It is, perhaps, well known that I like Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard. It's the last in a line of server products Microsoft packaged specifically for small businesses and other small organizations with a low number of users, and with a low budget for computing needs. In my adventures with SBS 2011 Standard on TECT, I've found it to be a pretty solid product. I always wish there were just a few more things it did, and perhaps I've taken my own customizations (the latest of which has been to disable WSUS, which, improperly managed, had become an insatiable resource sink) just a little bit to far, but it works well.
One of the things I've always wanted to see is hardware that was built with SBS in mind. I think the thing I actually wanted wasn't practical for the longest time, in part because SBS and its progenitors have always been very resource-heavy.
For scale, Windows SBS 2011 Standard will install and boot on a server with as little as a 120 gigabyte hard disk and 4 gigabytes of RAM. In the real world, it would like a quad-core CPU, 16 or more gigabytes of RAM, and as much hard disk space (ideally very fast disk space) as your organization can reasonably use. This kind of server was available in 2011, but it wasn't necessarily inexpensive or small.
Today, it is easy to get hardware that is small and powerful, and with disk capacities increasing and solid state media becoming popular, server hardware has more potential for different markets than ever. This is all pretty hilarious in the face of the growing popularity of cloud computing and software and infrastructure provided as utility services, rather than as an intermittent expense.
This combination of factors is why I was intrigued to see the HPE ProLiant Easy Connect EC200a Managed Hybrid Server (Late, I know.). The idea here appears to be that you get this box as part of a managed services agreement with an HP partner developing and maintaining the software stack on it. The idea of a managed cloud appliance that's on site as well as the server hardware itself are really great ideas.
The remotely managed appliance aspect is interesting. On one hand, I'm surprised it took so long, on the other hand, the target market for products like Windows SBS and other appliance, one-box server setups often work in places or have budgets dictating that the Internet connection they get is essentially residential-grade(1). These types of businesses might have a technology budget, but they probably don't have an IT employee.
For a while, I've been interested in the idea of an appliance that sits on premises, but is managed remotely by a service provider (either the software vendor, a hardware vendor, or a telco) and information they get is used to automatically trigger actions such as replacement media, snapshot and backup actions, and so on. It would end up being a little more like a cloud service (such as Office365) but with behaviors like those of an on-premise solution, such as the ability to run print queues, traditional file shares, and possibly other applications.
The other intriguing aspect to the EC200a is the hardware itself. I've been a little bit excited for Xeon D for a while now, but up to this point, the only good way to get it has been with SuperMicro motherboards, and those have been costly. Generally, Xeon D provides several Ethernet controllers and a four- or eight- core CPU in a low-watt form factor that can be either passively cooled or used in small enclosures. SuperMicro sells a four-bay enclosure that fits their boards, the whole thing is reminiscent of a much more powerful version of the HP ProLiant Micro Server, with such features as possibly two 10-gig Ethernet controllers, and up to 128 gigabytes of memory. It's an exceedingly intriguing platform. If I were interested in economizing the specific amount of performance I have today, certain chips in the family should perform pretty similarly, possibly better, while using 25-45W of energy and supporting some neat enhancements, such as newer, bigger disks, which helps with the fact it only runs six SATA ports.
HP has combined two of these ideas into the EC200a. The cloud and software aspect of it is a little more complicated, it essentially runs Linux or OpenBSD as the base, protects the disks with ZFS, and runs nodes of cloud services on hardware you have on-site. In particular, they advertise it in conjunction with managed Azure and Office 365 services.
There is a lot of potential here. This kind of "we put enough computing power in your office to run your small, task-specific ERP system" is part of what Microsoft was going for with Small Business Server 2011 Premium, which allowed you to use two servers: One was your SBS Standard server, which had Active Directory, DNS-DHCP, print and file shares, VPN, Exchange, and SharePoint, and you also got licensed for a stand-alone installation of Windows Server 2008R2, onto which it was presumed you would be installing your own software. Whether that was some kind of ERP or other database or line of business software, or a web server for your public site, or whatever you wanted.
Here, the configuration is that you can get the EC200a "Basic" or "Premium" hardware and each has capacity for your own virtual machines. The Basic model includes 32 gigabytes of RAM, and the Premium version includes 64 gigs, advertised mainly for more or more demanding custom software.
