Should a rp7410 be power cycled?

[Alan Meyer_4]

Lets turn this around a bit, What is the reasoning behind his request? Has he specified the benefits he expects from these power cycles?

[Mike Tyrrell]

He thinks that the self tests that's done after a power cycle is better then a self test from just rebooting. He thinks that by doing this we will find hardware problems faster. This I know is not true but he still wants this done. I did check with HP about the test issue and they also said this is not true. I am running EMS on the server.

[Alan Meyer_4]

Well then, I think you are armed to the teeth for your next visit with him about it.

[Jeff Schussele]

Don't - EVEN - get me started.
There is NO Mr. Gates in my world.

My $0.02,
Jeff

[timmy b. · Accepted solution]

Mike, I can't give you a document, just a "best practice" that most every IT department that I am aware of lives by as far as HPUX goes:

HP servers are designed with High Availability in mind. They are Enterprise Class servers. They are designed to run continuously for months, if not years, without being power cycled. It is not uncommon to find servers that have been running non-stop for well over a year. (Some companies don't even want to install patches because of the possibility of a reboot taking them down for a while.) Properly configured servers have event monitoring services running that will alert HP to impending failures. Keep the diagnostics up to date and make sure that Predictive or ISEE is set up and running properly.


I think a good analogy would be in order: You are driving your car down the freeway. Everything is running fine. But you decide to pull over every 10 miles to shut the engine off and then start it back up again to make sure that all the little lights on the dashboard work, the gas gauge actually moves and to calibrate the tach.

Needed? NO!

Causing unneeded stress on components? Absolutely.

And here is the one that should catch their attention: Increasing the likelyhood of an unplanned server outage? Definitely!

How much does your unplanned down time cost per hour?

Oh, and just to open up another can of worms: If they want you to be doing this, be sure that you have good backups, mirrors, and have current Ignite tapes.

If it were me, and management was insisting to me that I do this, I think I'd ask for it in writing, just in case someone further up the food chain goes looking for a head to chop off when a problem arises. There are good intentions here, but they are misguided. I'd even recommend that you get your HP CE to talk to your management.


Who is this "Gates" guy people keep talking about?

Tim (spleen now vented)

[Brad Baron]

I didn't read all the threads so my apologies if this is repeated. If your drives spin all the way down there is a chance they might not spin back up. I have seen this several times after a power outage. A normal reboot is okay but no need to remove power completely. That is from experience.