Slashdot Mirror
Rugged Linux Server For Rural, Tropical Environment?
travalas writes "Last year I moved to Rural Bangladesh. My work is pretty diverse, everything from hacking web apps to designing building materials. Increasingly a Linux VM on my MacBook Pro is insufficient due to storage speed/processing constraints and the desire to interface more easily with some sensor packages.
There are a few issues that make that make a standard server less than desirable. This server will generally not be running with any sort of climate control and it may need to move to different locations so would also be helpful if it was somewhat portable. The environment here is hot, humid and dusty and brutal on technology and power is very inconsistent so it will often be on a combination of Interruptible Power Supply and solar power. So a UPS is a must and low power consumption desirable, so it strikes me that an Integrated UPS a la Google's servers would be handy. Spec wise it needs to be it needs to be able to handle several VM's and some other processor storage intensive tasks. So 4 cores, 8GB of ram and 3-4 TB of SATA storage seems like a place to start for processing specs. What sort of hardware would you recommend without breaking the bank?"
Yeah, not breaking the bank isn't going to be an option here, I'm afraid.
You might try (if it's too humid) putting some silicon packets in the box. They should help absorb the moisture.
It's all fun and games till someone divides by 0. Then it's hilarious.
Ever heard the expression "Fast, reliable, cheap (pick two)"?
It applies here.
Of course, you were fairly specific with the processing specs you need, but not your budget. So it's hard to say what "breaking the bank" is for you. also, you called it a UPS, but you also called it an "Interruptible Power Supply". I'm assuming a brain-fart, but the "U" stands for Uninterruptible.
Just picking nits.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Low power consumption, quad core, 8 gigs of ram, a UPS and a few TB of storage? 1. Not gonna be cheap, though I'm not sure what your budget is, this will be somewhat pricey. 2. You might want to get a few UPS's, because I doubt, unless you get a very large solar array, that you will be able to run it on that. Expect power loss, disable write caching on the disks, etc. Also, a UPS isn't meant to be used as a constant power source, just as a way to keep you from losing work if power goes out, and if you're lucky, hold you over till it flickers back on. 3. This will NOT be portable, those UPS's will be a pain to move. Good luck, I certainly don't mean to be so negative, but this is a somewhat unreasonable thing to look for.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
Get a laptop or 3.
Portable - check
UPS - check
Able to handle no climate control - check
4 cores & 8GB - check
4TB of storage - Get an external drive bay. (Do you really need that much storage? really?)
Some of the XPS line from Dell or other 'Gaming' laptops should do the trick.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
What exactly are you doing, and why does your server need to be on site?
If you really need to be lugging all that around the wilderness, it's not going to be cheap.
While, unfortunately, any "real" solution to dealing with hot, dusty, humid, and otherwise unpleasant environments is going to cost a bloody fortune; the relatively modest specs that you are looking for should help.
4 cores, 8GB of RAM, and 3-4 TB of HDD is, these days, a slightly nicer than average; but hardly exotic, desktop computer. The nice thing about desktops is that, unlike servers, they are designed to deal with human environments, rather than datacenter ones. No AC, cat hair, cigarette smoke, that sort of thing. Plus, they are cheap and almost exactly the shape of a small rolling suitcase.
Since the environment is nasty, you'll want to make sure that the system has enough fans to keep things cool even if one conks out when you aren't there, and you'll want to have at least one spare drive in your RAID.
There is a good solution to your problem, probably manufactured to mil-spec by General Dynamics, that costs 50 times as much as you can afford; but, in this case, you might well be able to get away with doing it the cheap way, since your computational requirements are actually fairly modest.
get a toughbook, a satellite uplink, and colo a server somewhere controlled.
seriously. finding the computational strength you want with the power restrictions is not going to happen.
my company just shipped some units to a desert in the middle east (can't mention where). we bought an entire trailer and powering units (generators, solar, etc) to provide the juice to run the servers and air conditioning. it was _not_ cheap. you can do that or you can remote to a controlled area.
I don't think there are any servers for those requirements:
portable, rugged, low power (incl. UPS)
But those are the exact specs of the rugged laptop. Laptops have built-in UPS units (called batteries) and are low in power consumption.
