Questions on business server quote.

[Onita]

At my work, we just received a quote for a server installation. Some background on my work and our setup:

1 boss, 3 employees. We are already setup with a server, however, our IT company suggested an upgrade as we've been having some issues. Typical usage consists of office products, all networked on outlook, and a few minor additional programs.

We received the quote the other day, and I told my boss I'd look into it as much as I could. It seems like it is extremely high and possibly overkill. We received 2 quotes for 2 different setups - $5500 and $9000 for setup, including 20+ hours of installation costs.

I'm hoping to get some insight from someone who does this professionally. Is 20+ hours of setup normal for replacing a server? Also, I could PM someone the specs as well as any additional information from the quote, as I'd rather not put it out here, and see if its overkill or not.

Thanks in advance, and if there is anything further I can clarify please let me know.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Do you have a domain or workgroup ? Whats your svr setup ?

last one I did was going from 400gb to 4.5tb server with 2008 r2 license and 40 seat cal. Server + license was 8k. Are you reusing existing license, assuming you can ?
Took me about 22 hours to configure & move the files over. Reset permissions to match old server.

AD + DHCP + DNS + Print server + peachtree server + advent axys server. Backup to nas, cloud, etc.

Bulk of the time was moving files over and creating directory structures.

 

[Onita]

Thanks for the quick answer. YGPM.

 

[amdskip]

Yeah, more details needed. What do you have now?

 

[Onita]

An old dell sc 430. Domain setup. 4 users total. 95% of the usage is with office products.

EDIT: I sent more info to rsutoratosu via PM. If there is anything else I can tell you to get an opinion please let me know amdskip.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

An old dell sc 430. Domain setup. 4 users total. 95% of the usage is with office products.

EDIT: I sent more info to rsutoratosu via PM. If there is anything else I can tell you to get an opinion please let me know amdskip.

With a domain setup this doesnt seem to be too far off base. A lot of the time is spent gathering your current workflow and then actually matching to the new.

 

[rsutoratosu]

Just to clarify. Its server + ~20 hours service + license for 5000 and the other quote is same but for 9000.

Sever + license probably around around 2500-4000 and 20 hours service on top.

If it was server for 5k + service on top, the story changes a bit.

 

[Onita]

Thanks everyone for the opinions!

 

[drebo]

$5.5k server isn't too bad. However, $9k for installation of that server is a bit outrageous.

A PowerEdge SC430 is a piece of shit and should be replaced, however, an office your size shouldn't need a $5.5k server. He probably quoted you SBS2011 and he's going to want to set it up in a HyperV instance with the SBS portion dedicated to its own instance and a separate instance of 2K8 R2 Standard for everything else. That'd be hugely overkill.

So much so that you should probably look at Server 2K8 R2 Foundation. Sounds like you don't need too much, and you can get a very good 2K8 R2 Foundation server for about $3k. Setup on that, because you have so few users, should be $2k max.

Also, 20 hours install @ $9k? That's $450/hr. Find a new "IT company."

 

[Onita]

No, thats a misunderstanding. Those are two different server options, including install. Sorry for being too vague.

T110 for 5k installed. T610 for 9k installed.

 

[amdskip]

I'm in the process of setting up a Dell PowerEdge T310 for a small office and with a couple extra drives, SBS 2011, it came out to $4k and change. I am billing hourly for the setup and it is taking much longer than I thought since the old sbs 2003 is corrupted and will not migrate with the migration tool.

 

[skyking]

<dons a flamesuit and wades into the gasoline>
Running a domain server for 4 seems quite excessive IMO. you could get hosted exchange for several years with the money you'd save going to workgroup. </staggers out on fire>

 

[seepy83]

<dons a flamesuit and wades into the gasoline>
Running a domain server for 4 seems quite excessive IMO. you could get hosted exchange for several years with the money you'd save going to workgroup. </staggers out on fire>

I would agree with you, unless the business expects to grow. If they don't expect to have more than 10 employees, then having Active Directory is probably overkill. I guess the other scenario where a small business would require AD is if they are running another piece of software that requires it.

 

[skyking]

True, don't know the other requirements. The typical usage I see can be handled with a simple file server with a backup, and exchange offsite at 480 per year. whatever they do won't last the 10 years that 5 grand would buy you anyway.

 

[rsutoratosu]

OP isn't on exchange. As they are a small company. I believe they are on hosted with ost/pst stored on server.

Domain server and exchange server are not the same, you can have a domain to authenticate your logins and not have exchange on top. Its good security, central point of admin

 

[Onita]

Just to clarify - we won't ever have more than 4 employees. I appreciate all the responses - it has been very enlightening.

 

[JackMDS]

If there is Not something unusual with the work per-se, as a rule of thumb it shouls be about $2000/2500 + Cost of Hardware.

 

[kevnich2]

Price is entirely dependent on the type of server they're quoting you. IT Consulting companies are good for small businesses with no IT knowledge, however, they don't know the ins and outs of your particular business so they usually do overkill as a precaution to try and prevent calls later on saying the new server is slow, your service sucks, etc etc. 20 hours for a transition from one server to a new server is entirely within reason. Everything takes time and better to make sure it's done right the first time. Of course the labor is entirely dependent on the situation.

I would assume they would actually be charging for actual time, not on estimated time (eg If it only takes 12 hrs, are they still billing you for 20 hrs?) I personally tend to over state time with server installs so a quote for 20 hrs is within reason so the business is covered if anything comes up and takes extra time, then when I actually invoice it, I put the actual time worked down. I prefer to avoid the whole "But you quoted me 5 hrs and you invoiced me for 17 hrs!!" dilema

 

[drebo]

Just to clarify - we won't ever have more than 4 employees. I appreciate all the responses - it has been very enlightening.

If you'll never have more than 4 employees, Server 2K8 R2 Foundation is perfect for you. It gives you centralized user administration and permissions, but is much, MUCH less expensive than Server 2K8 R2 Standard. Foundation was designed precisely for your type of business.

SBS is more trouble than it's worth. Hosted Exchange would be far superior if you need an email solution that complex. Otherwise, Google Apps is pretty cheap.

 

[rsutoratosu]

yeah I hate sbs, i had to do a few migrations and it is probably the worse os i ever used