Use for Servers

[Nicky_5]

Hi All, I have the following HP servers that are either not used any more or less used

1)3 less used HP 9000/800/L3000-8x
2)1 HP 9000/889/K460
3)1 HP 9000/800/R380
4) a couple of IBM rs6000 servers
Can some one suggest a good use for these servers. Like can i consolidate these machines and have a vmware kind of arangement abd build virtual machines?

Or any other idea for use of these machines would be very helpful

[DCE]

If you have adedquate disk space, you could make an ignite-ux server, and pull in weekly make_net_recovery's from all the HP systems on your network.

[Nicky_5]

Hi,

Thankyou for your reply, but in this case only one of the servers would be the ignite server. I want to make use of all or atleast as many servers as possible for this to improve performance either for backups purpose as yo suggested or build virtual machines through vmware (but i am not sure if this is possible for Hp servers)

[Patrick Wallek]

The L3000's can run vPar's (the Virtual Partition software) assuming you have more than 1 CPU. This could be very handy.

The K460 and R380 would make good boat anchors.

Other than that they are not much good. You could use them as test machines to get familiar with new versions of the OS if nothing else.

The IBM boxes....It's hard to say. It really depends on the model. If they are older....Boat Anchors. If they are newer....possibly test machines.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

I would use one of the boxes as a Sandbox. If you have developer's, I would do all of the development on one of the slower boxes (the K-box would be perfect). The developers will moan and groan about how slow it is and how long compiles and links take but there is method to my madness. Firstly, compiles and links comprise only a very small fraction of the actual development time. Secondly, and most important, if their algorithms and programs are good enough to run on an intentionally slow and resource limited box, they will fly like a eagles on better hardware rather than dying like dogs when deployed in production environments. It's almost impossible to stress how important this is and how well it works although the developer's will give you all kinds of grief.

All of the HP boxes could be used in a ServiceGuard cluster.

It's also a very good use of a box to be a dedicated OV/O (OpenView Operations) box and/or a DataProtector cell manager.

[Nicky_5]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your replies. I am new to the admin world hence although your suggestions sounded very nice i am not sure how it would help.

I am not sure what the following means what is its purpose in a development environment

1)Boat Anchors
2)Sandbox
3)Service Guard Cluster
4) Open View Operation
5) Data protector cell manager

We have a development and testing environment for our clients, in such an environment which of the above do u think would be more useful?

Please advice.

Thanks

[A. Clay Stephenson]

1)Boat Anchors = Junk, Worthless

2)Sandbox - a server that patches, new databases, etc. are first deployed on. It's a non-critical server that you really don't care about. "Sandbox" = "play".

3)Service Guard Cluster -- a highly available cluster of computers on which a number of "packages" run. The clients connect not to the IP address of the individual hosts but rather to the address of the package which can move among the hosts in the cluster.

4) Open View Operation (OV/O) - a monitoring mechanism which constantly examines the health of the servers, the network, resources, etc. An HP Openview product.

5) Data protector cell manager - fully automated backups. An HP Openview product.
You should really be using a product like this in a development environment in conjunction with a tape library. Restores are now "point and click".

------------------------------------------
You should have said that you were a development shop. In that case, I would still use the K-box as the main development and test box precisely for the reasons I've already given --- and your developer's will hate it -- a bonus. The newer boxes could be used to house actual client data to gather more real-life performance metrics. In case you haven't grasped this yet, I am a very firm believer that no amount of hardware will make up for poor software.

[rmueller58]

Someone else said boat anchors. Darn. :(

I'd take the CPUs, and boards, (don't want the cases).. we have a recycler that gives the proceeds to local schools.

[Nicky_5]

Hi
I am really interested in the data protector cell manager idea, can you point me to a god site where i can find more information on this, like the pricing, hardware requirements etc.

Thankyou

[A. Clay Stephenson]

HP Openview Storage DataProtector:

http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/dataprotector/index.html

This will give you a centralized, autmated backup system for all your platforms UNIX, PC's, ...