Panasonic Toughbooks, or Toshiba Tecra ruggedized come to mind. Dell also has some new offerings in that segment:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_xfr_d630?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
You sound like you want a high power server (multiple VM's) with significant storage (multiple TB's) to run on no power in an unconditioned environment. And you want it affordable. Those are rather contradictory requirements, rather like having cake and eating it too.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You could get an external drive and possible cluster them together for the enhanced processor power? Dont know but this taptop seems to be able to handle the enviroment you want it to. Also UPS plus Solar Panels = headache so be prepared!
I can think of two options.
Option one:
That would do most of what you want. No graphics, but it would work well. You can have all the storage and CPU power you can use. You could even set it up like a batch processing cluster.
Option two:
You will not get what you want for a reasonable price, you want too much. High powered computers can't be put everywhere on Earth regardless of infrastructure. They really need some basic environment controls and good power.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Wouldn't it be easier to just hook up a dehumidifier and use normal (non-rugged) parts?
... in rural Bangladesh that requires 4 cores, 8GB Ram, and 4 TB of storage? I can understand if you're in the city and involved in some company, but you make it sound like you want some serious number crunching to occur in the middle of the jungle.
How about offloading all of your processing requirements to a co-located server and just getting a cheap rugged laptop to access and control the processing.
At the worst case, you can run use the van to move, cool and power the machine... cover the roof with solar panels and use gas when you have to...
Maybe something like linking three-four laptops and configuring them so they 'share' cpu power (openmosix or something that is maintained), disks with drbd/GFS2 |& NFS ? ..
External USB/Firewire disks for a lot of capacity
You can even hook them up to a small motorcycle baterry, I guess it won't last much longer but there you go.
I mean, this is not a very 'professional' solution, obviously, but I think something like this is your best bet.
Good luck.
If communication are reliable and cheap, or even just reliable, you could put your server in the nearest town that has adequate facilities and use a low-performance-but-ruggedized desktop or laptop to access it.
I realize that's not what you said you need, but it is a viable option in many environments.
In the rural 3rd world this might be viable over satellite phone, cell phone, or a radio connection. If you only need access a few hours a day and can stand dialup-speed or slower for those VNC or other remote-control applications, this may work for you.
You mentioned sensors. I assume these are environmental, medical, or other sensors that connect to the computer by serial, USB, or other means. You may want to talk to the vendors to see if they have sofware that can collect data on a low-performance laptop then process it on a remote server, either in real-time or at a later date.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Choose two
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I've long thought that in general we putting the UPS on wrong side of the power supply... So I was intrigued by Google's solution.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
In looking at your specs I think your storage is going to be the hardest to deal with. Todays 1TB drives are quite fragile. Drop them from a table and 90% of the time they are goners. In addition without serious cooling they can get very hot (I am looking at you segate) and once you get upwards of 55 Celsius they start to break down fast. Even worse would the temperature cycling due to the fact the server is not online 24/7. Seeing as you are power constrained its probably not going to feasible to go with a ton of 250GB drives ect...
To build something like this in a ruggedized form is going to be expensive (5k + for the basics) Is there a way you could reduce your data requirments? 4TB is a tremendous amount of data.
If you were willing to compromise
One other suggestion. Go with a MiniITX board and a DC-DC power supply This one is cheap and you could put an AMD CPU in it http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500021 Then add a 45 Watt AMD CPU and maybe RAID 5 with 500GB laptop HD's
In theory you could build a decent dual core 2.6 Ghz system with 1.5 TB of storage, 4GB of ram and all powered by 12Volt DC (negating the UPS need.. just use 12volt Batteries) for a reasonable price. A system like this would be small and portable. If you needed more horsepower I would suggest building multiples.
It would likely be much more cost effective to build multiple moderately powerful systems than one massive one.
That's going to be a performance limiter at any price, especially if you need x86-compatibility.
At least for now.
There are some nice low-power architectures out there if you don't mind having to use a free operating system. For them, the degree ruggedization will be a driving cost factor. -40C-+85C costs more than 0C-50C, but it costs less than -70C-+120C.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Are you protecting against heat and cold or rapid temperature changes? Shock? Humidity and liquid spillage? For each, how much ruggedness are you willing to pay for?
You can build a computer that can handle -40-85C and both high and low humidity that won't survive a 5-foot drop onto concrete, and you can build a device that will survive a 10-story fall while operating, but that has no extra protection against humidity and temperature extremes.
