Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

SAN project update #4 ... purchase made

Yes, yes, yes ... I was supposed to post which SAN we chose last night.  1000 apologies.

I was dog tired when I left work so I turned off my phone, ate dinner with my wife, took a nap, and saw Superman Returns with a friend. (BTW, great movie!)

So anyways ... after what we feel was a pretty exhaustive research I did make the final decision yesterday and sent over a purchase order.  Again, it was pretty close, but there were several factors that swung us towards one vendor over the other.  I will elaborate on those in an upcoming post.

So without further delay ... the winner is ... <insert drum roll> EqualLogic <queue fireworks> <queue band> <insert fanfare glore> :-)

So in about a week we will have a sweet PS100E from EqualLogic spinning 14 250GB drives.  2 Cisco Catalyst 2960G switches (24 port Gig) are also on the way to create a robust redundant SAN network.

I'm taking today, Monday and Tuesday off to unwind ... then Weds back in the saddle in an attempt to play catch up with everything that got dropped in the past 2 weeks.

Stay tuned ... this project has lots more to go!

(congrats to Chris Marsden on correctly identifying EqualLogic as our choice.  Chris is now the proud owner of 1000 bonus points!)

Friday Funnies: What NOT to do in your server room

From TechRepublic ... a series of funny pictures and blubs on ... What not to do in your server room

SAN project update #3

I been on the phone more in the past 2 days than I think I have in my entire life combined!  In addition to the contacts each of the vendors gave us, I've had numerous people read this blog and email me saying they've been through the same research and are willing to chat about why they chose one over the other.  Thanks to everyone who's lended a hand in this project.  It's truly felt like a group project.

Tuesday night Ed, several volunteers, and I busted out the dry erase markers and went to town trying to determine which solution was the best fit for GCC.  By 11:30pm we had a list of questions that still needed answered before we felt comfortable naming the victor.

Now here it is 2am Thursday and of course I can't sleep because a million thoughts are racing around in my mind.  About 14 hours from now I'm going to make a phone call and send someone a Purchase Order.  Each of the solutions we're looking at would meet our needs, so it's about which is best for us. 

The drama continues :-)

So ... who do you think we'll end up going with??  Bonus points for each person who guesses correctly! 

Only one entry per person.  Entry must be date/time stamped prior to blog post announcing winning vendor.  Employees of the Granger Community Church IT Department are ineligible.  Void where prohibited by law.  Bonus points are bogus and will remain the property of jpowell.blogs.com and may not be used in conjunction with bonus points, bogus or non, from any other website, product, vendor, or individual.  Cash value of bonus points = $0.00  Any attempt to counterfeit bonus points is punishable by death or mostly death to be determined by casting lots during the next harvest moon.

SAN project update #2

As I predicted ... the gloves are off and vendors are really fighting for our business.  You know it's serious when I have to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) before I can see any quotes :-)

While it's great that were getting such great offers, the problem is it's making the decision that much more difficult.  I was hoping one vendor would really come in and make us a great offer that we couldn't refuse ... but they all did!

So right now it's a toss up between EqualLogic and LeftHand.  Pros and cons on each side.  I've got several contacts to speak with that have just gone through a SAN project so I'm hoping they can enlighten me on why they chose one over the other.

At this point we've kinda moved the IBM DS300 out of the picture.  Unlike the EL and LH gear, the DS300 is not able to natively expand it's storage pool to other DS300's down the road ... each would be a SAN to itself ... and thus 2 separate items to manage unless you purchase IBM's storage management software ($$$).  As we've gotten deeper in our research the ability to expand/addon to a SAN has become a requirement.  Our Tech Arts guys just came to us the other day inquiring about their storage needs for high def video clips ... and we already know our video guys could fill up 4TB just by themselves with archive photos/videos.  So having a single point of management and the ability to easily grow our SAN is a must.

Tonights plan is to sit down with our volunteers, bust out the whiteboard markers, and hash through all the data we've collected ... and hopefully have some solid direction on what we all feel is the best solution for GCC and a final set of questions before making the big decision sometime Thursday.

It's Not What You Think ...

Last week of June = excellent pricing

OK ... so I typically make most of my big purchases right before years end if possible for mongo year end savings.  Dell's fiscal year end is Jan 31, so typically we purchase our new batch of Dell gear end of Jan and get some crazy deals. (I'm behind the ball this year ... still haven't ordered our new batch of desktops yet ... doh!)

