Boycotting Dell!

[The Conservative]

Depends on whether you care about information security. Uploading your data to a remote server is not going to help with that.

Are you high? Data centers are regularly updated with the latest and greatest in security. Meanwhile, old school server farms are getting smacked by friggin' WannaCry because they're using 20-year-old SMBv1. When the largest hacks in the world are nailing businesses by exploiting two-decade-old protocols it's not Amazon or Microsoft data centers they're hitting.

It's an old-school mainframe model - charge per hour of processing time, charge for data storage, charge for this, for that... I'm not a fan.

100% scalable, only pay for what you use. Is it cheaper to pay for an extra few terabytes and clock cycles of computing when you need it, in real time . . . or is it easier to let your servers get overwhelmed, then drop $30k on more hardware, only to discover three months later that the spike in traffic was unsustainable?

The era of the homegrown server closet has passed. We're just waiting for the last mammoths to succumb to the permafrost at this point.

I want to go to the cloud, but the company is hesitant... honestly I am tempted if the company is around next year to force everyone to the cloud and call it a day.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The Ruckus is doing the WiFi when the Firewall can do it as well. This entire situation is a clusterfuck.

Yeah, you might be able to do away with the Ruckus then. I'd double-check the capabilities on that firewall tho - it's a bit confusing on the specs. I don't think it's going to manage multiple WAPs for you.

It also has VPN capabilities, but not on the scale of the other one. 50 concurrent connections is pretty awesome.

This might not be a bad setup after all, actually..

It wouldn't be, if it made any sense... that's the problem, the old techs left no notes, no documentation of what they did, etc... so I've had to start from scratch, figure out from the wall, to the end points where everything is connected, how it's connected, and if it working as it should, so far the answer to that is not in the least...

From what you've told us, it does make sense.

Local Network > Firewall > VPN/Ruckus/Router > Internets

It's just 3 different outlets for your network. You haven't mentioned what isn't working though.

[The Conservative]

Yeah, you might be able to do away with the Ruckus then. I'd double-check the capabilities on that firewall tho - it's a bit confusing on the specs. I don't think it's going to manage multiple WAPs for you.

It also has VPN capabilities, but not on the scale of the other one. 50 concurrent connections is pretty awesome.

This might not be a bad setup after all, actually..

It wouldn't be, if it made any sense... that's the problem, the old techs left no notes, no documentation of what they did, etc... so I've had to start from scratch, figure out from the wall, to the end points where everything is connected, how it's connected, and if it working as it should, so far the answer to that is not in the least...

From what you've told us, it does make sense.

Local Network > Firewall > VPN/Ruckus/Router > Internets

It's just 3 different outlets for your network. You haven't mentioned what isn't working though.

LOL, what do you mean working through? That is all the hardware back there minus the switches and the Comcast internet connection.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Depends on whether you care about information security. Uploading your data to a remote server is not going to help with that.

Are you high? Data centers are regularly updated with the latest and greatest in security. Meanwhile, old school server farms are getting smacked by friggin' WannaCry because they're using 20-year-old SMBv1. When the largest hacks in the world are nailing businesses by exploiting two-decade-old protocols it's not Amazon or Microsoft data centers they're hitting.

Yet.

It's an old-school mainframe model - charge per hour of processing time, charge for data storage, charge for this, for that... I'm not a fan.

100% scalable, only pay for what you use. Is it cheaper to pay for an extra few terabytes and clock cycles of computing when you need it, in real time . . . or is it easier to let your servers get overwhelmed, then drop $30k on more hardware, only to discover three months later that the spike in traffic was unsustainable?

The era of the homegrown server closet has passed. We're just waiting for the last mammoths to succumb to the permafrost at this point.

Not so fast. You're assuming several things - that the price is actually cheaper over time (upgrades vs. computing time-charges). Availability is the same, unless there's a network/ISP outage (which happens). Security (which is never going to be guaranteed). And, most importantly, how does your ISP service change in the future? Do they throttle your traffic? Pricing changes after the FCC grants them a monopoly?

Also, you're still going to need servers, just to route the traffic. Often, those servers fill multiple functions - file transfers, VoIP, SANs, etc. Which things are you offloading?

[SuburbanFarmer]

It wouldn't be, if it made any sense... that's the problem, the old techs left no notes, no documentation of what they did, etc... so I've had to start from scratch, figure out from the wall, to the end points where everything is connected, how it's connected, and if it working as it should, so far the answer to that is not in the least...

From what you've told us, it does make sense.

Local Network > Firewall > VPN/Ruckus/Router > Internets

It's just 3 different outlets for your network. You haven't mentioned what isn't working though.

LOL, what do you mean working through? That is all the hardware back there minus the switches and the Comcast internet connection.

Not 'through' - 'though'.

You said it's not working, and I've asked several times what isn't working. I get the feeling that you just want to do it 'your way', rather than evaluate it objectively.

[The Conservative]

From what you've told us, it does make sense.

Local Network > Firewall > VPN/Ruckus/Router > Internets

It's just 3 different outlets for your network. You haven't mentioned what isn't working though.

LOL, what do you mean working through? That is all the hardware back there minus the switches and the Comcast internet connection.

Not 'through' - 'though'.

You said it's not working, and I've asked several times what isn't working. I get the feeling that you just want to do it 'your way', rather than evaluate it objectively.

Well lets just see, the wifi is choppy at best, everyone is connected to a single hub instead of being balanced out like they should be. I can't port forward to computers to bypass the VPN login for file sharing and other things we do here... I can't limit the people on the network because of the way they have it set up. I can't do a lot of things I should be able to do, because it's not set up correctly.

