The summary.
WHAT MAKES SERVER HARDWARE DIFFERENT
Continuous operation, redundant components, error-correcting memory, and remote management that works when the system is off.
That last one removes the need to attend physically for most problems.
INSUFFICIENT MEMORY DEGRADES PERFORMANCE FAR MORE SHARPLY THAN A SLOWER PROCESSOR
And establish whether your workload needs many cores or higher clock speed — some software cannot use many cores at all.
A DRIVE ARRAY IS NOT A BACKUP
It protects against drive failure, not deletion, corruption or disaster.
Drives bought together tend to fail together, and an array can lose a second drive while rebuilding after the first.
Never leave a degraded array unrepaired.
RECORD WHAT EVERY ITEM DOES
It is the most valuable inventory field and the most commonly missing. Equipment whose purpose nobody knows is never decommissioned and consumes power indefinitely.
Update records at the time of the change. Records updated later are not updated.
DESTROY DATA VERIFIABLY BEFORE EQUIPMENT LEAVES THE BUILDING
FOR REMOTE HANDS, BE PRECISE
Staff work on unfamiliar equipment, and an error affects other customers too. Label everything in advance.
