Re: More hardware design (was Re: GigaRouter)

[Avi Freedman <freedman () netaxs com>]

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 :(

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 :)
$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

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