Quote:
Originally Posted by rowan
There are also advantages to leasing.
1) Quicker setup time. Shipping costs may also be an issue if you're located in a different area or country to the DC.
2) Tax is simpler because you're claiming it as a simple ongoing cost rather than fooling with depreciation schedules.
3) Cash flow. You don't need a large upfront payment to set up decent hardware.
4) Easier upgrade path. You can hop over to a new server in a year or two with significantly better hardware for the same price. (Sometimes less)
5) Easier to change hosts. If your server(s) is/are only at a single location, how do you switch without downtime? With leasing you commission a new one and can have them running concurrently for as long as you need.
6) Hardware failures. Because the host provides the hardware they are experienced with working on it, and may also have spare parts on hand. What happens when the oddball RAID card in your self-provided server fails on a friday evening?
Anyway, just some food for thought.
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You make good points, Rowan. There are advantages to leasing. I suppose it depends on how you approach things. I am a control freak and I don't like anyone else having root that I didn't specifically give it to. Maybe that has something to do with it.
My strong feelings about this started when I bought a fully managed dedicated many years ago off WHT from some little oddball Netherlands host and when they were sent in to fix a problem with the host tables getting buggered up everytime the box was restarted they decided format the HDD and put a new image of their generic install (instead of Slackware, like I wanted) and in the processed wiped out about 45 GB of shit I had just moved in there - all without asking me first. Soon thereafter I dumped all my dedicated servers except for two which I still have - one at OC3 (which actually replaced one at a datacenter that had one too many fires and floods for my liking) and another one at Wholesale Internet in Kansas City.
I would, however, argue that #6 is a result of people buying crap hardware. You do get what you pay for in most areas of life, sever hardware is no exception. If you use your host's hardware then its no big deal if something fails. If you build your own shit it is a big deal, but it can be minimized alot by using top notch hardware to start with and keeping spare stuff in stock.
And if my oddball RAID card fails, I am going to grab one off the shelf and FedEx Next Day Early AM a new one to them (or go do it myself, depending on what is going on) pay for the admin charge and let them deal with it. I use the same RAID card in all my boxes that I built and I have several spares here for just such an occurrence, or to build new servers with. Same with MOBOs, HDDs, power supplies (don't keep but one spare of those, since they are triple redundant, the chances of needing to swap one out in an emergency is not too likely) and such.