[CentOS] Opteron, Athlon/64, and disaster recovery

Wed Dec 28 22:44:17 UTC 2005
Bryan J. Smith <thebs413 at earthlink.net>

Chris Mauritz <chrism at imntv.com> wrote:
> I'm sure you already know this, but....
> if it's THAT critical of a machine then it would probably
> be in your best interest to have a spare or two.  Whenever
I
> stop using one brand of server and begin using another type
> (at least in rackmount datacenter situations), I always
have
> at least one spare installed.  

I have to 2nd Chris' notion here.  Anytime you have 3 or more
systems, the cost to procure a spare is not much of an
additional cost -- especially without fixed disk storage
(which is typically the majority cost of any system).

One set of a spare, pre-assembled enclosure (including
hot-swap disk), mainboard, CPU(s), memory, NIC(s) and storage
controller(s) is always a good move when downtime is to be
avoided at all costs (without breaking the bank on a failover
implementation).

> I just popped out the "hot plug" drive(s) on the stricken
> machine and plugged them into the spare system, 
> flicked a power switch, and voila.

Yep, make the spare ready-to-use using existing storage. 
Once you have the system back up on the new "shell," you can
always go back and debug the failed "shell."  In the worst
case, it now becomes your "spare parts" system.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith     Professional, Technical Annoyance                      b.j.smith at ieee.org      http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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*** Speed doesn't kill, difference in speed does ***