[Beowulf] Re: recommendation on crash cart for a cluster room:fullcluster KVM is not an option I suppose?

[Mark Hahn]

> So, hopefully I will have very little need for IPMI (remote power
> cycling is great though; those network aware power distribution stics
> seem great).

power-cycling like this a machine is clearly harder on the PSU 
than reset or soft-off/on.  I think the only justification for 
net/smart PDUs is for power monitoring or as a last-chance backup 
for proper (IPMI) power control.  I would certainly chose IPMI
before net-PDU if I could only have one (and indeed my organization
sticks to IPMI.)  I have only rarely experienced problems with 
"stuck" IPMI, and some fraction of those can be solved by sshing
to the machine and using "ipmitool mc reset cold" locally.