Vibrant MCSE BOOT Camp Notes :
Back : Contents : MCSE :

The Costs of Downtime

When an intranet is a pilot project with few users, a downed server won't create too much turmoil among those selected users. However, when an entire organization depends on the information and resources available on the intranet, downtime has a significant cost. High-reliability features are a small price to pay for a robust, dependable server. Converting from basic disk storage to basic RAID storage to protect against disk failures should cost no more than about 25 cents per megabyte. For example, 4GB of disk storage might cost $2,000, while 4GB of RAID storage would cost about $3,000. The difference is a small price to pay for protection against drive failure and data loss.

An often-overlooked cause of server failure is overheating problems that can show up just about anywhere and can be challenging to solve. Overheating can also affect your server's performance. Many processors lose 20 to 30 percent of performance with just a 20-degree temperature increase. Most systems will support additional cooling devices at a cost of $25 to $50. Adding an extra power supply or upgrading to a load-sharing power supply is another modest cost in the $200 to $400 range.

I recommend adding cooling features when setting up the server, because they will cover the majority of hardware-based system failures at a price much lower than the toll attached to a server failure.

back