[olug] [slightly-OT] Hardware recommendations.

[Jay Swackhamer]

Are you going to buy or build?

Are you on HPUX Risc boxes or Itanium?

A budget number would be useful to make a recommendation on the HPUX side.

If you want a low-budget setup for the lab stuff, you can get  
rackmounts, mostly 1U from geeks.com ranging from 120->350+. They have  
had opterons, but it doesnt look like they currently do, I'd watch  
them from time to time, you may be able to get some machines from a  
movie render farm.

http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=821

for what you listed below, lights out cards are available as a PCI  
card if you dont go with a HP/etc for around $500. If you want  
useable/reliable lights-out, I'd stay away from IBM servers.

We are doing evals over the next month of the new HP/Dell/IBM servers  
and blade centers, so I can forward the feedback once the hardware is  
in place if you are interested.

I have put together servers through Amax http://www.amax.com for  
customers(nothing recently though). They have some nice options for  
servers with options for lots of local storage.

-- 
Jay Swackhamer
Reboot The User
402-933-6449
http://www.reboottheuser.com
http://www.cafepress.com/rtu
http://stores.ebay.com/RebootTheUser
http://www.hotr.com


Quoting Dan Linder <dan at linder.org>:

> I'm trying to beef up my companies lab environment in our HPUX and
> Linux/x86_64 areas.  I'm trying to put together a reasonable list of
> parts to build some decent sized servers to replace our old/dying lab
> environment.
>
> In both cases, I'm going to be looking at the eBay/used market for the
> equipment.  Nothing bleeding edge, but within the past 3-5 years that
> is reasonable and expandable.
>
> (The HPUX front is my weakest link, so if you have any suggestions and
> don't want to discuss them on the OLUG list, e-mail me off-line.)
>
> For the x86_64 server, I'm going to presumably run Linux with a VMWare
> server solution on top of it so I can create the actual lab machines
> as VM guests.  The specs I'd like to see in this guy are:
>   RAM: Start at ~8GB, but ability to scale up to 16 or 32GB.
>   CPU: At least two sockets, presumably either dual or quad-core Intel
> or Opteron CPUs.
>   HDD: I'd like the system to have room for 6+ drives, then pop in a
> few 500GB or larger drives to start and have room to expand.
>   Power: Redundant power supplies would be a plus, but a single PS is
> just fine for the lab.
>   Other: Remote "lights out" console/kbd/mouse card, or serial BIOS.
>
> Weight/size/noise aren't that big of a concern since the lab has racks
> and the systems these will replace already sound like a F4 Phantom
> just before takeoff...
>
> Any suggestions on specific brands and make/models to choose (or stay
> away from)?  I'm open to nearly any first or second tier server...
>
> (And if the price is really right, I might beef up my home lab at the
> same time...)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Dan
>
> --
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