New Server

Things to do –

Sell Wintendo (4200+x2, 2GB RAM, etc)
Sell spare EQ2 box (5000+ x2 AM2, 2GB RAM, etc)

Get tax rebate check
Purchase:
This;

Sell current server (dual Opteron 252, 4GB RAM, PCI-X, U320, etc).

Reason?
I want virtualization extensions and more processors.  For whatever reason, IBM doesn’t want to release BIOS updates to let me drop dual-core Opterons into the Intellistation, and AMD didn’t put virtualization extensions on S940 Opterons.

Hence:
8 core Xeon, 16GB RAM.  Regardless of what consumers may want to think, most of the upcoming server-grade tech (10GigE, for instance) is PCI-X, not PCIe, plus my U320 drives won’t work without a U320 controller (and I have a PCI-X controller), so PCI-X is a must. 

Ideal:
Install OpenSolaris Build 85 or higher.  Put 3 random SATA drives I’ve got in RaidZ in case I happen to have one die.  Use it as / (ZFS root can’t span controllers).

Tack the 8 500GB drives onto the PCI-X SATA controller.  RAID-Z2 (I should get ~3TB out of the initial config).  Put the existing SCSI drives in.  Zpool import and migrate it.  Set up iSCSI on the pool.  Install machines into Xen (OS X, CentOS 5, Server 2008).  Each OS will get 4 cores and 4GB of RAM, with some room for expansion.  iSCSI root for the virtual machines.  Take out the U320 controller and pop in a quad GigE card.  Span all 6 GigE interfaces and give all the VMs an external address.  CentOS becomes a VPN/BIND/Oracle (testing) server, 2008 is a SQL2008 (replication from work) server and domain (Kerberos and LDAP) controller, OS X doesn’t serve anything (it’s awful at it) but it’s handy for testing scripts, Solaris handles Glassfish/JRuby/Jython/PostgreSQL (production).

While the current 6 CPUs and 8GB of RAM are ok (and Xen on one running CentOS and hosting 2008 with the other running OS X), it’s just not as power efficient. 

Tags: WhydidIpostthis, General