[ILUG] When servers grow up ....

[Wesley Darlington]

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 31, 2000 at 01:46:04PM +0100, Brendan Bradley wrote:
> I hope dell, gateway etc are listening ....
> If a machine cannot stay alive for thirty seconds or so after power is cut
> to do an emergency shutdown it's not a server, it's a desktop pc without a
> monitor.
> Having to buy or use an external UPS for a purpose built server is like
> saying "lifeboats sold separately".
> 
> My laptop  warns me the battery is about to go dead and then shuts itself
> down before it loses power totally, why doesn't a high end, purpose built
> server have this common sense, necessary ability built in?

Yeah, this is something I'd *love* to see. 

There was a review in pcpro recently of a low-end HP server with a yokey 
taking up a 5.25" that did this - it plugged into the psu and fed it 
juice when the mains Went Away.

Me, I'd prefer to be able to buy ATX form-factor PSUs with some sort
of battery built in. And I'd really like for Dell to start including it
as an option in their servers.

I think Kate advocated the use of one big UPS for a server room. I don't
like this idea so much: it's too eggs-in-one-basket for me. I'd rather
have a server and its backup powered via separate UPSes. (Well, and
separate electricity companies, separate generators as backup and 
separate continents, but... ;-)  

I've been putting a 2U UPS in the bottom of each 19" rack here, rather
than covering my server room with one big spof of a ups. I'd like each
server to have 60s or so of juice *aswell*, though.

There was a big long discussion here about some crap colo shop that
kept letting the power disappear. Just out of curiosity, what advantages
do such places offer over hosting inhouse?

ATB,
Wesley.