Need advice on spending 7500$ to start a cloud/virtualization business.

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cloudbuilder

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May 22, 2014
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Hi guys,

I am desperately in need of some advice. I am looking to buy some servers to expand my business. I own a IT company, and as of now I am hosting most things in-house. I am looking to buy a all-in-one solution to be able to start offering cloud-services for my customers.

I am very low budget, so my main focus will be on: efficiency, most bang for buck, cheap to collocate, and preferably energy-saving wherever possible.
I want this solution to be a “jack-of-all-trades” which means I have to be able to use it for cloudhosting, storage, VDI, virtualization, and general cloud/backup-service.

As of now I am thinking about buying a 3u 12 or 24 node Supermicro microcluster, with intel E3 chipset.(SSD's for cheap and fast storage) However, I am not sure if the e3 with its 32gb ram would be the best/mostbangforbuck/smartest solution, considering I will be using the system for VDI and virtualization?

Would you guys recommend a different setup? Maybe something with E5 cpu’s and more ram? I also thought about lots of Avoton c2750's, but i heard these are not powerfull enough for VDI etc. ?

What would be the best way to spend +- 7500$ to start a cloud-company? What would be the best way to safe costs of colocation? Should I look for low-Power or low Space?
Any advice is welcome, just tell me how YOU would spend 7500 if you would start a cloud/hosting company. 
Thanks,

Cloudbuilder
 
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Dblkk

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Oct 30, 2013
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Seems to me the best thing for cloud/hosting would be the biggest most hard drive holding dual core nas server you can buy. highest ive come across is 12 hhd, make sure you get 3-4 tb a piece and something like wd blacks or reds as they seem to have the best longevity. Run raid 5-1 so you get speeds of tripping but also data redundancy in case of a failure. You'll want to make sure you can get dual or quad Ethernet capabilities, as well as at least one usb3.0 output to run to a external wd hhd to use for a daily backup of your backups. As 5-1 gives data redundancy, but theres plenty of things that can still happen to wipe out the entire system. if you get 12 bay at 4tb a piece, that's about 40tb worth of data you can hold, minus the redundancy will net about 30tb minimal. If you could pick up a second 12 bay or find one with 20 or more drives foryour budget, then that would be ideal.
 
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cloudbuilder

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May 22, 2014
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I need far more redundancy, and multiple hypervisors. Thanks for your answer though,

Post one;

I will not be reselling, as I own an IT company already, and just want to expand.

I want everything to be redundant, and will colocate the hardware to a datacentre, so the location will not "go down". Storage will be handled by virtual san, windows 2012r2. I will be using SSD's placed in the servers I buy.

Networking will be handled by link aggregated Gbe, I am still in the dark about how many nic's I will need per server. As of now I am thinking about 6 minimum. (for 6gb's total).

I hope this information will help you guys with advice.

Post two:
some more info:

Mayebe i should have been more clear;

The 7500 is for the servers only. I got everything else covered already. 7500 should be enough for a decent setup right? The "7500 is not enough and will lose you money" statement was because of the lack of funds for advertisement, etc. right?

Those things are all covered. 7500 is what I have left for servers. I want to colocate because the quality of datacentres is very high where I live, and because renting would cost me more long-term.

I hope you guys understand my situation a bit better right now.

Thanks.
 
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Dblkk

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Oct 30, 2013
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Think I do. Think I saw IT and hosting cloud service. I know your going to want processing power, but figured with a start up and $7500, it would be good to build up data storage and work on processor upgrades later.
Ive never done anything major scale like your talking, just a home nas/raid server which lets anyone I want stream or look at anything I have from anywhere, while offering me 2x 600+mbps for 4k video rendering. Setup for me was expensive $2000, but the hhd drives were $300 piece x14 or $4200 and those were the most essential yet most under thought about expense.

But I did stumble upon this just the other day, made me think of you

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/thecus-n16000pro-networking-storage-petabyte,1-1961.html

Its an article on toms here, and this storage solution also offer xeon cpu, 8gb ddr3, and massive storage capabilities. Plus easily daisy chains with another and another and another...and so on. So that should offer you performance needed, plus with any add ons you want should get redundancy taken care of. Its only a quad-core Xeon E3-1275 processor, but im sure the board supports any models in that series, which would include an 8 core if you needed better speeds.

Again, just a shot in the dark but thought this might at least be closer to what you need than my first
 
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