Re: [Nolug] Often overlooked technique for that extra bit of added security

On Sunday 12 January 2003 02:35 am, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-01-11 at 19:34, Andrew S. Johnson wrote:
> > On Saturday 11 January 2003 05:59 pm, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Sat, 2003-01-11 at 14:48, Andrew S. Johnson wrote:
> > > > On Saturday 11 January 2003 11:00 am, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > > > On Sat, 2003-01-11 at 08:57, Andrew S. Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > On Saturday 11 January 2003 12:10 am, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > > On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 22:59, Andrew S. Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Friday 10 January 2003 10:47 pm, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > > > > On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 22:08, Andrew S. Johnson wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > On Friday 10 January 2003 08:03 pm, Ron Johnson wrote:
> [snip]
> >
> > Actually, my prod Oracle database was on RH 6.2 for the last 2.5 years.
> > Last month I migrated it from a Dell dual 800 w/2 gigs o'RAM to a Dell quad
> > 1400 w/4 gigs o'RAM and RHAS 2.1, with 14 15k RPM drives set up with
> > RAID 10. Dell wouldn't have been my first choice, but I'm not a bean counter,
> > so I have to get what they'll let me have based on lease rates. Anyway, it
> > sucks a lot less than the last one, and it hardly sucked at all. I think I rebooted
> > it three times, all because of hardware problems. I'm hoping I can go the whole
> > three year lease on the new one without rebooting. That would be over
> > 1000 days.
>
> That would be mondo cool, but for 14 disks to spin constantly at 15K RPM
> and have none of them, plus none of the CPUs, nor RAM fail for 3 years
> stretches the imagination.

I would be really suprised myself if all the disks made it. I usually loose a
few disks a year between all my servers, and the last Oracle on Linux server
lost a three or four. They were Quantum Atlas 10K drives, and we lost a
lot of those. Quantum got bought by Maxtor, so I hope their quality improves.
We've had much better luck with Seagate. We have enough drives go
bad that we keep our own spares. In all our servers over that last five
years that I've been here, I've never had RAM or a CPU go bad. I did
have a power supply go dead, but with hot-swappable redundant power,
the box never went down. The servers I manage also have two UPS's
fed from separate substations, so we don't usually have a power problem.
We did loose a UPS once. The power transisters exploded, but at least
it didn't catch fire. The smell of burnt electronics stunk up the building
for a week.

>
> Of course, if the RAID controllers are really intelligent so that
> it hid the occasional hot-swap-of-a-dead-disk from Linux, then
> you may just make it.

Linux and windoze both don't have any problems hot swapping drives,
as long as it's RAID 1, 5, 10, or 50.

>
> What RAID controllers are you using? Do they allow dual-redundant
> paths?

We use Dell boxes, because of the leasing terms mostly. I didn't like
them at first, because a few years ago their servers were put together
with flimsy plastic parts, and they just seemed cheap compared to
the HP, DEC, and Compaq servers of the time. I have to admit that
the latest models seem more solid, with a lot more metal and less
plastic. The form factor has gotten a lot smaller, too. Dell calls their
RAID controllers PERC's, and they are either an AMI MegaRAID or
an Adaptec RAID card. We usually get the dual channel cards with
128 MB RAM on the card. The Dell disk shelves have redundant
power, a split bus, and hold 14 1 inch drives, so I set up RAID 10 with
7 drives on one bus mirrored to 7 drives on the other bus.

Andy

>
> Too bad the uptime counter rolls over after 400ish days...
>
> --
> +------------------------------------------------------------+
> | Ron Johnson, Jr. mailto:ron.l.johnson@cox.net |
> | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson |
> | |
> | "Basically, I got on the plane with a bomb. Basically, I |
> | tried to ignite it. Basically, yeah, I intended to damage |
> | the plane." |
> | RICHARD REID, who tried to blow up American Airlines |
> | Flight 63 |
> +------------------------------------------------------------+
>
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Received on 01/12/03