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Casemodding Enterprise Hardware
Anonymous Coward writes "Think your tower case with led fans, a cold cathode and a window is cool? See what this guy did to two Sun Enterprise 15Ks -- a casemod on $1.3 million dollars of hardware! Will mainframes start shipping with light and window options now?"
Damn. I wasn't able to see the page or the pix, but I assume dude voided his warranty on [Dr. Evil]1.3millllion dollars[/Dr. Evil] worth of equipment.
Yeah, might be cool, but I don't think smart.
I didn't get to see the page, so flame away if this is dudes personal equipment. Otherwise, Mr. CFO/CIO is gonna be PISSED.
Sent from your iPad.
Is anyone with windowed cases having problems with electromagnetic interference?
:P
Say you have your CRT right by your window modded case- do you have distorted images on the CRT?
It just seems to me that i would want my system well shielded
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
Putting lights outside the case, behind the door is not really a case mod. Don't blame him, I sure as hell wouldn't try to really do that kind of stuff to 1.3 million dollars of equipment, and his mod looks fine.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Not really a case mod, not really warranty voiding.
He just mounted some neon lights inside the case to add some color.
If the submitter is an anonymous coward, how come there is a link to an e-mail address of jthomas@poweronemedia.com?
The glowing blue in particular had the look of "good guy" territory. Can't wait until they get their MCP team up and running...the red neon will make those units look sufficiently evil. Or should I say 3v17? ;-)
What's the matter with a little flash anyway? It doesn't hurt the machines, it brightens up an otherwise boring looking NOC...jeez, get a little sense of aesthetics, if not humor!
Sun should seriously look at this becoming standard equipment on their machines. How much would this add to the cost of their hideously expensive hardware anyway? A little style goes a long way...ask Steve Jobs.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Good god, when will those companies understand, that they ought to make their equipment look nice? This could bring them more money, indirectly. Let me illustrate
:)
:)].
:) ]
1) We buy product X from company Y. We put it in our data center. Company Y got their cash, everything is dandy.
2) Once in awhile, we have to show off our data center to our . Half of the time, the people who are in charge of giving us money are not very technical. They may understand some concepts of this big box has XXX giga/mega/zilion bytes of storage, etc, but in most cases they are like me looking at an airplane engine: ohhh, look it here, it has something cool attached to another neat thing! Ohh, and this little thing is moving! Neato!. Please bear in mind, that I am not making fun of those people, this is just how things work. When somebody doesn't work in your field, they often will focus on things less important than you would. If something moves or blinks, it catches the eye of a viewer. Heck, when we have to give tours around our data center, people spend most time around the robotic tape library, or the cluster of boxes, where there is lots of blinking lights, and it simply looks neat. Our 15k does not compare.
3) When those folks, who give us money, see how neat our data center looks, how spiffy things are, they are usually impressed. What follows is: hey, they are doing well. we spent our money well. heck, we may even let them keep their budget, or maybe we'll add more.. Yes folks, the better your data center looks, the better chances of keeping the job
4) Because of the fact that product X looked so nice, we were given the budget to buy more product X's. Company Y profits.
{God, this made sense in my head when i was thinking, dunno if it makes sense now
Anyway, I know that appearance does not make that big of a difference to a sys admin. But as a sys admin, I'd like if the product X that performs well, would also look nice. It helps me, when the PR department asks me to give a tour of our data center. [or at least assist in answering the questions, I think they learned enough buzz words by now, that they can give the tours themselves
--- d'oh
My friends and I used to refer to this as the HDFL (High-Density Flashing Lights) functionality of a piece of equipment. Nobody on the top floor really wants to admit this, but when The Big Suits of a company take their Important Customers and Media Sycophants on a tour of their Impressive Facilities, they want the totally-cool, ultra-intimidating-looking server room. Not that they'll overtly give you a bigger budget for this (at least in any cases I've been involved with, pun semi-intended), but sneak in a few extra grand to give them a cool-looking server room and watch the love pour in!