State your requirements, and for a price, someone will build it, or at least try.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I work in a tropical humid environment, a good deal of my work taking me away from "civilization" out into the jungle where the only power available may be that which I carry with me. I carry a very cheap Acer throw-away laptop into the jungle with me. It runs Xubuntu and Windows XP, dual boot. Pretty much handles everything I need in the jungle. Includes WiFi, but where am I going to find a WiFi hotspot 120 miles from the nearest road? In fact, I can not always count on a sattelite connection, so often I am without Internet. Back in civilization, I have a couple of conventional desktops, running various operating systems, and this is where I back up everything when I return from the jungle. These, too, survive well without air conditioning. The power supply is much more reliable in the city, but still occassionally flakey. Every 5 years or so, I have to replace a hard drive or a power supply (or both). I find the most cost-effective approach is to buy "throw away" hardware, and have spares and a good backup strategy...
don't go for one big system running VMs that is expensive, hot and power hungry and you can't vary the power to it. Pick a nice mini-ITX case with good fans and stick an Atom based board in it that takes a 12V DC input. Count the number of VMs you think you need, multiply by 2 and build that many. Stick half in a cupboard and fire up all the others. If you don't have enough power, don't turn them all on. I can't quite see what you need that much CPU for anyhow. How many clients will these servers be supporting?
Let me summarize your requirements
-> Runs cool and quiet
-> Heat, humidity, dust resistant
-> Portable
-> Low power requirements
-> Integrated UPS
-> Very beefy server
-> Cheap
If you find one drop me an email, I want to install Duke Nukem Forever on it.
Sounds like you want plain ole standard commercial grade server hardware mounted in a tiny RV.
Extensively shock mount a relay rack, put in somewhat bigger AC/batteries/genset than usual, and you're good to go.
You can use the living quarters to house the armed guard, which will be required for expensive equipment in that corner of the world.
Trying to buy super tough server hardware will simply be more expensive than a RV and much harder to replace / maintain when it breaks.
Admittedly I'm mystified what you'd do with such immense computing power in a rural area without electricity. Maybe a really nice mythtv backend? Educate the locals using SimTractor?
You do realize that Bangladesh is like 1 foot above sea level, so no need to engineer this to last forever when its going to get washed into the sea every couple years by storms etc. Using a RV could help in the evac, assuming there is any place safe to evac to...
Alternately, split your workload transparently across maybe 50 smaller machines, and start purchasing replacements when attrition nears 75%.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
That's a big ruggedized server.
Take a look at the Logic Controls 8600. That's a server for fast-food restaurants and similar harsh environments. 1.6GHZ, 2GB, 40GB hard drive. Will run Linux. Fanless and ventless. Temp range 5C to 40C. Relative humidity 8 to 80%, non-condensing.
What do you need 4 terabytes of storage for? Unless you're running a movie piracy service?
Option 3: Wait for prices to come down. In 15 years he should be able to get everything he's asking for at less than 10% of today's prices, not counting the ruggedization premium.
In other words, name the cheapest computer, smart phone, or PDA that meets his ruggedization requirements and by 2024 he'll be able to get what he wants today for the 2009 price of the low-end stuff.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I know some guys who were running some wi-fi gear on a roof with a small linux server etc andto beat the elements (many days a year of driving horizontal rain and gale force windows) they submerged some low power components in a metal tool chest filled with mineral oil. Their set up had 4gb CF and USB keyfobs for storage. There was a 12VDC input power car-PC-style supply that handles variable input (goes as low as 6v) and they ran long wires down to a small 240v/12v transformer in the building. This meant that even if moisture got in, the components were very well protected as water would sit at the bottom of the oil, and there was utterly no dangerous voltage exposed to the outdoors. They later they went with a smaller o-ring sealed aluminum box filled with proper transformer oil, but the original hack was working fine after 1 year.
From my own experience with dunking rigs in oil, you only need to watch out for a few things, one being the mineral oil leaching plasticizers out of wire insulation - they eventually become brittle. You also need to seal your electrolytic caps with a little epoxy so the rubber seal doesn't get eaten alive. Interestingly most caps seem to survive a long time like this, but personally I'd recommend motherboards with solid aluminum caps.