[DBTrek]

Not so fast. You're assuming several things - that the price is actually cheaper over time (upgrades vs. computing time-charges). Availability is the same, unless there's a network/ISP outage (which happens). Security (which is never going to be guaranteed). And, most importantly, how does your ISP service change in the future? Do they throttle your traffic? Pricing changes after the FCC grants them a monopoly?

Also, you're still going to need servers, just to route the traffic. Often, those servers fill multiple functions - file transfers, VoIP, SANs, etc. Which things are you offloading?

Of course it's going to be cheaper. You can spend $130 a month to lease the same computing power as a $50,000 server closet. But building the server closet alone isn't the end of your expenses. You'll have to hire a network admin, right? Two at least. And while you're paying them their salary, their medical insurance, their 401k, etc, etc, they can only do so much in a day.

Let's say you buy your server closet ($50k) and hire your two network admins ($200k/year), and suddenly find that you need *more* storage and computing than you have. Well crap. Now you're going to have to buy more hardware and take your two network admins off the business of administering your network so they can start the buildout. How much will that be?

Or, you know, with AWS you could up your monthly payment to $150 a month instead of $130 a month, and then scale it back down in the future if the network traffic drops off.

It's the comparable expense between the two that has, in fact, spelled the doom of the server closet.

But sure - in Dystopian world where everyone goes cloud and Amazon and Microsoft (Salesforce and Hitachi too) suddenly say "Instead of $130 a month you will pay $20,000 a month!", then your business gets killed.
Right before their cloud businesses get killed from lack of paying customers.

The only real argument against going cloud is ones geographic location relative to a data center. If you're in Africa, then sure, the nearest data center is probably in Spain, and that latency might kill you. If you're in the first world though . . . there is no excuse.

[SuburbanFarmer]

LOL, what do you mean working through? That is all the hardware back there minus the switches and the Comcast internet connection.

Not 'through' - 'though'.

You said it's not working, and I've asked several times what isn't working. I get the feeling that you just want to do it 'your way', rather than evaluate it objectively.

Well lets just see, the wifi is choppy at best,

Walk around the office with a WiFi scanner, and see if you're crossing channels, and what your signal coverage looks like. It's also very possible that the traffic is too high for your ISP connection.

everyone is connected to a single hub instead of being balanced out like they should be.

That's normal, unless I misunderstand you. Your WiFi traffic should all be routed to your router.

I can't port forward to computers to bypass the VPN login for file sharing and other things we do here...

You have to log in via VPN on the internal network? Or do you mean for internal to external connection?

I can't limit the people on the network because of the way they have it set up. I can't do a lot of things I should be able to do, because it's not set up correctly.

That's a setting in your router. It does take some know-how to navigate Cisco systems, but you can definitely set max users, or filter devices.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Not so fast. You're assuming several things - that the price is actually cheaper over time (upgrades vs. computing time-charges). Availability is the same, unless there's a network/ISP outage (which happens). Security (which is never going to be guaranteed). And, most importantly, how does your ISP service change in the future? Do they throttle your traffic? Pricing changes after the FCC grants them a monopoly?

Also, you're still going to need servers, just to route the traffic. Often, those servers fill multiple functions - file transfers, VoIP, SANs, etc. Which things are you offloading?

Of course it's going to be cheaper. You can spend $130 a month to lease the same computing power as a $50,000 server closet. But building the server closet alone isn't the end of your expenses. You'll have to hire a network admin, right? Two at least. And while you're paying them their salary, their medical insurance, their 401k, etc, etc, they can only do so much in a day.

Let's say you buy your server closet ($50k) and hire your two network admins ($200k/year), and suddenly find that you need *more* storage and computing than you have. Well crap. Now you're going to have to buy more hardware and take your two network admins off the business of administering your network so they can start the buildout. How much will that be?

Or, you know, with AWS you could up your monthly payment to $150 a month instead of $130 a month, and then scale it back down in the future if the network traffic drops off.

It's the comparable expense between the two that has, in fact, spelled the doom of the server closet.

You're only thinking in the short term though. What's the cost of all those monthly charges over 10-20 years, over server upgrades? 30 years? 50?

But sure - in Dystopian world where everyone goes cloud and Amazon and Microsoft (Salesforce and Hitachi too) suddenly say "Instead of $130 a month you will pay $20,000 a month!", then your business gets killed.
Right before their cloud businesses get killed from lack of paying customers.

Those paying customers would likely put up with a price increase, once they're locked into the system.

The only real argument against going cloud is ones geographic location relative to a data center. If you're in Africa, then sure, the nearest data center is probably in Spain, and that latency might kill you. If you're in the first world though . . . there is no excuse.

Hell of a lot more internet traffic needed, so factor in your ISP cost for a fiber line, when a small business might only require a regular connection otherwise.

[The Conservative]

Not 'through' - 'though'.

You said it's not working, and I've asked several times what isn't working. I get the feeling that you just want to do it 'your way', rather than evaluate it objectively.

Well lets just see, the wifi is choppy at best,

Walk around the office with a WiFi scanner, and see if you're crossing channels, and what your signal coverage looks like. It's also very possible that the traffic is too high for your ISP connection.

everyone is connected to a single hub instead of being balanced out like they should be.

That's normal, unless I misunderstand you. Your WiFi traffic should all be routed to your router.

I can't port forward to computers to bypass the VPN login for file sharing and other things we do here...

You have to log in via VPN on the internal network? Or do you mean for internal to external connection?

I can't limit the people on the network because of the way they have it set up. I can't do a lot of things I should be able to do, because it's not set up correctly.

That's a setting in your router. It does take some know-how to navigate Cisco systems, but you can definitely set max users, or filter devices.

The problem is that there is no way of knowing, the way they have it set up they completely circumvented the logging system... so no traffic is being recorded. Like I said, they broke it, and I need to tare it down and build it back up. The problem is that we pay $2500 a year for Dell support and they aren't providing it.