[BlueOnyx:12397] Re: BlueOnyx on alternative platforms

[Chris Gebhardt - VIRTBIZ Internet]

On 3/5/2013 9:59 AM, Steven Howes wrote:
>
> On 5 Mar 2013, at 15:45, Chris Gebhardt - VIRTBIZ Internet wrote:
>> There is an entire 42U cabinet loaded with drive
>> shelves and PDU that consumes about 60amps of 208 single-phase.
>
> *falls off chair*
>
> Does it store it by heating up blocks of metal or something? :P
>

Close.  A bunch of 18GB 15k SCSI drives.  And they do generate a fair 
amount of heat.  ;)   One thing that is kind of cool though, the drive 
rack connects to the Alpha with a couple of Fibre Channel connections 
over MM fiber.  The drive array obviously came along later in the 
machine's life, I'm guessing early 2000's.

I'd love to get a bit more history on it, but as it is, the owner's IT 
department has all but disavowed the thing.  They know nothing about it. 
  We just keep it running so that one lady in her office at the 
headquarters for this multi-national company in the upper Northeastern 
U.S. can log into it every now and then to run a report.

We constructed a system that has them VPN to a Linux box (we found an 
old Compaq Proliant DL-360 G1 that closely resembles the drive shelves!) 
which opens a local terminal session to the Alpha via a webpage, and 
will then convert the Alpha's line-printer output to PDF so the lady can 
get her reports.  I think they've used it 3 or 4 times, but they're 
legally required to keep the records accessible.  Apparently, renting 
cage space from us is the most cost-effective route.

The server itself looks something like this:
http://questier.com/GRAPH/gs140.jpg

Doesn't that just look like something that ought to run BlueOnyx?  :)

-- 
Chris Gebhardt
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