More hardware design (was Re: GigaRouter)

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1

Au contriare, mon frere.

[Figured it was about time to change the subject line...]

Speaking of hardware design, I've got a few misc. questions and comments.
These are geared towards building servers for remote use that are *not*
routers, but rather light- to medium-load webservers and the like.

Does anyone know of a *small* rackmount case for PCs? By this I mean one
that doesn't chew up quite so much vertical room as the usual boxes.

Yes, look in computer shopper. There are some short rack-mount PCs.
I'm trying to get pricing on them now. And Crystal makes dream rackmounts;
4 across, 8 down in a 7' x 19" rack. But I suspect they're hideously
expensive. They use passive backplanes :frowning:

They refused to even give me a price on just "how much for the case,
power supply, backplane, and processor card w/ no cpu or memory"?
I explained that we had to decide on a standard now for colo customers,
that people walk in with 3' high tower cases and we go "nonononono".
(Those that don't accept our advise and get Suns).

One of the annoying problems using an intel box instead of a sun is that
there's no real console. If it dies, the only way to kick it remotely is
with a remote-control power switch. These are expensive and unwieldy, not
mounting nicely in racks.

I think I told you about these :slight_smile:
$500 or so from Black Box, 15 or 20amps across the whole switch, but it's
code-activated and has 8 outlets. I guess you'd probably plug it into a
terminal server port. I looked at x.10 systems, but 3 digits of security
on the dtmf-parsing security does not cut it.

Lastly, I've seen this really neat rackmount chassis from Multitech. It's
got 22 ISA slots, severable into up to 9 parts, and enough drive bays to
actually run 9 separate servers. If you're looking for maximal density it
seems like a good bet. The only problem I can see is that you'll need CPUs
with both SCSI and viseo on board (thus my first question) unless you're
willing to run on IDE drives. I figure that for light or medium-use servers,
ethernet over ISA should be fine.

Roughly how much?

/a

Avi

2

If you open up Cisco's PIX box, you will find that it is a PCI based
motherboard with an ISA card that looks to the system like a drive.
The ISA card has flash on it where you save off configurations and
boot off of. When the box wakes up, it just boots off the ISA card.
The only other cards in it are your NIC cards (ETHERNET, FAST-ETHERNET or TokenRING).

IT is very clean and the only moving part is the floppy drive that is
under a cover with a lock. :slight_smile:

--blast
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3

Yes, look in computer shopper. There are some short rack-mount PCs.
I'm trying to get pricing on them now. And Crystal makes dream rackmounts;
4 across, 8 down in a 7' x 19" rack. But I suspect they're hideously
expensive. They use passive backplanes :frowning:

We use rack-mount PC case from Intergrand, they are $300 with a 250 watt
power supply.

They refused to even give me a price on just "how much for the case,
power supply, backplane, and processor card w/ no cpu or memory"?
I explained that we had to decide on a standard now for colo customers,
that people walk in with 3' high tower cases and we go "nonononono".
(Those that don't accept our advise and get Suns).

Ya, we try to get all our colos to use the Intergrand box, we sell them at
cost just to keep it nice and neat.

Nathan Stratton CEO, NetRail, Inc. Tracking the future today!

4

..chop

Yes, look in computer shopper. There are some short rack-mount PCs.
I'm trying to get pricing on them now. And Crystal makes dream rackmounts;
4 across, 8 down in a 7' x 19" rack. But I suspect they're hideously
expensive. They use passive backplanes :frowning:

They refused to even give me a price on just "how much for the case,
power supply, backplane, and processor card w/ no cpu or memory"?
I explained that we had to decide on a standard now for colo customers,
that people walk in with 3' high tower cases and we go "nonononono".
(Those that don't accept our advise and get Suns).

They're pretty costly, but they run cool, take up wee space and use only
65 watts for the CS500 standard version. We've standardized on them for
our colo recommendation. They charge about $2700 for a case, power supply,
passive backplane, floppy drive and P120 CPU card that comes with video
and all the basic ports. We always source the hard drive and memory
separately due to their exorbitant rates. I never priced one out without
the CPU though I was thinking I'd ask about that next time I call. They're
CPU prices are the most outrageous part, and I keep reminding them that
they're out of line with the industry by a mile. The price differential
between the P120 and the P166 for example is $900! You can get a P200 Pro
for less than that.

...chop

Dan