ML 585 management

[Dave Lloyd]

All,

Quite some time ago I was given a presentation whcih included the ML585. Our HP guy mentioned that the opteron system didn't have much in the way of Insight management and no support for lights out cards.

well..

The time has come to spec out a beefy Exchange 2003 server and a quad prrocessor would be the way to go. A 580 with array has been considered but Intels Netburst architecture is severely limiting with it's shared CPU bus etc etc....plus that server only support 200Mhz RAM.

The 585 has hypertransport etc, and supports 333Mhz RAM, AND looks as if it has 7 dedicated PCI-x buses if I understand correctly..cool:)

I can buy one tomorrow IF, and only IF.....
The thing can take a lights out board (since the server is to be located 10km away from our office in the new lights out site) and the thing support Insight Manager - ie, we can see hardware specs, make the drives flash etc etc...and read the SNMP strings to create performance stats.

Does anyone have experience of these servers and confirm if it'll do these things?

cheers
Dave

[Gus Kwong · Accepted solution]

Do you mean DL585? If it is the DL585, it comes with standard integrated-LightsOut and you can buy the Advanced pack to get the GUI remote control.

The only three disadvantages are:
1) non-hot-pluggable PCI slots (DL580 has 4 hot-plug PCI)
2) static RAM modules (i.e. non hotPlug, no online spare and mirroring).
3) heat/temperature --- it gets quite warm under normal use, and you need to make sure your rack is good on air-flow.

But then again, you'll get 8-pci slots (2 of them are 64bit/133) and max of 48GB or 64GB RAM (depends on model).

It is a fab server, extremely good, and very fast. I would highly recommend it.

[Dave Lloyd]

Yes, you are right - DL585 - don't know what I was smoking!

Guess I should have checked the website more thoroughly too! It says right there - integrated lights out!

I think the guy we had out from HP was anti AMD 'cos he played it down big time (even going as far as to say it wasn't really 64 bit).

Heat shouldn't be a problem to us, just a matter of overcoming the nay sayers.

Do you have DL380's to compare against in terms of management...do you use Insight Manager actually?

What are you using it for, and did you add an array or attach to SAN. Sorry for all the questions but I know I'll be asked similar when I put in the purchase order :)

cheers
Dave

[Gus Kwong]

I don't think you have to worry about the management because I find all new proliants are just as easy and good. I still use the basic stuff in the Insight Manager 7 for alerts, although slowly progressing to the SIM 4.1.

We have used the DL380g3 (2cpu) and DL585 (4cpu) as our database servers, but never really compared with like-for-like configuration. Both had their own StorageWorks attached to it via sa6400. As for system management, they are the same. As for administration, both are joy to work with.

You cannot go wrong with the DL585g2 and you can always upgrade it from 2 to 4 identical cpus if you need it in the future! (They mentioned about ability of mixing different kind of AMD cpus for dual/quad upgrade but couldn't find that info anymore... strange...)