[Beowulf] Best Practices SOL vs Cyclades ACS

[Marian Marinov]

On Friday 09 October 2009 14:08:19 Daniel.Kidger at bull.co.uk wrote:
> >Rich Sudlow wrote:
> >> In the past we've used cyclades console servers for serial
> >> interfaces into our cluster nodes.
> >>
> >> We're replacing 360 nodes which couldn't do SOL with 360
> >> which could.
> >>
> >> Now that we can do SOL is that a better to use that instead of the
> >> Cyclades?
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >
> >Every now and then IPMI gets wedged.  We have seen it on all IPMI
> >stacks.  When IPMI gets wedged, SOL stops working.
> >
> >I recommend redundant administrative pathways ... make sure you can get
> >to and control the machine in the event of a problem.  Some pathways may
> >not be as cost effective at scale than others.
>
> I suggest that if you are already comfortable with Cyclades Terminal
> servers and already have them configured plus all the cables are already
> there, then why not continue to use them.
> I guess you already use the feature where they can write the console logs
> to a NFS mounted filesystem?
>
> Redundant pathways are always a bonus. However here you might have
> problems in having effectively 2 simulatenous serial consoles.
>
> Daniel

We have more then 400 machines. Every month there is one machine that we can 
not reboot using IPMI or the SOL is not working. 

I also confirm what Daniel and Joe said, if you already have the infrastructure 
and you are used to it, it is best to keep it.

We shifted to IPMI for easier management since our admins didn't liked the 
Cyclades but unfortunately we lost the total power control that we had with 
them :(

-- 
Best regards,
Marian Marinov