[Beowulf] Re: What vendors would you be sure to check out?

[Gerry Creager N5JXS]

I'm gonna add a knock against iWill motherboards.  We've seen a number 
of problems with them in some Western Scientific servers we've bought. 
Anything from physically bad ethernet jacks to memory handling 
inconsistencies.

gerry

Dan Stromberg wrote:
> First of all, thanks much to all who responded!
> 
> 
> Here's the summary I promised:
> 
> - Vendor from scalableinformatics.com indicates they are pleased with
>   the Sun x86_64 systems they're selling.  They also sell some systems
>   (they built?) with iWill motherboards.  They don't like Tyan's that
>   much anymoe.
> - Dell
> - Appro
> - http://www.rackable.com
> - Penguin
> - RocketCalc
> - Another Sun x86_64 recommendation
> - A third Sun x86_64 recommendation
> - A fourth recommendation for Sun x86_64
> - A second Penguin recommendation
> - http://www.aslab.com
> - Joe Landmann's company: They build'em, but they use only quality
>   components
> - IBM, but only at a price premium
> - A recommendation against Dell, due to having only recently started
>   doing AMD, and due to frequently insisting on selling a microsoft
>   license with each box.  Also, they will sometimes send parts other
>   than what you requested, unless you specifically say you want no
>   substitutions.
> - Another iWill recommendation - this time specifically for a barebones
>   system
> - Someone from LiquidComputing suggests LiquidComputing boxes
> 
> 
> So in short, that's:
> 
> 3  Sun x86_64
> 0  Dell (1 + -1)
> 1  Appro
> 1  Rackable
> 2  Penguin
> 1  RocketCalc
> 1  iWill
> -1 Tyan
> 1  aslab
> 1  Joe Landmann's co
> 1  IBM
> 1  LiquidComputing (1 from vendor itself)
> 
> 
> Further, on the subject of remote administration:
> 
> - A recommendation for IMPI.  Supermicro has stuff that can do IMPI 2
>   and you can configure the BIOS to send BIOS info via serial, and can
>   remote powerup/down via ethernet
> - Someone says that Sun v20z and v40z can do IPMI and can send BIOS to
>   serial.  Galaxy line is purported to do IPMI 1.5.
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2005-12-19 at 23:01 -0800, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> 
>>If you were shopping for about 25 nodes for MPI and OpenMP, each one
>>dual core and dual processor, each one 64 bit x86 to run linux, with
>>remote administration including system reset and bios tweaking, what
>>vendors would you make sure not to neglect checking into?
>>
>>Please reply off list, and I'll summarize.
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>
> 
> 
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-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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