Open Power Management Console

Scott Haugaard writes "There's a cool open code/open hardware power management device page has the schematics, programs, and pictures of a homebrew remote power console. Use this to cold boot those unresponsive servers remotely, or to shut them down at night via scripts and bring them up again before your users log on to save power. Solder, TCL, LEDs, wires galore. Manage power to 16 servers from two wires on a serial port."

Comments

My mother

[dasmegabyte]

I keep all my servers in the basement of my parent's house, and use my mother as the control mechanism. She is much more difficult to control than a PERL script, because she doesn't understand the concept of warning lights or switches. So I've hooked all of them up to speakers and I use mp3 files of songs she knows that correspond to warning messages. This leads to conversations like this:

"Hullo, mum? Is the server making noise?"
"Um, yes. I think."
"Is it the Barenaked Ladies."
"No...it sounds like Johnny Cash."
"Is it 'Johnny Yuma?'"
"No, that one about the car. 'One piece at a time.'"
"Okay, that means the switch is dead. You need to jab a pencil into the little grey box with the red triangle on it."
"Do you mean the one with the big sign that says 'don't touch?'"
"No, the one with the red triangle."

She's still easier to work with than BiznessOnline.com.