What do small consultants do about hardware?

[dlots]

I have been thinking about starting a very very small network consulting business, and I was wondering what do small consultant groups do about hardware?  So a decent size company can get most hardware ~40% off what I can, how would you combat that?  Use noncisco stuff that isn't though CDW (HP or something)?  Maybe some ebay stuff?  Or something else all together

[deanwebb]

Don't do eBay stuff... you may have issues getting support contracts for some of it.

[dlots]

The nice thing about ebay stuff is that old 2800s are probably good enough to do everything a small business wants to do, you just say quote out specific hardware and keep a few extra in a room somewhere, so you don't need a service contract, you just swap out hardware when there is an issue.

Someone mentioned doing ubnt gear, but I would really like to do Cisco cause that's what I do, but since it's just me thinking about being a part-time network consultant I don't think I can really get to be a partner, so i don't know that I can afford it.

[deanwebb]

Belkin?

[Nerm]

Hey a question on these forums I can answer lol. I work for a small consultant so right up my alley.

We are small but big enough to buy from distributors like D&H, TechData, etc where we can get that ~40% kind of margins on Cisco products and other brands. There are other vendors like Curvature (used to be NHR) where you can get Cisco products with their own extended service plans (TAC and warranty competitor to what Cisco offers). Cisco does not like vendors like that however lol. With that being said there is another point to this that is a problem of being small. When you are a small consultant it means probably better than 50% of your customer base is going to be small as well and even though we can get great margins on Cisco/Juniper/etc products that doesn't mean the customer has that kind of budget. So for the budget conscious we have certain vendors we like to use that can be had for much lower price points.

-Routing: Mikrotik (hands down the routing champion of the little guys)
-Switching: Trendnet and HP make much more competitively priced switch products for SMB's. Honestly though even for the small guys we do a lot of Cisco switches as we just have the best luck with them and they do make some SMB products that are not that bad.
Wireless: Ubiquiti (Their stuff is so good we use them almost exclusively for wireless projects even for medium and large sized clients)

As an example my employer is also a small WISP (yea they got their hand in every cookie jar lol) and that entire infrastructure is almost 100% Mikrotik and Ubiquiti and at about an 1/8th of the cost if it was mostly Cisco and Cambium.

[wintermute000]

Second the Mikrotik/Ubiquiti/HP suggestion. If they want to step up a bit but get fancy features, Fortinet.

Also consider second hand but from official refurb dealers that will be OK with adding smartnet if they choose. 3750Xs, 19xxs, etc. are indestructible and they are coming out of a LOT of large enterprises refresh cycles

[SimonV]

You can set yourself up as a Cisco Registered Partner and order through one of the major distributors. I once signed up when I was only doing off-hours but the number of partner tools Cisco offers is quite overwhelming. Probably only gets worthwhile when you can do it full-time or have an employee.

Cisco hardware, even the SMB stuff, will be out of the budget for most customers so make sure you have an affordable and reliable alternative. I've been looking into this myself and still trying to find a good combination I can stay with.

- Switching: still undecided, it's all GUI crap. Even a Juniper EX-2200 is too expensive for most SMBs 
- Wireless: Ubiquiti, Xclaim/Ruckus - still need to test
- Firewall/routing: Ubiquiti Edgerouter is pretty full-featured at 100$ and 1 Gbit throughput. Based on Vyatta/EdgeOS. Configuring one tonight for a customer.

Always open for suggestions as well! 

[Nerm]

Oh I forgot to mention firewall in my list. For small clients I have found that Sonicwall (eg. TZ215), Fortinet (eg. 60D), and ASA 5505's best fit their budgets. A lot of my competitors do Untangle but I have never been that high on them.

[dlots]

Thank you all this has been quite helpful!!

[that1guy15]

Find a good reseller in your area and have the customer purchase through them. You work with both sides to get the hardware purchased and they work together to pay. This also makes the support contracts an easy transition from you to the customer.

Dont drag yourself into the hardware sales game, there is no money in it. Just focus on solutions and let someone else supply the hardware.

[Nerm]

Dont drag yourself into the hardware sales game, there is no money in it. Just focus on solutions and let someone else supply the hardware.

I disagree. There can be lots of money to be made in hardware sales depending on the manufacture and distributor. Now if you are looking to be a one man "part-time" consultant then I would agree to stay away from hardware sales. Too hard to get good margins from distributors in that situation.

[that1guy15]

Now if you are looking to be a one man "part-time" consultant then I would agree to stay away from hardware sales. Too hard to get good margins from distributors in that situation.

This is what my statement was focused on.

[Nerm]

I actually figured that after I had posted my response lol.