However these things don't become a problem for months, so you'd likely get away with just dunking your rig and leaving it. You also cannot dunk a HDD, as the oil will get inside it and foul things up. I haven't tried it, but it would be possible to seal up in a box or 'pot' a mechanical HDD in epoxy, but best to stick with SSD / Compactflash.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Is that a gun on your server rack or are you just happy to see me?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You might accidentally break the bank. You may want to try putting the server and a rackmount UPS into something like the cases you can find here. Take along a back-up generator. And lots of fans and filters. Spare parts for the server would also be helpful.
Note - Liberal use of <sarcasm> tags may or may not need to be applied.
They often move music/mixing equipment in special cases those can take a beating. This will require some relatively simple modding to be done such as add openings for fans and such. You might still need two people to carry it but should fit into a truck easily or what not. Not to mention that you can just put a lock on it as well to avoid unauthorized access to the hardware. Little googling and the first page gave me the cases I was talking about: http://www.skbcases.com/
If you are spending time in the jungle in Bangladesh hacking web apps and designing building materials, it sounds like you are doing something Good(tm).
If you do identify some suitable products or components, you might want to ask the suppliers to sponsor you or work with you to develop a solution.
Buy a used 1U rack Dell server with redundant power supplies, Pentiums, ethernets and HDs on a RAID. Then replace the HDs with Flash SSD. Then put the whole thing in a plywood box with an air conditioner mounted on top, tubes blowing cold air in and three .00 grade nylon layers over the out vents, the upper layer removable. Seal all cracks, especially around cable slots, with silicone caulk. Run the whole thing as a unit, cleaning the air conditioner filters and out vent screens twice a day (so get two sets of those filters).
Keep spares of each redundant part. Buy two of those whole units (including air conditioners), because one unit will die anyway.
Run them on an ethernet switch, one powered down except once a day or so to sync their RAIDs.
Or rent a server at some global datacenter, and get WiFi/pringles antenna to an ISP somewhere.
--
make install -not war
I don't think I really want to know how you can accomplish that...
So if you're willing to forgo support options, I'd build a server yourself from components. You'll be able to get the mix of horse power you want and power consumption that it seems you need. fuzzyfuzzyfungus suggested using a desktop given your modest specs, I'd concur with this, but the cases used by large PC vendors don't really lend themselves for operating in a really harsh environment. I'd start with a case like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
While the window is flashy, it's got a ton of fans, and good airflow, so while there will be dust and whatnot, you shouldn't see a lot of cake up, plus with the window, you can see when it needs any cleaning.
Depending on the size of your UPS, you can put the whole kit and kaboodle into a rolling rack:
http://www.racksolutions.com/portable-racks-guide.shtml
Or you could go with the google approach, instead of buying a case, just slap down a piece of corkboard on a shelf in the rack and place your components. You'll have to do a bit of jerry rigging with fans if you go that route, but it would save you $100. With a can of compressed air, you can keep it as clean as you need.
-Runz
Tiny, portable, low power, and no moving parts.
You could use an overclocking board and then underclock and undervolt everything permananently as well as use large heatinks on electrical components. This goes a very long way to reducing power and heat as well as ensuring life of the hardware. I live in south florida and we have humidity over 80% quite often. I never use any air conditioning here and it gets pretty hot in the summer. That was my solution and it has worked just fine. I can't speak to the solar aspect of it. It takes alot of solar panel area to eek out even 100W of power, can't say solar power would be very mobile unless its going in a vehicle of some kind and not in a backpack.
All Sun servers are certified for Linux (RHAS and maybe Suse, currently) and you will find the server with the specs you require. You won't easily find sturdier hardware than what Sun makes.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I managed the IT for a couple of organisations in Cambodia and then Lao for a couple of years. Environments not so different from Bangladesh I suspect.
My experience was that it was best to buy standard mid range kit (IBM, or Dell Poweredge servers in tower cases worked just fine) and then invest in some physical infrastructure and climate control. It was generally straightforward enough to find a secure corner of an office and put install a small self contained rack with a UPS or two. Or even better get someone to wall up a corner of an office and put in an aircon. That kind of skill was in plentyful supply.
