[Beowulf] Earthquakes and raised floors...

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006, Greg Lindahl wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 02:53:34PM -0500, Robert G. Brown wrote:
>
>> Just to give one more kick to the dying mule, I was googling on out a
>> bit farther to see if I could locate any really GOOD online resources
>> for raised floors and earthquakes when I found the following (APC
>> sponsored) white paper:
>
> So, aside from the fact that APC is selling you something, it's not
> true for many HPC clusters that the cabling is non-bulky and easy to
> deal with; overhead wiring is much less flexible.  And the cooling
> issue is quite significant.

No real argument -- even the APC article acknowledges that cooling
remains an advantage (although they assert that there are often/usually
solutions, something that seemed supported by several third party
cooling system companies that crossreferenced the white paper but sold
BOTH underfloor and overhead cooling solutions whichever one needed).
I've never heard anyone say they were particularly happy having to mess
with cabling running under a raised floor (but have heard plenty of
griping) but there may be ways of laying it out nowadays that are easy
(easier) to manage.

However (and this isn't argument or rhetoric either, just a plea for
enlightenment) -- just what is APC trying to sell with the white paper?
I know they sell a variety of rackware and power equipment, but what
have they got against raised floors (specifically, what sales advantage
do they gain if a client doesn't use a raised floor)?

Curiously yours,

    rgb

>
> -- greg
>
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-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu