Re: How Apple Won Our Mini Enterprise Contract

In article <hgben7$v2u$1@xxxxxxxx>, Nashton <nana@xxxxx> wrote:

ZnU wrote:
In article <hg96as$72d$1@xxxxxxxx>, Nashton <nana@xxxxx> wrote:

ZnU wrote:
In article <hg8oos$kcu$4@xxxxxxxx>, Nashton <nana@xxxxx> wrote:

Tim Murray wrote:
Jim wrote:
http://foliovision.com/2009/12/15/apple-mini-e


Should be

http://foliovision.com/2009/12/15/apple-mini-enterprise

This is exactly the kind of thing Macs are suited for in the
enterprise.

For anybody who runs a business on ...minis, may God help him.
Huh? What's wrong with minis?

They could have purchased an Xserve with a raid configuration
and used Netboot for all their hardwired computers. Less hassle
and only one computer to upgrade.
How in the world is an Xserve a substitute for six Mac minis?
Silly me. I imagine that the term Xserve doesn't really allude to
servers.

Or are you saying they should get an Xserve as well, for netboot?
Routinely netbooting desktop systems is fairly pointless, and
also sort of makes things awkward if you want to add some
laptops. Netbooting for imaging purposes might be worthwhile.
That $999 server version of the mini would be a better choice for
that in this deployment than a $3K+ Xserve. Maybe also run
Retrospect for client backup. (Though I'd be tempted to just
write some shell scripts to handle such simple backup needs.)
I paid thousands to create my FMP database solution and I'm paying
a few thousand $ to integrate it with Daylite.

Do you think, for 1 second that it would be prudent to run this on
a "desktop" computer with laptop innards?

For anything under a couple of dozen client systems? Absolutely,
yes. Internal mirrored software RAID on one of the new server
minis, external Time Machine backups, and periodic offsite backups
via an Internet backup service or (if the Internet connection isn't
good enough for that) USB key or portable external HD.

Listen, I am in the medical business. Confidentiality and
preservation of records is paramount. The more precautions I take to
safeguard confidential files, the better. How do you think it would
look in court if data was lost and I wasn't using a commercial grade
backup program such as Retrospect? I believe this applies to any
serious business, irrespective of its nature.

"Sorry, your honor, I lost all my charts, but I was using a thing
called "Time Machine", available on all consumer Apple Desktop
computers *and I was running my databases on Mac ....minis."

One of the things one learns when setting up reliable systems is that
sometimes the best way to achieve reliability is to keep things as
simple as possible, so there's not much that can go wrong, rather than
deploying elaborate "enterprise grade" solutions that create additional
problems with system integration and, as a result of their complexity,
increase the odds of user error.

Time Machine works quite well for local backups and is built into the
system, virtually eliminating future compatibility issues.

That said, the above setup with Retrospect substituting for Time Machine
is also perfectly workable, and I'd recommend it in some scenarios,
especially in cases where there was more data than would fit comfortably
onto a single backup volume and/or offsite backups were being performed
on tape so there was a need for something like Retrospect anyway.

Maybe a Mini is marginally more likely to fail than an Xserve, but
it's so much cheaper you can have an entire extra machine as a hot
spare and still spend half as much, and I'm quite certain that
*two* minis are more reliable than one Xserve.

I bought my Xserver Cluster with 3 GBs of RAM off eBay for a song and
had it thoroughly checked out by a tech in Fredericton.

Which is really hillarious in light of what you wrote above. "Yes, your
honor, it's true that I bought my server from eBay".

I had a spare HD on which I write a backup image biweekly. I also
purchased a spare power supply. I run a serious business and the
extra money spent to assure that my data doesn't get lost or
corrupted is small change compared to the hassle, frustration and
work involved in trying to recover from a mess.

You've built a system that probably has *lower* total reliability than a
system with an entire extra mini as a hot spare, and you've spent more
money to do it.

Pulleeaase.

It's hard to say without knowing your exact business needs, but it
rather sounds like you're spending substantially more than you need
to be. Consultants have a tendency to make projects unnecessarily
complex to justify their own existence.

The consultants I use are the best in the business, recommended by
marketcircle and FMP. have yet to go through any major catastrophe.

I'm not saying they're bad at their jobs. But it sounds like they're the
sort of shop that implements a specific sort of solution, which means
they're probably not too likely to tell you if there's some other easier
sort of solution. For instance, we've found that custom web applications
can often substitute for custom FMP databases, sometimes (because of the
elimination of licensing fees and the fact that it's less specialized
work) at lower cost and with less in-house complexity (because it's
easier to get a web app hosted by an outside provider).

Incidentally, if people think this sort of nonsense is bad with
routine business infrastructure, try the film/video production
world. I had a meeting with some clients about post production
workflow on a feature film last month and pointed out that the
$6000 Mac Pro they were buying for the guy doing the offline edit
was complete unnecessary, and the 720p ProRes files we were
providing them with could literally be edited just fine on a $800
Mac mini. I proceeded to demonstrate editing the files on a
2007-model MacBook Pro. Of course they bought the $6000 tower
anyway, and I'm sure took me a little less seriously because I
suggested they didn't really need it.

This is a totally different matter.

No, it's pretty much the same thing. Your whole "Sure, cheaper gear
would work just fine but I need to buy really expensive stuff to cover
by ass" thing is pretty much standard practice in the film industry.

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
.

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