Lugging around some serious kit in that kind of environment would give me sleepless nights. The chance of it getting dropped, rained on or stolen is just too high. (We had a couple of laptops stolen while I was there, and you aint going to be happy chap if you come back to your hotel one night and find your server has gone walkies.) I advise you try and travel with what you need, preferrably a run of the mill inconspicuous laptop and find a secure base or two for your servers.
A couple quality gaming notebooks along w/ NAS style of storage. (BlacX w/ your Hitachi TB drives.) Using Solar along side deep cycle batteries + inverter might help you juggle your power losses.
Each notebook should have be able to host at least 3 moderate guest machines.
Setting up a scenario like this is not cheap if your talking under 10G.
*grab a small Honda generator also.
Kill your TV
Just build two commodity servers - obtain reliability through redundancy and you'll get the specs you want without ridiculous cost.
Here are some tips.
Try taking a look at the products offered by MaxVision. They have products that fit all of your requirements except one - cheap. As others have previously pointed out, what you're asking for is definitely not cheap, but I wouldn't consider it outrageously expensive. Their web site makes it a bit of a pain in the ass to get prices (registration and email required), but I think you could probably find what you're looking for around $10-20K.
But, if you're willing to spend a little more money, I'd definitely take a look at some of the MaxPacs. We've used them in the past and have had very good experiences. They're rugged, portable, and include LCD monitors. I think they sell a lot to the Army for use in Iraq, which doesn't have the best operating conditions either.
Google 5 seconds. Decent price, rugged, din rail mountable and works at 95 percent humidity non-condensing.
http://www.emacinc.com/rugged_linux_sib
SIB-04000 ...... Standard 400 Mhz Linux Rugged 256/256 SIB USD750.00 ...... Deluxe 650 Mhz Linux Rugged 512/512 SIB USD885.00 .. External 36 Watt AC Power Adapter USD 30.00
SIB-04010
PER-PWR-00061
Hardware
* Intel ULV Celeron Fanless 400 MHz based SBC
* 256 MB DDR RAM Expandable to 512 MB
* 256 MB CompactFlash(TM) Flash Drive Expandable to over 2 GB
* DB15 Analog SVGA connector & PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse
* 10/100 Base-T Ethernet
* Three RS-232 & one RS-232/422/485
* Two Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 ports
* 6 General Purpose I/O lines accessible through a Screw Terminal
* Watchdog Timer
* Extremely Reliable (No Hard Drive or CPU Fan)
* DC input Integrated Power Supply
* Power On/Off Switch, Reset Button, & Indicator LEDs
Options
* Intel ULV Celeron Fanless 650 MHz based SBC
* Optional replacement of one 10/100 BaseT port to 1000 BaseT
* Shock Mounted Hard Drive
* Additional RAM & Flash Capacity
* AC Input Power Adapter
SPECIFICATIONS
Hardware
* CPU: Intel ULV Celeron Fanless 400 MHz
* RAM: 256 MB DDR SODIMM RAM Expandable to 512 MB
* Flash: Type II Compact Flash slot with 256 MB Flash Disk
* Serial: Three RS-232 & one RS-232/422/485 Port
* USB: 2 USB 2.0 Ports
* Power Supply: DC Input, 9 Vdc - 30 Vdc; Output, 5 Vdc @ 6A (30 Watts)
* Construction: Rugged Extruded Aluminum Chassis
* Mounting: Desk/Wall mount or DIN Rail
* Dimension: 8.25" (W) x 2.53" (H) x 4.21" (D)
* Weight: 4.75 lb.
* Operating Temperature: 5F - 140F (-15C - 60C) (CFD)
* Operating Humidity: 5 - 95% @ 40C, non-condensing
* Vibration: 5 grms / 5 - 500Hz / random operation (CFD)
* Shock: 100 g peak acceleration (11 msec. duration)
* EMC: CE/FCC class A
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
What would you suggest? Lesser hardware? Surely there must be a solution somewhere in the middle of "I want this" and "I can use this".
Yep, there is. But it's not always where you think.
Shameless (but hopefully useful) self-promotion:
I've been living and working in Least Developed Countries in the tropics for nearly 6 years now, and for the last 2, I've been writing a weekly IT-related column called Communications. There's a ton of advice in there. Go take a look. Check my tag cloud for relevant topics.
