Purchase specifications and trade-offs

A. New head node

Dedicated chassis, 1 U

One of four (a Quad), in one chassis.
(2U)

Consider Option 2 for cost savings (if any).
To do: Calculate cost savings (if any).
Any other considerations, such as risk or recovery challenges?

B. New storage machine

Synology-branded dedicated storage array.
To do: What connector? Stay with ethernet (iSCSI or NFS)?

Home-brewed dedicated storage array, perhaps running OpenNAS software.

Consider Option 2 for cost savings (if any).
BUT, must also consider risk, support, and staffing effort.

C. New computational nodes

8 nodes, with higher computational processors.

16 nodes, with standard computational processors.

Consider Option 2 for doubling the number of compute nodes, even if each has slightly slower set of processors.
For either choice, to do: Storage: Fast or large? Or both?

D. Arrange an efficient back-up plan

EZ-Backup

(At current quantities of backed-up data, ChemIT cannot recommend an alternative.)

On-going to do: Evaluate cost-effectiveness as volume grows. At current TB's of backup, costs are as were predicted (no surprises), and thus were at the time considered to be affordable and cost-effective compared to investing in own hardware and staffing.