1. I have been told that they are VMs on Dell servers, probably r730s
2. Do you mean physically checking on the machines? The estate is UK based and far too large for me to check each machine.
3. I've just had a look and we're getting 6mil average & 18 mil average per day with peaks of 25mil. (Across the various managers) - How would this reflect hardware requirements for generating reports? I'm guessing that's a going to give me a very vague answer and depends entirely on what the report contains
4. mesverrum - would a VM with 32gb to RDP to be suitable? At least that way I can keep thick clients out of the office. The thick client I have which has been left in a corner has 32gb & a 3.6ghz 6core Xeon. Part of me thought about just ordering a few more. At least that way, if they analysts needed admin rights for a tool, it'd be easier.