Buying New Commercial IT Hardware Isn't Always Worthwhile (Video)

Ben Blair is CTO of MarkITx, a company that brokers used commercial IT gear. This gives him an excellent overview of the marketplace -- not just what companies are willing to buy used, but also what they want to sell as they buy new (or newer) equipment. Ben's main talking point in this interview is that hardware has become so commoditized that in a world where most enterprise software can be virtualized to run across multiple servers, it no longer matters if you have the latest hardware technology; that two older servers can often do the job of one new one -- and for less money, too. So, he says, you should make sure you buy new hardware only when necessary, not just because of the "Ooh... shiny!" factor" (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

Re:Really? this is news in 2014?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can afford new, you always buy new.

I would add "size" to your list, sometimes newer hardware can allow you to expand your resources, without taking up as much space. However.....

I don't think your rule is universally true. Buying new is like buying a new car. Yea it's great to drive off the lot, get better gas mileage and chances are slim you will find yourself with a broken car sitting on the side of the road, but making the payments forever can be a bitch.

You may not get depreciation, but that must means it's an expense, which comes off the top of your net before taxes, so you get it all this year.

You may get a warranty, but what's a 24 hour SLA worth to a mission critical system? What you need is a fully capable hot standby, which is easier to afford when you are buying used.

Processing Power? I don't know very many applications that *really* need more processing power, which cannot be (and likely SHOULD) effectively split up over multiple servers. Many people think that faster processing means faster application, but this is extremely rare. What's usually needed is more memory or I/O performance which can be had for a song if you buy old hardware and upgrade memory and disk drives with SSD's.

So, where some folks with money go with new, it's not universally true that this is the best use of one's money. Sometimes, if you think about the problem, cheaper, used hardware can serve you well for a lot less coin.

Re:Duh

[Penguinisto]

A cheapie SunFire v200/210 will run like a tank, but you'll be crippled by the server's top speed, and they do put out the heat if you push up the load average (and HVAC costs should always be factored in, yo.)

You'll also need to buy a lot of those pizza boxes to make up for the processing power that you can find in a box half its age, let alone the newer iron.

Sometimes you have to run the old stuff (I work in an environment where we have testbed boxes, and SunFires are a part of that, along with ancient RS/6000 gear, PA-RISC HPUX gear, etc. I can tell you right now that the old stuff cranks out a lot more heat (and in many cases eats a lot more rackspace) than the equivalent horsepower found in just a handful of new HP DL-360's.