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

[Buccaneer for Hire.]

--- On Fri, 10/9/09, Mark Hahn <hahn at mcmaster.ca> wrote:

> From: Mark Hahn <hahn at mcmaster.ca>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Re: recommendation on crash cart for a cluster  room:fullcluster KVM is not an option I suppose?
> To: "Buccaneer for Hire." <buccaneer at rocketmail.com>
> Cc: "Beowulf Mailing List" <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Date: Friday, October 9, 2009, 2:02 PM
> > A node on a pallet waiting for
> you do upgrade firmware is absolutely worthless.  1000
> of them even more so.
> 
> I'm not sure why you keep going on about bios
> updates.  they're easy and
> automatable, so not a real issue for clusters.  no
> offense!
>
No offense taken taken...

Because the node should be ready for prime time when we get it.

But it is not the BIOS where the problems are, but all the little sophisticated pieces of the node with its own firmware where you have to plug in and hit keys, and wait, and hit keys. This may be OK if you have a small cluster, not OK when you have tons of nodes.