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[TheBoy]

**Update** Just asked out IT guy about it and he said we don't use this kind of set up due to the cost and the trade off in processing power.

Sounds like they are too stupid to either consider it or implement it....

Certainly sounds like something we ought to have in place, but we are a very small company as is our IT dept which consists of..............just one! He's generally reasonably good with most IT issues but I do question his ability with higher level issues. Also, he's our Field Engineer Manager and half the time he's out of the office dealing with customers. Not an ideal situation, but I don't think our resources would stretch to a dedicated IT dept.

My brothers retail business have fault tolerant disks at both his sites (linked by a wireless link, apparently capable of up to 16km!).

Unfortunately, the disk controller failed in one today. Doh!  Still, I talked him through nicking the controller from his Citrix server and fitting in the failed SQL Server to get his tills up and running again.

He has no IT staff.

Ahhhhh.........the benefits of having an IT literate brother!!

Possibly, but my point was he is a small business, yet I can still come up with good enough business cases to get him to spend on things that have no immediate effect on bottom line - eg UPS's etc...   ....even though i don't work for him, i still have to justify IT costs to him.

Surely your guy should do likewise?

[bob.dent]

**Update** Just asked out IT guy about it and he said we don't use this kind of set up due to the cost and the trade off in processing power.

Sounds like they are too stupid to either consider it or implement it....

Certainly sounds like something we ought to have in place, but we are a very small company as is our IT dept which consists of..............just one! He's generally reasonably good with most IT issues but I do question his ability with higher level issues. Also, he's our Field Engineer Manager and half the time he's out of the office dealing with customers. Not an ideal situation, but I don't think our resources would stretch to a dedicated IT dept.

My brothers retail business have fault tolerant disks at both his sites (linked by a wireless link, apparently capable of up to 16km!).

Unfortunately, the disk controller failed in one today. Doh!  Still, I talked him through nicking the controller from his Citrix server and fitting in the failed SQL Server to get his tills up and running again.

He has no IT staff.

Ahhhhh.........the benefits of having an IT literate brother!!

Possibly, but my point was he is a small business, yet I can still come up with good enough business cases to get him to spend on things that have no immediate effect on bottom line - eg UPS's etc...   ....even though i don't work for him, i still have to justify IT costs to him.

Surely your guy should do likewise?

I really do take your point and I totally agree, but unfortunately it's not down to me to make these decisions. However, now I know what they are, I'll certainly push for having fault tolerant disks when we have our next managers meeting. I think I'll probably have a good argument seeing as how it affects me and my staff more than anyone else and without accounts and administration, there's no business.

[Markjay]

When we take on a new customer, there is a certain minimum spec which we impose - if they won't have it then we walk away...

This may sound a bit harsh, but the reason is that without these failsafe features the system will never be stable, so it's loose-loose situation, the customer will not be happy with their IT and we will put in extra work for which we can not charge.

In case anyone is wondering, we make no money on hardware (margins are non-exitent), in fact we encourage  the customer to source the kit themselves based on the Part Numbers we provide, though some insist that we actually supply it.

And yes this includes RAID as a must-have for all servers...