Ask Slashdot: Little Boxes Around the Edge of the Data Center?

First time accepted submitter spaceyhackerlady writes "We're looking at some new development, and a big question mark is the little boxes around the edge of the data center — the NTP servers, the monitoring boxes, the stuff that supports and interfaces with the Big Iron that does the real work. The last time I visited a hosting farm I saw shelves of Mac Minis, but that was five years ago. What do people like now for their little support boxes?"

Comments

Get a real time server.

[attemptedgoalie]

Go get a GPS satellite receiver/time server. Actually, get two. Don't screw with time.

THEN, virtualize the rest of the stuff. Monitoring, syslogging, management, patchers, etc.

We've virtualized everything except for
- a Windows DC so that it stays up if the vmware datastores or SAN eats itself in a horrible way.
- The NIS server we have to use on our UX environment due to an ancient regulation. I'm not willing to put up HP-UX VMs for this right now, otherwise it'd be safe in a VM as well.
- Anything we can't virtualize due to licensing/contract/support issues. So our VOIP environments, phone call recording, access control systems for the doors,

My datacenter is getting a lot nicer to look at, and a lot easier to upgrade. I can shift servers or volumes all over the room so I can do live maintenance during the day.

"Obsolete" hardware

[beegle]

Those support tasks don't exactly push hardware to its limit, and most of those tasks are the kind of thing that demands a bunch of redundant servers anyway.

Throw a bunch of "last generation" hardware at the task -- stuff from the "asset reclamation" pile. Leave a few more around as spares. Less disposal paperwork. Works just fine. By the time your last spare fails, you'll have a new generation of obsolete hardware.