In The Modern Age, Computer Networks, And Above All Servers, Are Among The Basic Needs And Infrastructure Of Medium And Large Businesses.

Physical Server, Computer networks are used for various reasons, including resource sharing, easy access for users to financial software, automation of administrative processes, better communication with customers, and easy access to records and transactions.

Servers are the mainstay of medium and large networks. Servers are expensive networking equipment used for specific and more significant tasks in large companies and organizations.

In the article What is a virtual server and what features it offers, we mentioned the essential points you should pay attention to when buying a virtual server. However, as we have said, physical servers are considered by companies and medium and large businesses because of their unique features, such as complete control over the server and resource specificity.

With cloud infrastructure and various virtualization technologies available to companies at almost affordable prices, some organizations need dedicated and physical servers to store business transactions on the company’s internal servers.

This article will get acquainted with the points you should pay attention to when buying a physical server.

Personal computer in server format (big mistake)

Some companies use personal computers as servers for various reasons, such as saving money by installing a server operating system such as Windows Server 2016 or 2019 on a regular computer to turn a personal computer into a server. Next, essential software such as financial software and office automation installs and configures shared files and folders, defines user accounts, and allows employees to access the folders and resources of this seeming server computer. It causes a lot of damage to the company or organization, the most important of which are:

1. Servers last longer than PCs: PCs are designed for home and office use and are not an excellent alternative to servers. Because servers are open 24 hours a day and are only available for troubleshooting or upgrading software and hardware, their components last longer than their home computers. Ingredients used in servers, such as hard disks, power supplies, main memory, and processors, have a longer lifespan than personal computers. If you put your personal computer in a server position and turn it on all the time, in less than 2 to 3 years, you will have to say goodbye to it and wait for its various components to break down. 

2- Server components are of better quality. They are made for heavy processing: Processors, main memory, and hard disks used in servers have higher features, speed, and quality than PC components and provide more processing power. For example, the processors used in the servers are from Intel’s Xeon family, which have more processing power, higher build quality, and special features than Intel’s Core I family processors used in personal computers.

3. Servers offer a variety of security features: Servers have capabilities to minimize data loss. For example, with a Raid Controller component used in servers, you can manage the server’s hard disks and back up data. This feature is available in a minimal number of personal computers, which ultimately leads to data loss. 

4. Servers can better support virtualization technologies than personal computers: Computer network management software has made significant advances, the largest of which is virtualization. This technology allows companies to split a physical server into several virtual servers. If the server is physically one number, it can be converted to multiple virtual servers and used for different applications. 

How to get the correct server?

In general, the responsibility of purchasing a server rests with the network architect or network engineer, and these professionals purchase the server based on business requirements.

When purchasing a server, there are seven essential criteria for server space, how to implement and install, how to manage, power supply and cooling, how to connect clients to the server, cabling, and costs, which are divided into two groups: purchase costs (CAPEX) and maintenance costs ( OPEX) are divided.

Suppose you pay attention to these seven critical criteria along with the requirements that we mention below. In that case, you will choose the best server that fits the organization’s business needs. Other important things to keep in mind are:

1. Identify the requirements of the business

Before you open online stores and search for different servers, first look for the answers to the following questions.

•  What is the business you are looking for it? 

•  Is the organization’s scope expanding, and do you need a flexible infrastructure that is in line with the changes and needs of the business?

•  Are you looking to increase employee performance and productivity?

•  Are you looking for software that allows telecommunications, or do you plan to use software like Skype for Business to interact with employees? 

•  What is the server supposed to do? For example, the server should play the role of the domain controller, and it is supposed to play the part of the mail server. Do you intend to implement a client-server network? 

•  How many employees do you have in the organization?

•  What problems do you have in the organization that the server can solve?

•  How do you assess the speed of business growth (especially when the economic situation is not so good)? 

•  What software will you use on the server, and how many clients are connecting to the server?

•  What information is to be processed by the server, is speed a vital criterion?

•  How much main memory do you need?

•  How much storage space do you need, and what kind do you need (hard disk, solid-state memory, or a combination of both)?

•  What RAID and RAID controller are you going to use on the server?

•  How many network ports do you need on the server?

• What operating system is to be installed on the server?

•  What space do you have to deploy the server, have user space for standalone servers, or is it best to have a server or blade server? 

•  Do you plan to add network storage media to the network to support the server?

•  The server is supposed to be connected to more than one network; what mechanisms and protocols do you use to connect the server to the network?

2. What budget do you have for purchasing a server?

The budgets for purchasing a server are directly related to the requirements of the previous step. Some companies are looking to put the equipment inside retrievers, while others are looking for standalone servers, recombinants, and the like. Each of the above servers has its definitions that affect its final price. Therefore, you need to specify the budget that you have allocated for this purpose.

3. HP servers

HP servers are the first choice of organizations in Iran and other countries because they offer many functionalities and the life of their components is long. An important point to note before introducing HPE servers is the term HPE ProLiant. HP ProLiant is a brand of HP servers previously developed and sold by Compaq. After Compaq merged with HP, HP retired the older generation of its NetServer servers and replaced ProLiant.