Now I'm finding out that a number of vendors have their fiscal year end June 30 ... and of course if it's not their fiscal year end, it's end of Q2 ... which means great savings can be found regardless.

A couple of our SAN vendors have June 30 fiscal year end ... and the desire to make a sale next week is very high.

I've just learned ScriptLogic has a June 30 fiscal year end ... and I just got a whopping discounted quote.

All this to say, don't be afraid to ask vendors when their fiscal year end is.  Plan your large purchases around end of quarter and fiscal year end and you'll find vendors will to do some crazy stuff to get your business.

I don't know if my boss Tony purposefully scheduled our SAN money to be available end of Q2 to take advantage of end of quarter pricing, but we're benefiting for sure.  Even if it wasn't on purpose we'll say it was ... always make your boss look good ;-)

Toshiba Gigabeat - move over iPod

I've been waiting for someone to create something to rival the new video iPod.  iRiver did a great job with their H series products against the non-video iPods, but I finally got to have some hands on time with the new Toshiba Gigabeat ... and it rocks!

My buddy Rob got his 60GB Gigabeat last night and we were giving it the workover.  I have (yes, I still use it occasionally) an older 20GB iPod and have played with the new iPods.  The Gigabeat is just as easy to navigate, very fast, includes several features the iPod doesn't and best of all you can use it with subscription based music services like my oft referred to Yahoo Music Engine vs. being locked into iTunes.

If I were to buy a portable player the Gigabeat wins hands down ... and that's very hard for me because I have a severe and deep disdain toward Toshiba (long story). 

CNET has recently given the Gigabeat top honors over the iPod ... and given the marketshare and popularity of the iPod, it takes some guts to say anything could possibly be better.

SAN project update

Things are really getting interesting as our SAN project nears the purchase time frame.

Here are some recent tidbits just from today ...

This morning we saw a great on-site demo of LeftHand Network's product by their regional sales manager ... very impressive.  Looks like they'll be sending us a quote for 3 NSM 160's to give us 3TB raw capacity.

Then this afternoon the regional sales manager from EqualLogic calls me and says that Don Bulens, CEO of EqualLogic, had just read my blog and told him to contact me right away.  Wow, how cool is that?  A big name CEO reads about our SAN project and wants to make sure we're being treated well.  Thanks, Don!  The only thing more impressive would have been a direct call from Don himself :-)
So after I explain that we just saw a demo from LeftHand, David says he can have one of their systems engineers at our site Friday morning for hands-on demo of the EqualLogic product ... sweet.
They'll be providing a quote on their PS100E which provides 3.5TB raw.

Our EMC VAR (value added reseller) has bowed out of the bid.  Apparently they're not able to match our price point.  So I'm not sure if I want to get Dell involved with an EMC quote at this stage in the game.

Our IBM VAR has gotten us some crazy aggressive pricing ... a fully loaded DS300 (4.2TB raw) for a couple grand under $20K!!  Wow, I'm guessing that's going to be hard for the other guys to match.

What happened to CDW?  They gave us an initial EqualLogic quote that was WAY high ... so they're going back and re-quoting.  I've not gotten a LeftHand quote from them yet, but we do have a conf call with them Thursday to hopefully get some numbers in our target range.

Having multiple VARs quoting the same product is pretty wild and I'm very interested to see how this all pans out.  I'm also learning that there is some fierce competition in the iSCSI SAN market.  Now if someone would just give us a SAN it would make my life so much easier ... and they'd get a nice writeup on my blog :-)

So stay tuned as this project is building steam ...

300+ subscribers!

Today marked the first time feedburner indicated over 300 people subscribing to this blog ... crazy.

That just blows my mind ... really!  Perhaps it's time to write that Simply Strategic Technology book we've been kicking around :-)

Thanks so much for reading.  My hope is you gleen some helpful tidbits to help your ministry soar.

Geeks for Jesus!

Jason

A Lift and a Winch Anniversary

Wow, tonight marks the 1 year anniversary of our move into our new office space.  Time flys!

If you missed the fun the first time 'round ... check out the pics and info on how we got our server rack and equipment upstairs where there is no elevator access :-)