Understanding Server Location and Maintenance

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Understanding Server Location and Maintenance

Pick The Right Server Location

Servers are often thought about as being in a server rack, but they could also be at the desk side as a tower server configuration for a single application, or perhaps in a remote office. Heck, I've even seen some servers sitting under a desk in a cubicle, serving important functions.

A server may also be one of dozens or even hundreds of thousands of servers in an extended server, data center, or server farm, depending on the capacities required, the size of the organization or function of that server. Have you seen that scene from the HBO series, Silicon Valley?!?

Servers could also be found inside of a blade center, as a blade module in a dense computing capacity format, typically installed in a server rack. The blades are in the blade center, which is in the rack - got it?

Rack Mount servers also would be found in a server rack when an IT user is looking for a dense, scalable server environment. These server racks are typically placed in dust-free, climate-controlled environments, in order to maintain the long-term, optimal capacity, and performance of the physical server hardware.

Servers may also be deployed in the cloud as virtual instances deployed on platforms such as AWS in order to serve the compute or data storage requirements of a business.

There are reasons why the latency or throughput may become a concern with too much cloud commitment though, and many mid to large size businesses, who have the capabilities of hosting on-premise server rooms, server racks, and data centers, do just that in order to achieve optimal speeds and performance for their users. This is often called "de-clouding" your IT.

What is Server Maintenance?

Server Maintenance

With physical servers comes a requirement for maintenance.

The manufacturers provide a warranty with any server, and even refurbished servers will come with a standard warranty from credible suppliers.

Most users opt to upgrade their warranties into maintenance plans though, whether they're buying new servers or refurbished servers. The manufacturers will offer one year, two years, three-year maintenance plans with service guarantees of anywhere from eight by five (8x5) to next business day (NBD), meaning that calls can be taken for support during normal business hours and parts provided by the next business day.

Higher level maintenance plans may include 24 X seven X four (24x7x4) or 24 X seven by two (24x7x2), which means that phone support is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and then any replacement parts and or local support can be provided within either a four hour or two-hour window. Thus, the trailing by four or by two at the end of the descriptor.

Third-party maintenance companies (TPMs) have become incredibly important to the refurbished server landscape. These maintainers are heroes to IT users using either legacy equipment, refurbished servers, or new servers.

Because the third-party maintainers can support equipment at a fraction of the price of new hardware from the manufacturers. They not only support new hardware but legacy equipment that would be no longer supported by the manufacturers, as well as refurbished servers, which the manufacturers may not decide to recertify.

In 99% of cases, though, many manufacturers will support used equipment, and most major manufacturers will support used equipment in every situation. In order to qualify used equipment, they typically just need to verify that the equipment is authentic, original equipment made by the manufacturers.

As you see, it's important to deal with established, credible resellers of refurbished server hardware such as Alta Technologies, when looking for long-term support.

Summary: Explore server configurations from tower setups to cloud instances. Learn about maintenance needs and the role of third-party support for optimal performance. 

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Content last updated:
04/04/2024

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