Five tips to kit out your data centre on the cheap

It's an otherwise relaxed Monday afternoon and you've just briefed your CEO on plans to outfit your company's new datacentre with the latest hardware.

You've done your homework and know you're getting the best gear. No more weekend outages, you think, five years of piece of mind. 

"It all looks great," says your CEO, sipping his coffee. "But we'll need to take some of the fat out to get it past the Board. Can you cut the total price down by say, 20-25 per cent by Friday? Just make it fit."

Ten minutes later you're sitting at your desk wondering how you could possibly meet such a
demand. You can't just ring up Cisco and IBM and ask for 25 percent off!

But don't fret, we've got your back. Thousands of IT managers have been in this exact situation before, and while it's never easy, if you learn the tricks of the buying trade you may even find you have some money left over for that desktop videoconferencing unit the CEO has been daydreaming about.

So here they are, five tips to get you started.

• Tip Number 1: Squeeze the vendors
• Tip Number 2: Spot the fires
• Tip Number 3: Sniff around the ISPs
• Tip Number 4: Re-purpose
• Tip Number 5: The formal secondhand market

Read on for each in detail...