[Beowulf] Repeated Dell SC1435 crash / hang. How to get the vendor to resolve the issue when 20% of the servers fail in first year?

[Greg Lindahl]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 11:36:33AM -0500, Rahul Nabar wrote:

> Well, Dell get's paid almost when they deliver the machines each time.

Sounds like Dell wrote that part of the contract. Usually when you do
a competetive bid you don't pay until the system is accepted, and
that's explicitly written out in the contract.

I have run into universities where Dell is a sole-source supplier, and
in that case Dell got to write the contract. And you have to pay at
delivery.

> So there's no leverage there anyways. Just curious: do any of you have
> clauses wherein you pay Dell after they have demonstrated trouble free
> ops for the first year or some such?

There is no way you would get a 1 year period out of Dell. Even with a
whitebox vendor, you would get a lot less equipment, if they were
willing to do it at all.

-- greg