[Beowulf] Re: GPU boards and cluster servers.

[Mark Hahn]

> Again, I'm not picking on Dell specifically. I've seen this behavior
> with other large vendors. My point is that "on-site support" usually
> isn't always, so don't believe the hype.

I think highly of HP service and HP hardware in general.  we always spec 
onsite/NBD support.  at first, we spent a lot of time talking through
tier-1 support, but fairly quickly were given ways to bypass that.
I don't think we paid extra, but I also don't think HP's giving it as 
charity, since an HPC site will typically have just a few, clueful 
contacts opening cases, who can efficiently interact with higher-level
support.  I don't really have signficant data for any other vendor.

for small sites or individuals, it make a lot of sense (for the vendor)
to try to filter out some of the randomness of support calls before
committing a person.  of course, a good CRM system would help this - perhaps
that's why RGB gets satisfaction from Dell...

I _do_ wish it was a bit more common to have onsite spares.  not sure 
why vendors (HP at least) don't like to do this.  maybe just that it might
get kicked around or otherwise abused...

regards, mark hahn.