01-11-2012, 06:25 AM
Why not virtualize something in the cloud?
For the cost of a Mac Pro that buys a lot of months of cloud hosted system, depending on your needs.
Find out what the specs he really needs are and work from there. What do the insurance programs need, what does the server require as a result. I assume you're talking about interop stuff with SQL or Crystal Reports or proprietary things... there may be some leeway there for virtualization you don't realize.
If his current windows server is getting "long in the tooth" then start with that - what do you need on new iron to virtualize it and still run other instances of other things? A present day Mac mini could probably do the job of a server that's more than 3 years old.
I would NOT use Parallels for virtualizing a server - it's designed to be a desktop integration virtualizer... meaning that while you can run windows server for testing and stuff it isn't good for production due to latency and issues presented by the tight integration of OS X and the guest OS. Great for double-clicking a doc that can only open in some obscure windows exe from your Mac desktop but not so good in my experience for overall reliability or performance. VMWare or VirtualBox.
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For the cost of a Mac Pro that buys a lot of months of cloud hosted system, depending on your needs.
Find out what the specs he really needs are and work from there. What do the insurance programs need, what does the server require as a result. I assume you're talking about interop stuff with SQL or Crystal Reports or proprietary things... there may be some leeway there for virtualization you don't realize.
If his current windows server is getting "long in the tooth" then start with that - what do you need on new iron to virtualize it and still run other instances of other things? A present day Mac mini could probably do the job of a server that's more than 3 years old.
I would NOT use Parallels for virtualizing a server - it's designed to be a desktop integration virtualizer... meaning that while you can run windows server for testing and stuff it isn't good for production due to latency and issues presented by the tight integration of OS X and the guest OS. Great for double-clicking a doc that can only open in some obscure windows exe from your Mac desktop but not so good in my experience for overall reliability or performance. VMWare or VirtualBox.
g=