe it or not.) But then, for
>> £200 your rack mount unit probably won't either.
>
> Why not? My $99 dollar Linksys router has remote management.

Interesting... I haven't seen too many cheap devices that support this.

>> No management features. You just plug them in, turn them on, and they
>> work. (Once they finished learning MAC addresses, anyway...)
>>
>> I don't recall the exact model off the top of my head. They were
>> definitely SMC "EZ switch", but I can't remember the precise model
>> numbers. A mixture of 12-port and 24-port units.
>
> They are probably not the exact same model as what you had, but the
> SMC8505T is currently listed both on the standalone and the
> rack-mountable sections of the SMC website. Unless it's an error, I
> suspect the price will be very similar...
>
> On the other hand, the "smallest" SMC switch that actually looks like a
> rackmountable is the SMCGS16, whic DOES have a lot of extra features
> besides drill holes for mounting brackets.

I would imagine these switches are long obsolete now. A few Google 
searches turn up results such as

"The EZ Switches 10/100 (SMCFS1601/ SMCFS2401) are unmanaged, 
rack-mountable 16-/24-port Fast Ethernet switches for workgroup and 
small office environment."

which is probably what we had. Good luck figuring out what the original 
sale price was.

>> A cursory inspection of the nearest product catalogue indicates that the
>> starting price for a HP server is about £200, while the cheapest
>> possible rack-mountable unit is £400. Which, actually, isn't nearly as
>> bad as I'd expected. (I was thinking nearer £2,000. It /is/ HP, after
>> all.)
>>
>
> Is the £200 server THE SAME as the £400 one, apart from the mounting
> brackets? If not, your comparison is flawed.

No. The rack-mount is higher spec - that the difference is probably 
enough to account for the difference in price.

Which would seem to suggest that the difference is that they don't 
bother offering rack-mount for cheap hardware.

>> It just seems that being rack-mountable is one of those "premium"
>> features that makes manufacturers instantly put the price up, just
>> because they can.
>>
>> It's like printers with network cards. A network card costs, what,
>> £0.0016? And yet, a printer without one is £30 or something, but one
>> with it is £150. Presumably because they figure that your average home
>> user doesn't give a fig whether there's a network card, they just want
>> the cheapest one in the shop, but your average business user cannot
>> afford to do without one, and won't think twice about splashing a few
>> hundred pounds for something they actually need...
>
> It couldn't possibly because the USB printer at £30 prints only 6 pages
> per minute at 300dpi, while the networkable printer does twice as much
> at twice the resolution, has two paper trays and does automatic
> two-sided printing, can it? No... It HAS to be because of the built-in nic.

Actually, the printer I'm thinking of prints at a /lower/ resolution 
than most other inkjets. And it only has one tray and no duplex. I will 
grant you, however, that it most certainly /does/ print very, very fast 
for an inkjet.

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Am 08.03.2012 10:22, schrieb Invisible:
>>> When I joined the company, we had floor-standing servers with hot-swap
>>> drives, dual redundant power supplies, a floor-standing UPS, and all the
>>> rest. It still didn't cost anywhere near what a rack-mountable setup
>>> would cost.
>>
>> Of the same brand and model?
>
> No.
>
> Generally manufacturers will make one model that's floor-standing, and
> another, different model which is rack-mount. That makes it quite hard
> to compare the same model in both configurations.
>
>> Last time I looked at server costs (over 10
>> years ago), the price difference between a Compaq Proliant 2500 with
>> feet and a compaq Proliant with mounting brackets was the price of the
>> mounting brackets.
>
> And if that were the case, I'd have no complaints. My point is that this
> seems emphatically /not/ to be the case. It seems more like rack
> mounting is a "premium feature", and you have to pay a serious amount of
> money for it.

And guess what - there happens to be a reason for this ;-)

You know, people who rack-mount things usually demand some features 
(besides mounting brackets) the non-rack-mounting people just don't care 
about. So why spend even $0.01 per unit in design and manufactoring 
costs on optional rack-mounting capability for some piece of equipment 
with a margin of less than $10.00 if this increases your sales by less 
than 0.1%?

> I'm saying, not knowing how the batteries are different, I can't say
> whether or not that justifies the price difference. It might do, I don't
> know.

Obviously they're different in how fast you can charge them, no?

> Which would seem to suggest that the difference is that they don't
> bother offering rack-mount for cheap hardware.

Exactly that. The added design and manufacturing costs - however low 
they may be - simply don't pay off.

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>> It seems more like rack
>> mounting is a "premium feature", and you have to pay a serious amount of
>> money for it.
>
> And guess what - there happens to be a reason for this ;-)

That's kind of what I'm asking about.

> You know, people who rack-mount things usually demand some features
> (besides mounting brackets) the non-rack-mounting people just don't care
> about.

I fail to see why putting a £2 keyboard with some of its keys missing 
into a slidy draw makes it worth £200, but OK.

>> I'm saying, not knowing how the batteries are different, I can't say
>> whether or not that justifies the price difference. It might do, I don't
>> know.
>
> Obviously they're different in how fast you can charge them, no?

I meant what's physically different about the batteries that makes them 
perform better.

If they work better because the electrodes are made of solid gold, then 
yeah, that'll be why they're more expensive. :-P (Although... damn... 
according to my chemistry, that shouldn't work AT ALL!) If they charge 
faster because the charge management chip is different, then... there's 
really no reason for a price hike.

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Le 2012-03-08 09:01, Invisible a écrit :
>>> It seems more like rack
>>> mounting is a "premium feature", and you have to pay a serious amount of
>>> money for it.
>>
>> And guess what - there happens to be a reason for this ;-)
>
> That's kind of what I'm asking about.
>
>> You know, people who rack-mount things usually demand some features
>> (besides mounting brackets) the non-rack-mounting people just don't care
>> about.
>
> I fail to see why putting a £2 keyboard with some of its keys missing
> into a slidy draw makes it worth £200, but OK.
>
>>> I'm saying, not knowing how the batteries are different, I can't say
>>> whether or not that justifies the price difference. It might do, I don't
>>> know.
>>
>> Obviously they're different in how fast you can charge them, no?
>
> I meant what's physically different about the batteries that makes them
> perform better.
>
> If they work better because the electrodes are made of solid gold, then
> yeah, that'll be why they're more expensive. :-P (Although... damn...
> according to my chemistry, that shouldn't work AT ALL!) If they charge
> faster because the charge management chip is different, then... there's
> really no reason for a price hike.

If only there was a way to get that information from the website I 
linked in the previous post...

Replacement battery pack for the home unit:
http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=RBC17

Replacement battery pack for the rackmountable unit:
http://www.apc.com/products/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=RBC34L

The RBC34L is about 3 times as heavy than the RBC17 that should be your 
first clue...  3 times the number of batteries = 3 times the price, no?

Secondly, the RBC34L is hot-swappable, that means additional circuitry, 
and design that could very well account for the rest of the price 
difference.

You also need to understand that they probably sell fewer rackmountable 
units than they sell home units, therefore the production fixed costs 
have to be recouped on a smaller number of units sold, also contributing 
to higher prices.

It's possible that APC is screwing their corporate customers, but there 
are quite a few perfectly valid reasons besides price-gouging to justify 
the higher prices.

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