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> Thinking about other options, does anyone have any other tip for me? Am I |
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> going in the right direction? For the obvious answer: I know it's better to |
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> be closer to the datacenter, but that's not an option for me right now and I |
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> know I'll have a remote-hands service, but it can be very time inefficient |
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> sometimes and I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. |
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|
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Tips: |
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|
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* Install decent PDUs in your racks, I'd highly recommend APC |
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Masterswitch; you're going to want to power cycle various bits of |
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hardware, and SNMP is an easy way to do it. |
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|
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* Some cheap kit (Cisco 2506s) from a distributor or eBay with 4 x |
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8-port console cards (32 total) can give you inexpensive access to the |
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serial line of your nodes, buy a slightly more expensive one for if |
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you wanna deploy 8 x 8-port or 12 x 8-port. |
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|
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* Have some kind of rescue environment available over network boot, |
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it's invaluable for diagnosing H/W problems; you'll probably also want |
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memtest86+ or equivalent too. |
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|
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* Invest in some IP cameras for the suite within the datacenter. |
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Technicians are often rubbish and don't describe things clearly, it's |
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a very good idea to be able to say, "Show me!" and also for security |
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purposes! |
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|
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* Write a small database which knows where every node is located |
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(physical location) and what it's connected to (switch port, PDU port, |
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console server port); then a bit of software to wrap around that and |
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you'll have a good level of control over all nodes. |
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|
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All of the above avoids complications with KVM-over-IP type devices, |
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most of which come with evil Java applets :( If you go down the Cisco |
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route, you'll be able to telnet to the 'console server' and access any |
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of its serial lines, make sure to define ACLs. |
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|
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Cheers, |
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Alex |
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-- |
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