[DRBD-user] IBM Server Machines with DRBD-0.7.x

Linux GNUbie gnubie at gmail.com
Thu Mar 31 04:40:25 CEST 2005

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


On Tue, 2005-03-29 at 21:16 -0500, Paul Bennett wrote:
> 
> Do you plan on massive future scalability? A full Bladecenter will give  
> you marginally more CPUs per U of space than (I think) any ordinary  
> xSeries. If you're buying lots of gigahertz, that will be a big factor.  
> Using Bladecenter bays for SCSI storage is going to cut into that.  
> Personally, if I were standing here with a blank check in my hand, I'd get  
> Blades and EXT units rather than waste chassis space on SCSI Blades.

Not necessarily for scalability but for a practical hardware of choice
for servers intended for DHCP, NFS, OpenLDAP and DNS.  Maybe for the NFS
server, the SCSI HDD should be scalable for the file servers.

Also, I read some article before that there is a particular IBM hardware
that works best for DRBD setup.  I just forgot what was that and I
didn't mind it because I thought I won't be having an opportunity to use
them for production use.  And now, I have been instructed to research
which is the best IBM server hardware for the above purposes, an IBM
xSeries 345 or an IBM Blade HS20.

> Bear in mind that a Blade is basically a laptop. Servicability isn't  
> something you can expect. Generally, people who have one of their Blades  
> go bad get a warranty replacement on the whole thing rather than on any  
> FRU inside it.

You mean, the blades are not that good hardware of choice when it comes
to hardware stability?

> OTOH, I've been inside the x345, and it's a pleasure to expand and to work  
> on.

I was once able to work with IBM xSeries 345 and it was so cool and
stable.

> Is this for a Small/Home business or an Enterprise? Maintenance is less on  
> Blades, since you're paying for a quick yank and replace, as opposed to a  
> full service on a machine, but those savings only become apparent if  
> you're buying a lot of them, and working them hard.

The initial plan is to purchase 4 or 6 server machines for the said
services and it will be 2 or 3 pairs of those machines will be
configured with Heartbeat and DRBD.

Thanks again.

GNUbie




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