[ILUG] OT: server spec

[Ken Gilmour]

Hi Paul

Captain's Log, stardate Wed, 10 Nov 2004 12:32:07 -0000, from the fingers of Paul Kelly :: Blacknight Solutions came the words:
> Hi All,
>
> Sorry for the off topic post, but there are lots of people in the
> know on the list ;)
>
> Basically a customer requires a beefy server with a difference.
> Memory/processing power/storage are not what they require.
> Ultimately they are after redundancy.
>
> So Redundant memory slots, multiple CPU's with fail over, hot swap
> pci cards, raid 5+1 etc
>
> Does such a system exist or are they better off looking at a
> cluster?

We use a few small Dell PE 6650s which have all of the above features but we use them solely as database servers to manage PGSQL databases for another mail server which we have internally also... so it really depends on that the machine is for. These machines have quad hyperthreaded Intel Xeon processors with 10GB of RAM and spare memory rows (or something like that).

>
> Note: this isn't for a shared environment, its for an office that
> is manned 24/7 and the software they use is required to be
> available 100% off the time.

We are in the same situation. We are manned 24/7 365. Almost all of our servers have been alive for over 176 days, It would have been longer but we moved premises 176 days ago. We upgrade almost on a yearly basis.

>
> I've looked at the HP DL 380 Cluster pack, I have also set one of
> these up in the past few months for another customer. But they cost
> a bloody fortune! :)

I've never seen them, but again it depends on what it's doing as to what you need.

HTH

Regards

Ken