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gunfighter@gmail.com - 30 Aug 2007 15:59 GMT

Seems like a possible waste of taxpayer dollars, but the US Department
of Interior just pulled the plug on $20M plus of brand new storage
equipment and blade servers. You can read the press release here:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/egenera/blade-servers/prweb550135.htm

Looks like a ton of storage gear and blade servers. Does anyone have
any experience with the pros/cons/legalities of procuring support for
hardware coming out of botched GSA purchases like this?

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Rodney R. Fournier [MVP] - 30 Aug 2007 16:07 GMT

Not sure this is the right place for this discussion, but I would contact
the vendors directly. I know in working with NASA the vendors have been
great to work with no matter how you purchased the hardware.

Cheers,

Rodney R. Fournier

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering Website
http://msmvps.com/clustering - Blog
http://www.clusterhelp.com - Cluster Training
ClusterHelp.com is a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner

> Seems like a possible waste of taxpayer dollars, but the US Department
> of Interior just pulled the plug on $20M plus of brand new storage
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> any experience with the pros/cons/legalities of procuring support for
> hardware coming out of botched GSA purchases like this?

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Ryan Sokolowski [MVP] - 30 Aug 2007 18:56 GMT

You know what's funny? I consulted on that project from a clustering
perspective about a year and a half ago, just for a few weeks. It never
seemed like it was going to succeed, but... :)

By the way, the article botched the spelling of EMC, the data storage arrays
involved.

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Ryan Sokolowski
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, BCFP

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

> Not sure this is the right place for this discussion, but I would contact
> the vendors directly. I know in working with NASA the vendors have been
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>> any experience with the pros/cons/legalities of procuring support for
>> hardware coming out of botched GSA purchases like this?

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joel garry - 30 Aug 2007 19:38 GMT

On Aug 30, 7:59 am, gunfigh...@gmail.com wrote:

Caveat: I haven't dealt with this stuff since before ebay existed, so
may be out of date or entirely wrong.

In general, gummint stuff that is surplused is offered to other
gummint agencies first. In some cases, they may have to pay or use
accounting gimmicks to deal with it. When no one else wants it, it is
offered to the public in one of several ways. One way is closed-bid
auction, where people submit written bids and the highest one wins. I
went to one of those once because I saw they were offering an obscure
unix system of the type that I happened to be working on, I think I
bid $120 and the winner bid $125 (for pallets of multiple computers
and storage devices, I don't know how I would have moved it had I
won). It was mostly fire-licked Forest Service trucks, junkyard
dealers were bidding those up to the stratosphere. Another way is
ebay. My guess is that any support will be at the pleasure of the
original manufacturers, who will likely make you pay, perhaps for
preventive maintenance. And you don't know who threw it on the truck
and how hard.

jg
--
@home.com is bogus.
Buy jeeps from the gov't for $54!

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