ProLiant servers should be considered a great start to building powerful HP servers. Servers that can quickly meet the business needs of small to large companies and, as you will see, offer efficient capabilities in connection with local, cloud, or hybrid networks.

HP servers are divided into several groups, the most important of which are:

• HPE Synergy: Provides an infrastructure of interoperable blade servers capable of working in any hybrid environment and working conditions. Server

•  HP Synergy is based on HP’s intelligent infrastructure, which employs manageable and extensible links. Synergy Server can combine resources based on defined needs and develop them. These servers are designed to meet organizations’ current and future needs to expand their bandwidth quickly. 

• HPE ProLiant ML: Stand-alone servers designed for small and medium-sized businesses. They can efficiently work with hybrid or internal cloud infrastructure. If you are looking to use a powerful workstation to run heavy graphics or processing software, ProLiant ML سر Series servers are a good choice and provide good computing power for clients. These servers can easily integrate with graphics cards and hardware infrastructure and provide acceptable output. 

• HPE ProLiant DL: rack-optimized servers meet the security standards of industrial servers. These servers are more powerful than the ML model and are called rackmount servers because they can be placed in racks. The servers above allow companies to upgrade hardware components based on business needs to achieve more powerful processing power, storage space, or better security. ProLiant DL سرو servers are the best choice to set up a network with all the features. ProLiant DL. Servers provide good software capabilities for management, monitoring, security, and storage. 

• ProLiant Blade Servers: These servers work closely with ProLiant DL ور servers, but they are mounted vertically in the rack. This model also offers good capabilities in terms of processing power, storage, networking, and virtualization. Organizations consider these servers because they take up little space. 

• HPE Superdome Flex Servers: This group of servers is modular and based on the X86 architecture and provides a reliable infrastructure for various software and applications. 

• HPE Apollo: This group of servers is designed and optimized to handle fast computing (HPC) and large amounts of data that need analysis. In general, these servers are designed to achieve high performance, scalability, and productivity. These servers are a good option for training innovative models and because of their high price, buying them is economically justified for large organizations. Flexibility in design and ease of upgrading make these servers a good choice for web services, web hosting, big data processing, and heavy workloads. 

• HPE SimpliVity: Provides a fully convergent infrastructure to improve application performance and facilitate connectivity, performance, backup, and recovery of virtual machines. 

• HPE Edgeline: These servers can combine OT and IT structures at the enterprise level. These servers provide the best and most advanced computing with their extraordinary capabilities. 

• HPE Cloudline: An infrastructure with a flexible design for cloud-centric data centers. The servers of this model include HPE Cloudline CL2100 / 2200/3150 Gen10, HPE Cloudline CL2100 / 3100 G3, HPE Cloudline CL2200 G3, 1211R, and HPE Cloudline CL3100 G4. 

• HPE Composable Rack: An open and flexible hybrid cloud infrastructure with rack-scale adaptability and cloud computing experience on local area networks.

4. Availability

Hot-plug drivers, PCI slots, RAID storage, multiple PSUs, and fans increase server stability. Server manufacturers use the Fault-Tolerant approach to improve server stability to continue to serve with minor and straightforward errors. For this purpose, techniques such as redundancy of components and hardware components are used.

In addition, companies can increase the fault tolerance based on the principle of clustering, which is based on the purchase of two or more connected servers and can continue to serve in the event of a severe hardware problem, in which case the total cost Becomes more. Typically, servers with high availability use Hot-Plug drivers.

5. Optimal serviceability and manageability

The software provided for managing the servers provides basic and limited capabilities in the primary state. This software offers remote monitoring and control of the server professionally. When a professional service license has been purchased from the manufacturer, network administrators can check the report files, upgrade the server BIOS and software, or Send away the server shutdown command.

The ability to configure and manage storage devices, monitor CPU activity, and disk usage, set parameters to predict system errors and problems, troubleshoot, and set the server to send alerts in various cases are other management capabilities of these software providers. Serviceability is another criterion to look out for it.

6. Physical dimensions and scalability

Physical size is an important criterion to look out for it. It seems that the tower model servers are gradually transferring the field to the recumbent servers. Recommended servers come in various heights and can occupy from one to eight server units, while their standard width is 19 inches. Reconversors save space, take up the ability to install new drivers, and simplify the maintenance process by providing expandable slots on the back of the device.

last word

The following are some of the most important things to look for when purchasing a server.

Buy a server that offers exceptional capabilities such as server-specific management chip, high performance when performing input and output operations, and different RAID levels for hard disks.

If you plan to use the server to perform extra-organizational tasks, or more precisely, you intend to serve other companies, when buying, pay attention to the upgrade of hardware components and their availability in the market so that in the event of a problem, the server for Do not be out of reach for a long time. When buying, you should pay attention to the operating system license and server management software.

If the organization has many clients, use a virtual model instead of buying a physical server. Suppose the server is located in rental data centers. In that case, you should make sure that it is countable and the number of units it occupies in the rack and buy from companies that offer a valid warranty and after-sales service. The products you buy will bring a return on investment in the long run by following these tips.