[nycbug-talk] Richard Beijtlich on replacing his Soekris. . .

[michael]

On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 12:33:29 -0500
Isaac Levy <ike at lesmuug.org> wrote:

> OK- MW- big question here:
> 
> What do you do when one of the boards fails?  

First, I guess, I would weep a little.  I hate wasting money.  Then I
would consult the chapter on possible board failure in redundent
firewalls in the genoverly contingency handbook. No wait, there isn't
one. [grin]

> I mean, I know the  
> other board is taking the load, but how do you go about replacing
> the failed board- and keep everything online?

Well, you spotted one of the major advantages of redundency already.  I
don't have to drop what I'm doing and run screaming down to the data
center.  I can get to it when I get to it.  If I still like the idea of
using them, I guess I would get a new board and swap it out. There are
two complete 'computers' inside the case. They have separate power
supplies, etc. The case is shallow enough to slide it out and remove
the cover.  I could swap the boards standing in the isle, while the
other one is running.  While this may seem onerous, I weighed it
against other factors.  Yes, odds are the board can/will fail some day.
But, replacing them was only a small part of the decision of purchase.
Also involved where: coolness factor of having a side-by-side 1u, clean
and sleek and neat appearance, cheapness of using only 1u in expensive
data center, ease of aquisition and purchase, the 'relatively' low odds
that failure will happen, hardware price, hardware feature set, my
needs, etc.  I guess one could split hairs, but it works for me.

> --
> Here's what I'm doing, to similar effect:
> 
> I got one of these,
> http://www.racksolutions.com/sliding-shelves-rack-mount.shtml
> 
> And I've simply put the soekris machines on the shelf.
> This way, I can get in and remove/replace/service the soekris
> boards, without affecting network connectivity.

I seriously considered this, but for many reasons (some listed) I
chose another solution.
 
> --
> Here's what I *really* want, in a more ideal world:
> 
> Some kind of 1u backplane/drawer-like setup, something which lets me  
> pull out boards in little drawers that are physically isolated,  
> mounted in 1u.
> Basically, I'm looking for a 1u box with 2 drawers on the front, and  
> clean ways to get wires and mount things on the front and back.   
> (When I say mount things I mean things like serial port extensions,  
> power supply jacks, perhaps a small 1u fan in each drawer, etc...)
> 
> It'd be great if it fit a mini-itx board, so then one could put  
> whatever size/breed of board in the thing.

yes.. dreaming up really cool hardware solutions is fun.  I guess I was
busy installing the OS, racking my slightly-less-than-dreamy solution,
and getting my network up while you were making engineering drawings on
graph paper. [grin]  My point being.. I didn't think *too* long and
hard.  I weighed my needs against what was available and .. I just got
it done.

-- 

Michael