Quick survey -- UPSs on slave nodes?

[Nicholas Henke]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 11:24:07 -0800 (PST)
Nicholas Webb <nickw at uidaho.edu> wrote:

> At the University of Idaho we are preparing to order a new beowulf
> cluster and a vendor seemed to be shocked that we wanted UPSs attached
> to ALL of the nodes.  He stated that most people only use UPSs on the
> Master Node, unless the cluster was used for some kind of mission
> critical purpose. So the question, do you use UPSs on your slave
> nodes?  Arguments for not using UPSs on slave nodes (and vice versa)?
> 
> Thanks!

We do not have any of our nodes on UPS. It is usually way too expensive,
and there are easier ways to condition the power ( APC masterswitches,
etc. ). Our users expect nodes to die every once in a while, and in the
face of a power outage, there is no way you could keep computing at full
power for more than a few seconds unless the UPS have their own room :).
An yes, that is a slightly BOFH way of dealing with it, but it makes our
lives easier as admins.
That said -- if you have a building that experiences more than it's fair
share of power blinks, it would be worth it, as it might let you run
some longer length jobs that otherwise would be impossible.

Nic
-- 
Nicholas Henke
Linux Cluster Systems Programmer
Liniac Project - Univ. of Pennsylvania