[Beowulf] Re:UPS system for Linux cluster

Huw Lynes lynesh at cardiff.ac.uk
Thu Apr 30 07:47:43 PDT 2009


On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 11:21 -0700, John Bushnell wrote:

> Another reason for not having UPS power for an entire cluster is 
> cooling.  In our server room, if we lose regular power, we lose our 
> large AC units as well.  So we need to be careful what we keep plugged 
> into our emergency power circuits (a relatively tiny amount of 
> equipment).  Having an entire stack of nodes churning away during a  
> power outage would kill us pretty quickly.


The alternative approach is to UPS everything. Which is what we do.
Although we only have a short run-time installed which will bridge us to
the diesel generator.

In the event that the diesel doesn't kick-in the cluster will cleanly
shut itself down and wait for the UPS to tell it everything is back to
normal (or until an admin intervenes, whichever comes first).

Thanks,
Huw

-- 
Huw Lynes                       | Advanced Research Computing
HEC Sysadmin                    | Cardiff University
                                | Redwood Building, 
Tel: +44 (0) 29208 70626        | King Edward VII Avenue, CF10 3NB





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