On Mon, 1 Aug 2005, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-01 at 21:28 -0400, Jim Wildman wrote:
> > Note: I would NOT recommend the v40z or the straight Newisys box.
> > They are poorly implemented platforms.
>
> Can you expand on this?
> They seem to be the most prolific 4-way Opteron design available.
> What am I missing? The quality of the design?
Sure. The issues I am aware of are around the management processor
implementation. The server has an embedded PPC based processor that has
the ability to access either the serial port, or the console directly.
However, it does neither automatically, out of the box or without some
work on the OS side. There are no SNMP MIB's available (that I know
of) for accessing the information it may have access to. It is
particularly difficult to get Solaris to function with the serial port
as 'console'.
This is in contrast to HP's RIB/iLO family of cards, which work out of
the box for either direct or web based console access, and with minimal
OS configuration can access the serial port. They come with a complete
set of MIBs and easily installed OS modules. The latest versions
support ssh as well as web, and both text and graphical access allow
you to mount remote 'virtual' media for installation, etc.
Part of the issue may be that Sun did not/could not buy the complete
package from Newisys. If you look at the Newisys web page, it looks
like they have functionality that may come close to HP's, but it is
locked up on the Sun boxes. The web server is running, but all roads
(that I could find) lead no where. Additionally, the v40z is an orphan.
Sun has announced plans to replace them (and their little brothers,
v20z) with 'Galaxy' class boxes of their own design.
All of that said, once they are installed, they seem to be rock solid.
If you are expecting a very Solaris looking platform for Linux, the v40z
fills the bill. If you are expecting a Wintel type platform (ala HP),
it doesn't even get in the game.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Wildman, CISSP, RHCE jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.rossberry.com
"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best
state, is a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
Thomas Paine