Here are a few fundamentals:
-1- The first thing to do is to adjust both hardware and - and this is important- software to the circumstances. Focus on the task first, then avoid confusing how that task is completed in a North American office environment with 'the right way' to do things.
-2- Scale everything down, in order to make the cost of failure of any single element as small as possible. This way, you get a solution that's replicable, affordable and - most importantly- easily replaced when (not if) it breaks.
-3- If you have unreliable power, then do two things first: Make your system tolerant to current fluctuations[*], and then plan for an intermittently available service. Forget about trying to keep it running at all times. Just minimise the cost of interruptions. A surge suppressing electrical switch on the wall where your main power source enters the building will cost you less and save you more than anything else.
[*] Bad (i.e. poor quality) power is the source of about 80% of hardware failure where I live. Every time the local power company hits us with brown-outs and spikes, I'd get a surge (heh!) of customer service calls.
To me, this situation screams 'require redundancy'. I understand this was not given as an option originally, but with the environment described I would certainly not want to rely on one single server.
Yes, redundancy is good. Cheap, small, easily replaced devices are good. Snap-shotted VMs are also good. The bottom line is that you need to keep the cost of failure low, because the system is certain to fail due to environmental factors. A good motto for working in the Developing World is: If you can't beat 'em, at least don't lose too much.
The best way to do this is to try to run on hardware that's about 3-5 years behind the curve, or to go straight to the bleeding edge of low-power tech.
To the submitter: I have a personal interest in Bangladesh, by the way. You can reach me by leaving a comment on my website. Good luck!
P.S. Unless money and space are no object, you'll never run full-time computing services on solar power. Especially in monsoon season. IMO, best not to try.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I have seen a few recommendations for mounting a server in a transportable case (which seems like a reasonable suggestion), but little to no mention of actual ruggedized servers. A quick search revealed a number of manufacturers:
That's just a few companies I came across when I did a search for "ruggedized server". More specialized searches incorporating terms like "military" and "oil rig" would no doubt return interesting results as well. I am sure you can find many more results by performing some searches yourself. *ahem*
Of course, none of these systems are particularly inexpensive, but I think if you want a reliable system located at your site (as opposed to going the remote computing route) then you are going to need to spend several times the cost of a comparable non-ruggedized system. You could look at buying used or reconditioned equipment, checking with computer surplus dealers (especially those that have offices near military bases, petrochemical companies, et cetera), visiting eBay and perhaps even writing some of the manufacturers in question and asking if they would be willing to sponsor your server.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Dexter is a good dog.
...I KNEW that EMACS needed a dedicated server to run properly...
I am not a server person. But what I do know is that you are entering a climate where plant life will try to take over every nook and cranny of any PC or electronic device. Just keeping plants from sprouting in a keyboard may involve using one of those solid, type keyboards. I suspect that you will need to clean the guts of a server every 48 hours or so.
Define Portable.
That's the first thing we need to know as it defines what type of system I'd recommend. Forgoing that information, what I would suggest is dropping Windows from the equation and switch to ARM processor base systems. This gives you the advantage of replacing all of the Linux VM's with standard Hardware, providing multiple redundancies. Another advantage is that the ARM systems can be spec'd to run on as little as 1watt of power (incl HD's) and since they're full linux boxes, you can easily administer them using SSH from a Windows box such as your current laptop.
The hardware redundancy offered by this is enormous and as the units they can easily be powered by a single Solar panel (sized correctly) combined with a large Deep Cycle 12 volt battery. Use Pico Power supplies (12volt input) and you've got your portable data center. The biggest thing you need to do is ensure that your Solar Panel has sufficient power to recharge the battery while powering the ARM systems. This means figure on at least 2x Solar Wattage over maximum demand to properly recharge the battery to handle a full run overnight. EG: 24 watts of demand means a single 55watt PV panel, though I'd look at using a pair of smaller 30 watt panels for redundancy in case you break a panel. It means you'd be able to run the system at reduced levels. One last item is provide an auxiliary power input for charging the battery bank from a vehicle or generator.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
RENT a server, with all the specs you need, housed in climate controlled goodness... possibly in another country, possibly on another continent. Never worry aboit it again... you just rent it, who cares if it breaks?
