[Beowulf] recommendation on crash cart for a cluster room: full cluster KVM is not an option I suppose?

[Rahul Nabar]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 4:01 PM, Mark Hahn <hahn at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>> monolithic all-or-none creature. From what you write (and my online
>> reading) it seems there are several discrete parts:
>>
>> IMPI 2.0
>> switched remotely accessible PDUs
>> "serial concentrator type system "
>
> I think Joe was going a bit belt-and-suspenders-and-suspenders here.

>
> finally, I think Joe is advocating another layer of backups - serial
> concentrators that would connect to the console serial port on each node
> to collect output if IPMI SOL isn't working.  this is perhaps a matter of
> taste, but I don't find this terribly useful.  I thought it would be for my
> first cluster, but never actually set it up.  but again, that's
> because IPMI works well in my experience.


Thanks Mark and Joe.Mark,  I think I agree with your assessment of
multiple layers being an overkill. It's up to individual judgment but
for our needs I think IPMI will suffice. Besides the servers I'm
tending to buy do come with IPMI support so that's lucky for. The
chore is just getting it all configured correctly now!

Thanks for all the leads guys!

-- 
Rahul