Oh yeah, and this is yet another reason for the embarrasing IT slobs out there to neatly bundle their fucking rat's nest of cables... Show a little pride in your work, dammit!
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
And keep in mind that companies that by several 1.3 million computers are more than willing to shuck out a few more thousand on lawyers to ensure than that their service contract is honoured ;)
I imagine that's why he used velcro to hold the lamps in place. Before the Sun repair techs get there he can remove all traces of the 'case mod' and nobody will be the wiser.
Amazing magic tricks
Hmm.. /. make damn sure you've got the right end of the stick, otherwise you will most definately start giving people the impression (in some cases, the ones that pony up the cash for the gear) that Sun just have stucks up their arses, and are playing the weasel out of it game.
Seems to me the guys that bought this hardware are Sun customers that don't mind shelling out a little cash to buy the necessary hardware.
Putting cold cathode lights on the outside of a case seems to be to be a very poor excuse to get out of a service contract.
Now, if they'd left cables dangling all over the floor, or had coffee stains all down the front of the box, I'd think differently.
However, if this comms room is actually a place where customers are shown round, the non-technical would certainly get a blast from seeing all the cases lit up, and it'd be something they remembered. A bit of a plus over all the 'boring' comms rooms that just hum a little. Something to show the investors on a nice day round.
If they've spent this much on the boxes, I'm damn sure they spent the money to figure out with sun if putting these on invalidated an agreement.
I'm also pretty sure the guy in question worked out what effect this would have on the boxes.
If someone turned up to a site where I'd done pretty much the same thing, and an engineer turned round and refused to touch the machine on that basis, I know that the first thing I'd do is call his boss, and be a little peeved.
And then I'd take it higher.
If the company in question said they'd not support it, then I'd have a very serious think about who would offer a sensible support package.
In my days going round the comms rooms, I've seen far far worse setups, and had them supported.
If you're going to be so picky as to not do something for such a picky reason (hey, the guys who go for cheap memory and processors from Ebay generally don't turn their boxes into showcase pieces like that. They cram what they can quietly into racks and try and make sure nobody sees 'em), then you're on a sure fire way of losing some business. In this day and age, with competition as fierce as it is, I don't think you can afford to do that.
Personally, I'd see this as someone taking PRIDE in their machines, and as such, I'd rather take is as being a good indicator of one that I would want to work on (as the guys are VERY likely to know all the ins and outs of the server, and it's day to day quirks).
I honestly don't know where you get your ideas from, but I think you'd be a firm candidate for a 'jobsworth' award where you'd try and get out of doing anything you absolutely didn't have to, just in case it turned out to be hard work.
If you feel this is just a big, unconsidered flame, then consider. I've done this kind of job in the past, (and moved upwards and onwards), and met many who have done this job also. Some guys are a pleasure to work with, accomodating in most respects (but cut the line at people just being silly arses with things), and some are just cold and trying to weasel out of everything. These days, I go with the companies that offer good service, and decent engineers that actually make a good showing. I drop like hotcakes those that weasel out.
Before you talk about invalidating the warranty, especially in a high profile place like
Bad bad press indeed. And from the Sun techs I've met in the past (quite a few, and from many levels), they'd think this was kind of interesting, and be quite chuffed that people took the pride in their hardware to do this kind of thing.
Just my tuppence worth.
Malk.
This guy must be fairly decent with his servers. It's one of the few personal-served type websites I've seen that haven't gone under with the slashdot barrage.
He's also got a page crapload of images on the page, which puts more load than a standard 1-2 image HTML page.
I must ask though, who is his employer? Surely these aren't his own machines (at the quoted x-million each?) unless he's also one rich SOB. The employer must be really trusting in this guy to let him mess with expensive machines like this. I wonder how they'll take the energy bill associated with all those fancy lights
an effective dog and pony show to impress clients. Plain old raised floor hardware sometimes goes unnoticed and an appreciation for the money invested in the equipment needs a little push.
And it'll be great for the frustrated technicians down there when female visitors with skirts check in. (I imagine that their female coworkers will learn rather quickly.)