Get a satellite (or possibly cell?) network service. Buy 4 cheepo laptops, set up identically, but work off of, keep all your work/data on the rented server (nxserver, or vnc or remote desktop) When the 1st cheepo laptop dies, move onto the next. Live carefree.
The Admin and the Engineer
If you need the equipment to have any halfway reasonable reliability, it MUST have some environmental control. You could use a NEMA class 5 enclosure if only the humidity was an issue and the equipment didn't dissipate a lot of heat. However, your hardware description indicates that you will have a lot of heat dissipation.
The only other option I can see is having some kind of environmental chamber (i.e., an air-conditioned box) to keep the humidity and temperature under control.
If you don't have that, the equipment WILL fail. It's a matter of WHEN, not IF.
Almost all electronic equipment is rated for operation at a maximum of 90% relative humidity (non-condensing), and much equipment is rated even lower than that.
In the CNMI, the _average_ of the daily high relative humidity is above 90% part of the year, and only slightly below 90% the rest of the year.
i say stuff it all into a refrigerator.
Running a server in a VM is handy and cheap. But like you said it isn't fast and storage becomes constrained. Sounds like your solution is a second laptop. Make it a moderately beefy laptop and you solve your speed and main storage problem. It is its own UPS. Make it a ruggedized laptop and cost go up a bit, but you solve your climate problems. If more hard drive storage or a backup is needed, plug in a USB drive.
So, there you go. Portable, self contained UPS, weather proof, low power, expandable via USB.
---
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice of Arabica that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion..
I haven't done Bangladesh, but in Thailand if I had it to do over again I would go for four low-spec machines, and a sealed enclosure with compressed air cooling. It isn't the most energy efficient approach, but having a sealed (and slightly positively-pressurized) enclosure does wonders at keeping out moisture, dust, and ants.
The general idea is to have a couple small compressors (with check-valves) feed into a common reservoir that has adequate time to cool to ambient temperatures. Ideally, you would run at about 300 psi/20 bar, and have a pressure reducing valve inside the enclosure to drop the air to about 10 psi with a 1/16" orifice into the enclosure. (You might have to experiment on orifice and pressure.) Provide a pressure relief valve to keep the enclosure under 2 psig. (Another constrained orifice would work, but you will lose more air.)
Keep a spare machine in a pelican box with desiccant along with two or three spare hard drives. Keep a backup external USB hard drive in a separate pelican box with dessiccant and only open it up when you are doing a backup.
I'd also second comments about running everything in virtual machines and being willing to make compromises when one of them isn't working.
Back in my day, getting 12V power supplies wasn't nearly as easy as Google makes it sound. (You need to have a high enough float voltage to charge the batteries, and have a regulated output that will handle the end cell voltage of the batteries.) The logical alternative is to use 48VDC power supplies which are much more expensive. They are designed to operate within the float/ECV requirements of a VRLA. Don't forget your blocking diodes! Try to stay away from car batteries if you can and find some real deep-cycle batteries. Getting through monsoon season on battery isn't realistic without a huge battery plant. Our island's phone switch was pretty well equipped, but for two months a year the phones only worked when the sun was shining.
External connectivity was always my nemesis; when the phone switch was down, everything else crapped out. Satellite phones weren't viable from a cost perspective; the consumer satellite service was too unreliable to even be considered.
I'd get a cluster of netbooks and duct tape them at the seams to keep dust out. They are cheap, low power, compact, and they have batteries so they have a UPS built in.
Mod me down with all of your hatred, and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
This. Those things are fucking tanks. Used them in Iraq, and I'll swear by them.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
NT or 3.1?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I don't know any off the shelf solution that meets all the requester's needs, but with a little backwoods / third world ingenuity, I think it can be done.
Seconded, start with a laptop. It's already met a whole bunch of your needs. The big missing piece is environmental hardening. Since it only needs to be moderately portable, there are a few things you can do.
#1, put the whole setup in a small refrigerator. Seriously. It's an airtight, watertight box. It'll keep out dust, rain and bugs, in addition to obviously keeping everything cool. Set the temperature as high as it'll go, there's no advantage to keeping the system any cooler than 20-25C, but the cooler you make it, the more problems you'll have with condensation on the evaporator coils. Deal with condensation by keeping down the number of times you open the fridge, and have some microfiber towels under the coils to catch the occasional drips. Loosely wrapping might work, but be careful not to over insulate the coils.
