[RESOLVED] What's a normal price for installation of Novell5?

[aubreypaul]

Is a charge of $800 bucks reasonable? He said that he will only do the installation. I have to do the system administration. I've done installations of Novell4 but have yet to get my hands on 5. I would do it myself but he talked me out of it. He made it sound like the two are totally different in every way. By the way I personally don't think that that is a good price. But if that's the going rate then..............

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Damn Windows 3.1 runs fast on a P3 800.

[MacGyver]

My company is currently upgrading it's Novell 4.11 servers to Novell 5, and our head tech, who is a CNA (certified Novell administrator) and knows computers inside and out, says the upgrade takes about 12 hours to do. This time is to upgrade our fully loaded 4.11 server to 5. I don't how long an install from scratch would take. I guess it would depend on what you use your server for. The first time he did it he wasn't exactly sure of what he was doing and it took longer. As soon as he can book time to come out from Vancouver to Toronto, we will upgrade the server here. I have said I will not do it by myself, but I will help.

If it takes a CNA 12 hours to do a major upgrade then I wouldn't want to try it myself. Based on this information, $800 for 12 hours works out to $67/hour, which I think is cheap for Networking work of this calibre.

If he's willing to do it for the $800 flat rate then make sure you get it in writing. Let the guy deal with the headaches that may crop up.

That's my opinion

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sHIFT hAPPENS

[This message has been edited by MacGyver (edited March 01, 2001).]

[PJPilate]

ok, a new install of Netware 5.1 doesnt take anywhere NEAR that long! My numerous installs of Netware 5.1 on a Pentium 90 with 64 Megs of ram took 3 hours tops. The install is very graphical, and easy to follow. as an investment, buy a guide to installing Netware 5.0, the biggest difference is a graphical installer (based in java, so slllooooooooooooooow) But, if you're unconfortable with it, then that may be your only option.

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www.fdms.com / www.firstdata.com - How the world moves it's money

[Melmac]

I'm with you PJ. We are currently upgrading from Netware 3.12 to Netware 5 at our existing sites, and doing a clean install of Netware 5 at sites receiving new LAN's. The upgrade process IS very lengthy, but the clean install is really very painless. My opinion is that $800 is not a fair price for a clean install. Is he even going to create all of your group/user accounts? How about print servers?

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Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[pcshark]

Our company bills a single 8-hour day, to cover installation and any issues that may arise, for either a clean installation or upgrade of one server. For a new installation, it works out to more like half a day for each server, because we're setting everything up from scratch. When you are putting a new server into an existing network or upgrading a server NOS, there are usually migration issues that come up, but one day usually covers it all with some to spare. At $125/hour, that's $1000, and when we need to shut down and do everything after hours (like when we're migrating the primary F/P server, and we don't want anyone in the files we're moving...and believe me, a file move between servers with trustee rights takes some time!), we're talking time and a half at $187.50, or $1500 a day. Our clients don't balk at these prices, so I'd say $800 is pretty fair.

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R. Bret Walker, CNE
(I'm not a Master Tech, but I play one on TV)

Wondering what videos to rent this weekend? Check out The People's Reviews, movie reviews written for the people and by the people.

[aubreypaul]

Is he even going to create all of your group/user accounts? How about print servers?


No he is not doing any of that. All he is going to do is install Novell 5 on a server machine. The group/user accounts, print servers, etc are not part of the charge. This is why I wonder if it's a fair price.

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Damn Windows 3.1 runs fast on a P3 800.

[MacGyver]

In that case, just try it yourself and if you're not comfortable then you can call the other guy in to do it for you. Have you got any quotes from other consultants?

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sHIFT hAPPENS

[El Oso]

I did a clean install with just a couple of issues, the first and for most is it a clean install? If it is like they said very graphical, is it on a Network with an NDS established or is this the first server? If it's the first server no problem, decide wether you want NDS 7 or NDS 8? NDS 8 is for e-directory. Those are pretty much the major decisions.

[PJPilate]

The absolute BEST way to do this is buy a copy of Netware 5 Evaluation edition from Novell. This is like a 60 day demo version, and would allow you to get your feet wet, and the price is like $20. This would probably be the best bet.

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www.fdms.com / www.firstdata.com - How the world moves it's money

[Melmac]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by El Oso:
is it on a Network with an NDS established or is this the first server?</font>

Very good point, I was assuming this was a from scratch deal. If it is being added to an existing tree, or any data is being migrated, then $800 would probably be fair. But not just putting Netware 5 on a box, the price is too steep for that scenario.

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Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.

[PJPilate]

I Just did a clean install of Netware 5.1 SBS, with Zenworks Starter Pack, Groupwise, and connected it to the internet. (I also have no Novell Certification)

Total time: About 3.5 hours on a PII 266Mhz with 160MB of Ram.

So the question is, are you comfortable enough with installing it yourself?

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www.fdms.com / www.firstdata.com - How the world moves it's money

[cyberhh]

is this an upgrade or a new installation?

What EXACTLY is he providing?

If you are talking about a vanilla install on a new box - by a book and give it a shot - all he is going to do is install the vanilla OS and then charge you to repair it - save the $800.00 and do it yourself. If however he is providing a migration service like PCShark is talking - $800.00 is a steal - JUST GET IT IN WRITING.

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Death is lighter than a feather - duty heavier than a mountian.

[jimmr13]

Just finished a complete up grade to Novell-5. that is a company backbone/ plus Group Wise-5 The install and set up took about 7 hours total, the mail service with all 462 accounts took me 10 hours. (I type slow)
but $2,000.00 is what the check says. But then again I'm only a CNE.


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