The system includes an m.2 slot for fast SSD storage, and two 3.5-inch hard disk bays. The system can be expanded with more storage using an external box that holds four more 3.5-inch disks. The whole thing is slim – without the expansion box, it is available with a vertical stand that may make it fit in some different spaces.
The whole thing makes me feel a little vindicated. It's ultimately a recognition that there is, in fact, sometimes a need for a "server" at the lowest levels, including businesses with the fewest employees. I would like very much to get my hands on one. I've been dreaming of the XBOX-sized Hyper-V appliance for years now, and the fact that Xeon D makes it possible and that HP bothered to build one is exciting for me.
HP's partner is offering free trials of the thing. I'm less interested in the service part of it for myself, and more interested in using it as a bare metal Hyper-V server, or as a dedicated box for particularly extreme tasks, in the context of my network. I'd do the trial, if only to report on what using it is like, exactly, but I don't have the energy for it at the moment(2).
The question I have, eventually, is whether or not you can buy the hardware separate of the services. I already have relatively good on-premise infrastructure, but I could use some modern hardware to run it, supplement it, or back it up, and this hardware and this kind of funding model where you pay for the system on a monthly basis sounds like it could be a great idea, in lieu of being able to afford a bunch of hardware up front. Of course, I also wish HP were willing to sell this machine on its own. With the low end Xeon D chip, it's probably not too wildly expensive.
It looks like there may be room for a slot in this device. Another neat idea is to integrate it with an Internet Service provider by adding a PCI Express card DOCSIS cable or bonding-capable VDSL2 modem. Perhaps even make it a particularly premium quad-bonding modem. Bundle it with remote backup services and possibly Office 365 as provided by the ISP, and make it so you have a single point of contact for support on the hardware and software of the device, services provided by it and for it, as well as your physical Internet line. Integrate telephony in there somewhere (Asterisk PBX VM, with SIP trunking to your business phone number at the telco?) and then you've essentially got the technology for a business packaged into a box. If CenturyLink offered to sell this box to me or lease one to me as part of my service with them, I'd almost certainly do it.
I think equipped with software such as a linux or UNIX distribution, or Windows Server Essentials or Windows Storage Server, such a box could be useful in a home context. I doubt many homes need email delivery (but maybe they should) – I think that a home-based "cloud" file service and network-based backups for home computers could be neat. Something leased or set up on a rent-to-own kind of agreement could help, especially with the high cost of NAS units and small servers. Granted I actually think that other server hardware, such as the PowerEdge T130 and HP ML30 are perhaps more appropriate to that kind of environment, and having more built in disk bays and being configurable with a little less memory. For file server activities, even on FreeBSD with ZFS, a lot less memory should be reasonable.
All of this puts the Proliant Micro Server in an interesting spot. It's not particularly cheap for what it, and perhaps the only real advantage it has over an ML30 is that it includes four disk bay trays.
Another neat idea for leased hardware would be to introduce a higher level of Office365 or similar product that includes more storage and has a local copy of the software and your account data on it. Could be neat for people using it to transfer large files between local computers, for example.
At any rate, I'll eventually look closer into this thing. I would very much like to try one, but I don't know if there's a whole lot I can do with it other than reformat it to be an environment I'm familiar with – which is perhaps the ironic thing about my Predilections™ for this kind of computing device: I don't really need it, and I always have some other way I'd arrange it, to make it into something closer to a thing I personally want to use, such as an on-premise Google Apps or Office 365 node, or a modernized Windows SBS server using Hyper-V as a base that's maintained on your behalf by either your ISP or Microsoft. Part of that is because even though I already have a big beefy server with lots of expansion, what I've always wanted was something relatively dense that I could put on a desktop, a bookshelf, or on top of the refrigerator. Now that the technology allows it to exist HP has built that machine. Will it succeed? Will it ever be more widely available? Will it matter?
- Most ISPs will let you buy "business" service that is in and of itself still considered residential grade. There are no SLAs on the service and there usually aren't better speeds available, but transfer quotas are lifted, you can buy static IPs, and allow mail delivery.
- Let's be real, it's because NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I won't have any time, and I don't want to waste anybody's time quite yet.