The downside: You'll take a hit on power efficiency, but I'm willing to bet that a decked out laptop and a small fridge pull less power than even the best servers will. Very small fridges based on peltier coolers are even less efficient, but their small size may make up for it. Also plan for what happens when the power goes out: The laptop keeps running, so make sure to have a UPS for the fridge, or that the laptop's battery will die before it gets too hot, or better yet, monitor a temperature sensor, and shut down gracefully when it starts getting too hot.
It's also a good solution because a fridge is relatively easily serviceable or replaceable compared to server parts. You'll need to carry spares for the laptop, of course.
Idea #2: Similar to above, but build your own peltier fridge. The main advantage is that you can make a custom enclosure to hold everything, which will keep the size and weight down.
Idea #3: Just build a hushbox for the laptop. Basically, you build a box around it, with some cooling fans, and furnace filters on the inlets. It'll take care of dust. You might have to shut down in extreme heat, and extreme humidity won't be handled.
Idea #4: Rugged laptops, like the ToughBook. They're ready to handle dust, moisture, physical abuse, etc, and with upgrades, can get near to the specs you're looking for. These might work well in combination with the suggestions above.
There's a reason why there aren't server farms popping up all over south asia. All of the stuff that you want is expensive. What's more expensive is the infrastructure to support it. You want stable, reliable and clean power. You want climate control.
If you must put together hardware that will survive without those kids of things, you will have to make compromises. You're not going to get the kind of processing power that you want, but an EPIA or someother low power mini-itx setup is where you should be thinking about starting. Throw that quad processor bullshit right out of the discussion.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Wait a minute! You are telling us that the environment conditions are hard, but you MacBook Pro can handle/survive it? That's odd, I can tell you that.
Stick with plain computer and create a good room for it (an air conditioner would solve temperature/moisture/dusty issues).
If you don't have the budget to be buying rugged systems, you might want to look into IP rated enclosures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code).
IP56 or IP67 would probably work for you, you can buy IP rated industrial computers, but you might even be able to just buy a big cabinet and stick regular computers inside it.
The only problem then is cabling into it, but it's definitely possible to get IP rated cable glands:
http://www.industrial-enclosures.com/html/cable-glands.htm
Your biggest problem may be heat. You'll almost certainly need either active cooling inside the cabinet, or a decent size heatsink as part of it.
I used to write software that ran on equipment that had to pass UL 1069 (Nurse Call equipment). One of the tests is a temperature test -- the server had to operate normally at elevated temperatures. This was to simulate a server forgotten in a linen closet, with it's cooling system blocked by 3 years of dust & lint.
We tested every major brand on the market, and IBM eServers were the only ones that didn't start acting "strange" after a while. In our usage, "strange" was a significantly worse failure mode than "broke outright".
Chip H.
I have a first gen G1G1 XO - $200 when I got it a year and a half ago (specs here http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Hardware_specifications). I've sat in a bus shelter in Toronto in February when it was sleeting and -30 watching movies, playing nethack, or surfing the web through an available hot spot; I've also sat on a Toronto bar patio with no shade in 35 degree heat while using it as a dice roller/source book viewer/wiki checker for a marathon GURPS game while getting plastered (spilled the pitcher on it twice). The XO really stands up to punishment, has phenomenal power management and resource allocation. If you can get your hands on a couple of them, gang them together into a wireless cluster that scales usage by turning on additional XOs as resources are needed you're set. Because they have no moving parts they can get moved around easy, the batteries in them last forever - you just need to have big SD cards or external USB drives for data storage. They are designed for wirless mesh networking/collaboration , so making a distributed cluster server should be a viable option.
If no one has your back, time to move your back.
I think this is probably your best solution too. If you can lease a server from a service provider then all you need it some way to reach it remotely. Then the environmental factors all disappear.
If that's not an option then consider Sun's telco grade stuff which can take the heat. Ain't cheap though.
Otherwise, one of the tiny
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Check out the hardware at at www.crystalrugged.com. I got to play with some of their smaller plug-in units a few years ago, and while they're slightly underpower for the cost, they are _amazingly_ robust and very Telco suitable. I bet they'd be happy to provide servers ruggedized against salt and humidity.