Owning An Enterprise Grade Server

I've always wanted to own my own server. I never knew which one because there are so many ways to configure and put together computer hardware that it really depends on the engineer and his/her skills at planning the construction of a good machine with the right components. It wasn't easy finding a good quality one because I live in one of those cities where Hardware is considered inexpensive when compared to other forms of physical property. Computer hardware is valuable, and its value is really determined by its purpose. For a computer engineer it is certainly one of the most useful things because we know the ins-and-outs of it. It's an added bonus if you're really interested in understanding it. We frequently use the hardware for our business requirements if not for our experimentations. For us, hardware is expensive because we know how valuable it is and whether we get a good deal on it or not really depends on how much more we know than the seller. It is expensive also because we know how to save on resources when it comes to any kind of technological compilation. Hardware can cost anywhere from around a couple of hundred dollars for a cheap user-grade computer to an enterprise or military grade expensive powerhouse. When I wanted to purchase new computer hardware, I wanted more than my money's worth of hardware and a hell lot of compute resources. And to my surprise, that is exactly what I received.

For both Horizon and for other software work I required several Virtual Private Servers to host services which integrated into my software's build cycles. By hosting these services I had offloaded the computational resources from my home computer to these VMs. I purchased 5 of them from OVH which cost me $800 / year. That's quite a lot of money to pay for 5 virtual machines. Therefore, one of the reasons I planned to own a server instead of renting one was this. So soon after that purchase, even though I had spent the money, I bought an HPE DL380 Gen10 server which is an enterprise grade high quality state-of-the-art machine when it comes to computing and processing power. Now the seller was a large firm in the city that had probably a lot of spares lying around because the price given to me for this machine was a lot less compared to the price I was given by other sellers in the same market. I was lucky to find this deal because I saved a $1000 on it. The server came with the specs of an Intel Platinum Dual CPU engine with 256GB RAM and a 3.5TB NVMe SSD Hard Disk. This is a super powerful machine because it has over 100 virtual cores ready to process a hundred instances of any software which had parallel computation capabilities. This computer was a beast. I knew from the moment that the quotation was given to me that this is a good deal. After two weeks of putting it off due to money related matters, I didn't hesitate to go ahead with the order because 

1. I could use hardware of that kind for multiple use-cases for example using it as a build server which requires a lot of computing.

2. Hosting sites and services from my own home. 

3. I really wanted to own a machine like that because of my fond for computers.

So, I went ahead with the order and building the rack for the system to be mounted into. I received the package in the next couple of days, set it up and got it running after fixing some issues with the hard drive and other matters that were related to dealing with refurbished server hardware. I set it up and was completely satisfied by the performance and the specifications of it. I would highly recommend this company for their delivery and honesty in their work. You can DM me for their name if you are from the same city. 

I saved a thousand dollars because the hardware was actually worth that much more in the real market, but because this company was selling their refurbished products for more, I could negotiate a deal that saved me a lot of money. I now use it for hosting this website and other services and am much fond of the performance of it.

Here's a picture of the server I purchased (The internal view of it). And below it is a picture of the Host machine with all my services installed.

For now, I can say that the machine is really worth its price. Hardware like this only comes by once in a good deal. There are corporations that sell them but you need to be in luck to purchase the hardware at a good value. I hope that I find another good deal because I'm really enjoying the aftermath of the purchase. The only thing I can hope for is that the maintenance of the server is less costly than I expect it to be and that I have no troubles with it in the coming months.

So that's how I today own my own server. Enterprise grade. Top quality and highly performant.