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IT outlines Dell DX Apex lease to replace expiring server array; $59,000 annual cost and VMware licensing discussed
Summary
Technology staff told the Communications and Technology Committee that an out-of-warranty server/storage array needs replacement and presented a Dell DX Apex lease option with an estimated annual payment of about $59,500 and significant VMware licensing costs.
Technology staff reported to the Communications and Technology Committee on April 15 that one of the district's server/storage arrays is going out of warranty and presented a proposed Dell DX Apex lease as a replacement option.
The presenter said the proposed arrangement would be an annual payment of roughly $59,500 and that VMware licensing for the platform accounts for a substantial portion of recurring costs; "with our current, VxRail that we have... the VMware licensing this year was $31,000," the presenter said, adding that when that licensing cost is included the overall platform expense is higher than hardware alone. Staff said the quoted annual payment reflects changes after Broadcom licensing required additional CPU cores, which increased the cost by about $1,000to$2,000.
Staff described the platform as hosting "pretty much everything in the district. So any internal servers we have spun up, all of our networking head ends, phone system, anything on the network," and said the district maintains two data centers for redundancy and that the plan could be to place the new appliance and then evaluate moving some services to the cloud over a year or two to reduce long-term costs.
On budgeting, staff said the item was already accounted for in next year's budget and came in lower than initially estimated: "originally, when I did my budget, I had this budgeted at 75k... this would reduce actually the budget amount by 15,000 because it came in cheaper than I expected," the presenter said. Staff also said Dell offered to lock pricing if a signed agreement was provided before tariff changes; staff noted that no payment would be due until July 1 under that schedule but that signing would obligate the district to include the lease in next year's budget.
Committee members did not take a formal vote at the meeting. Staff said they could bring the item to the full board for approval but suggested timing can affect cost exposure to tariffs and licensing.
