Few thoughts on Hardware Specifications for your ERP Environment...
So you have chosen your ERP Solution and are now looking at the server design behind it...a few thoughts on my experience so far with this
1) Talk to the guys in the know...Swallow your pride, and play stupid, you want to know exactly what the guys that design the systems reccomend for hardware....If you are like myself, and are taking a microsoft path, take their minimum requirements and double it....You want to know processor, memory, and disk loads on your servers, for database setups, you really really want to spec your RAID arrays correctly
2) Reasearch for yourself - For each technology you are implementing, jump online and look at reccomendations on configuration and deployment techniques - for Example, look at the best way to configure your SAN for SQL Performance, there are many many articles online on how this should be done
3) Play the Vendors - Each of the Vendors or partners you work with, will have specialists who will give you their two cents on how your environment should be setup - Talk to numerous, and compare what they each say, you will find it very interesting to see the differences that come up, and it gives you something to research and find out for yourself the ups and downs, and then base your own design on that knowledge...
4) Choose hardware wisely. This is one of the toughest calls you will make in the infrastructure design. Most Vendors offer relatively similar offerings with some differences of course, but rarely will one not be able to do what the other can...its usually a leapfrog pattern with vendors, HP realease a new offering, IBM take over a few months down the track, DELL step in another few months down and beat IBM, Then HP come back in with a new generation which wins....and so on and so on...So my advice on this is to work with what, and who you know....For myself, I have taken the Path of A DELL Blade Centre with EMC Storage...Why? Because i know the DELL product range, And for me, they have been unbeleivable helpful and reliable since i have been working with them, EMC are pretty much the leaders in Storage and DELL Partner up with them, giving me support benefits, price benefits and a central point of call for everthing....They also at this point in time, appear to be the winning frog in the never ending pattern of the Blade Centres...3 months down the track could have seen HP in the lead...
5) Negotiate with Vendors. These guys have room to move, and if you are doing a decent size project, none of them want to see you leave....so play them against each other...! It can be hard, and you can feel like a ***, but this is business, and thousand bucks here, and a few hundred there, mean you have more money to play with coolder toys later on....Play them and play them hard
6) Support and warranty...When you are dealing with a solution that your business is depending on, then you really really need to keep support and maintenance in the front of your mind....If something falls over, you need it fixed asap or its your *ss on the line...Most Vendors will ship a 3 year warranty as part of their kit, but really, is 3 years enough - I chose 5 on everything....cost went through the roof, but the business, myself, and whoever takes my role in the future, can rest in the fact that for 5 years, everything is covered - and that is a nice feeling!
7) Virtualisation. Yes, its the craze at the moment, and rightly so...Virtualisation is amazing....it is quickly becoming a part of every day infrastructure...Scope virtualization options early in the peice....it can be a costly little venture if you dont budget for this initally as part of your plans...some cool little products like VMWare ESXi is shipped only as OEM when using bare metal HyperV's, and can save you some serious coin....Citrix is also an exceedingly good option to be looking at while Microsofts HyperV is still in baby phase and has a long way to go as yet - it will get there though
8) Plan it, Rack it and Stack it! Keep note on this! The bigger the ERP, the bigger the server requirements....bigger server requirements, the more space (even in Blade Centres), if Database driven, you are going to want Storage Arrays - which is more space...which then needs fibre or Ethernet (for ISCI) switches - more space!...And finally, all this requires power redundancy, which is a stack of space on its own...Visio has a great rack builder and visualisation tools with add-inns from most vendors now, so that you can accurately map out your hardware before shooting yourself in the foot. I managed to fill a 42RU rack in a day....and if I hadn't mapped this out with Visio, I would have been stuffed...
So thats it for now, I have my System Racked and Stacked and waiting for power.....Next update I'll discuss Storage and Blade integration with a high emphasis in SQL performance configuration :)
Cheers
James
Its been a while since i posted anything of use, and thats been due to the preparations of the new ERP rollout we are about to undertake....
We are about to undertake one of the largest Dynamics AX rollouts in Aus....Using not only the latest in Server Technologies, but the latest Microsoft Solutions and Integrating Technologies
Over the next few months I will try and blog on the process and the trials and tribulations that we face, and hopefully overcome
Ill take you through Server 2008 Rollout, ADDS 2008 (which is already in place), HyperV, SQL 2009, Microsoft System Centre and its relevant components, and cover any Integration issues that we have beteween Manhatten warehousing as well as numerous other solutions that we will be moving away from
Hopefully I will have some useful info to pass through on the project
Any requests or suggestions for articles or guides would be appreciated too, as i am out of ideas at the moment :)
Cheers
James