Written By: Donovan Hoare, Director ATS All Technology Solutions CC
For today’s increasing uptime requirement, one strives to get 100% uptime. Now is that a myth, or is it possible?
Yes, it is 100% possible, this used to be for the Fortune 500 companies, with a budget for three Dell servers, running VMware or the like. Costing for this would be on the plus side of R1 000 000. 100% service uptime would cost your company more than a million Rand. Small and most medium sized companies are not able to afford that.
However, technology has advanced and evolved. A Gartner magic quadrant company Sangfor now provides its software in South Africa.
Sangfor’s HCI “Hyper-Converged Infrastructure” offers affordable 100% uptime servers for growing businesses on a smaller scale. This is also available for larger companies.
How does it work?
Sangfor requires only two servers to be able to run HA, “High Availability”. This is achieved by copy on write to both servers simultaneously. Any VM Virtual machine running will move to the second server “node” instantly with zero downtime.
So why do we need 100% uptime?
If you are only making use of a backup system, and your server fails, this will be the process for replacing and setup of a new server:
Day 1 – Try to locate the error on the server.
Day 2 – Order and pray your new server arrives on the same day.
Day 3 – Restore your data.
Day 4 -7 Fix the problems of the new installation.
If your company can handle 3-7 days of down time, then no need to read further. However, should you need 100% uptime, this will be the process to follow.
What do I need to achieve 100% uptime?
You are required to have two servers. Sangfor HCI does not stipulate which hardware you need, so you can use any two servers. However, it is possible to use 2 Intel i7 Desktops as servers, but it is not highly recommended.
If you do not own two servers, ATS can provide you with hardware at exceptional prices. See prices below.
You install Sangfor HCI (ATS All Technology Solutions are able to do this for you) .Then you migrate, or”move”, your current servers or virtual machines onto the HCI platform. This can be done live for windows machines, meaning no downtime in this upgrade.
Once your servers are loaded onto the HCI, with a couple of mouse clicks you will be able to enable HA and your server will have 100% Uptime.*
ATS All Technology Solutions CC is a Sangfor Gold Partner in South Africa.
Some features of Sangfor HCI:
1. aSAN (Storage Virtualization) 2-3 Copies Of Data with SSD caching if needed
2. aSC (Hypervisor) Run multiple servers on one machine
3. High Availability
4. Integrated Backup And Recovery. Hourly snapshots and daily incremental.
5. Drag and drop network and virtual machines
Need Some Hardware?
ATS All Technology Solutions can supply new hardware if needed.
Here is a complete package for hardware and HCI software.
Please note HCI With 1 Year Support is R75 000 ex-vat/per CPU. This license can be moved to new servers, so no need to buy new licenses if upgrading your server.
Option 1: Super Micro Twin 1U server.
This is for 2 servers with 1 CPU in 1 a 1U Chassis From SuperMicro
https://www.supermicro.nl/products/system/1U/1028/SYS-1028TP-DTR.cfm
Dual Power Supply.
2 x 1 Gigabit Onboard Network Cards
1x Addon Quad Port Gigabit Land Card (4)
Total: 6 Network Interfaces
1 x Xeon E5-2620V4 CPU (8Core 16Thread) – Support Dual CPU
128GB Memory per Server
1 x 256SSD for Disk Cache
4 x 1TB SATA 2.5Inch Hard Drives
Includes Sangfor HCI 2CPU Licence with 1Y Support And Upgrades (R70 000 per CPU)
Purchase R 256 900 ex Vat
Rental Per Month – R 8 995 ex Vat (36 Months)
Option 2: Super Micro Twin 1U server.
This is for 2 servers with 2 CPU’s in 1 a 1U Chassis From SuperMicro
https://www.supermicro.nl/products/system/1U/1028/SYS-1028TP-DTR.cfm
Dual Power Supply.
2 x 1 Gigabit Onboard Network Cards
1x Addon Quad Port Gigabit Land Card (4)
Total: 6 Network Interfaces
2 x Xeon E5-2620V4 CPU (16Core 32Threads Total Per Server)
256GB Memory Per Server
1 x 256SSD for Disk Cache
4 x 1TB SATA 2.5Inch Hard Drives
Includes Sangfor HCI 4CPU Licence with 1Y Support And Upgrades (R65 000 per CPU)
Purchase R 436 000 ex Vat
Rental Per Month – R 15 295 ex Vat (36 Months)
Upgrade to ALL SSD: R 36 000 ex Vat
*Please note this does depend on your power supply and switches and internet connection for external access.
How to get in touch
If you want more info or would like a demo or organise a proof of concept “POC”, you can get in touch with us using the link below, or select from the drop-down menu at the top of our website.
