Hi Dave,
(sorry for your loss)
Since then I talked to my local Dell guy.. Stewart Dickson. He was very reassuring that Dell UK were joined up in their talking - that they were still planning to provide LHC favourable pricing to the UK and it would be the same to all sites - he was talking to Eric etc.
He is supposed to come back to me with a quote - based on R720xd (replacement for R510) with optional MD1200s. (With 3TB disks) .
He didn't do this on Monday but did let me know that this was because they needed special sign-off for the super amazing prices.
I can write the detailed spec then based on that. So I think for the Dell side its covered - for SM I don't know the range - or if they need us specifying a config. But those who went out to tender already will be hearing back fairly soon so I think they're on the page.
In conclusion, I think its OK - but we should keep talking to each other and them (as much as we can given the processes that will differ in places)
Thanks
Wahid
On 4 Dec 2013, at 10:51, David Colling <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear TB people,
>
> Some weeks ago we proposed a set of specs that would at least meet all
> our purchasing requirements. So that if Dell could get "special pricing"
> for that limited set of configurations then they would at least meet
> what people are asking for in their tender/quotes. If this was then the
> best buy or not would clearly be up to the different institutions,
> however it would at least mean that we were getting the best possible
> quote from dell. We should perhaps do the same thing for a supermicro
> configuration (or two). in the interests of fairness. There was some
> iteration on the storage but nothing that I saw on the CPU configuration
> that we suggested. I know that Eric from Dell has put some work into
> this. Through travelling/teaching and a family crisis (resulting in a
> funeral on Monday) I have not spoken to Eric in a while (about 3 weeks)
> which is rather embarrassing.
>
> I think that at the stage we are at we either forget this idea or move
> it quickly to conclusion. I am at CERN in meetings all today so please
> can I ask that somebody (Wahid being the obvious choice - sorry Wahid)
> summarise the (I think 2) different storage options that we thought
> people would be asking for. Please could I also ask Adam (sorry Adam -
> the price you pay for passing on Eric's message to me ;-) )to suggest
> concrete specs (model numbers and configurations) for other to comment
> on. Finally do we have volunteers to do this for supermicro equipment
> that we could distribute to the different SM suppliers so that we are
> seen to have a fair process?
>
> Either we get this together in the next day or two or we forget it.
>
> Best,
> david
>
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