[Leaplist] Power mitigation, diskless v. truly thin, virtualization and/or remote -- WAS: Scanner Setup Help?

[Patrick]

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. wrote:
> A major version of "diskless" is that you spend real money getting a nice,
> highly redundant file server, and the client machines benefit from the
> redundancy built into the file server - ie, they don't need expensive RAID
> cards or anything similar. Of course, doing this for a desktop system
> probably isn't a good idea... 100MBit ethernet will only get you 10-12
> MBytes/sec, whereas a local hard drive will get you a 10X performance
> increase.
>
> Personally, I utilize a master RAID server with real redundancy hardware
> (poweredge 1650 with 3 1TB SATA drives connected to a RAID-1 with 256M
> battery-backed RAM, as well as 768M ECC registered RAM, lights-out
> management, etc... all for ~$715) ($150 server, $75 lights-out management
> module, $80/drive, $250 RAID card). One drive is configured as a "hot
> spare", meaning it will automatically reconstruct the array in the event
> of a failure (buying me some time to fix it before another drive fails,
> which DOES and HAS happened (killed my last array)). Note that as of
> today, you can get 1.5 TB drives for $90 each.
>
> To this, I connect my mythtv backend, which boots off of NFS to take
> advantage of the redundancy... and then tosses it out the window by using
> a software RAID-0 for the recordings across 3 1TB hard drives (so the
> system is fault-tolerant, but the recordings are highly susceptible).
>
> Unfortunately, my experience thus far has been that linux only barely
> supports diskless systems, and frequently breaks that support for lengthy
> periods of time with kernel updates and baselayout updates. For example, a
> recent kernel update removed TCP packet support from NFS... which causes
> problems on my switch (admittedly, not a linux problem, but a switch
> problem... but using TCP packets fixed it).
>
> Personally, for low-power systems (of which I have three), I use solid
> state over CF cards with a Via architecture (usually C7 CPUs). These have
> high temperature tolerances and very low power consumption... they've been
> running in my garage without A/C or ventilation for 1.5 months thus far.
> Basically, these are simple data processing machines (email, web server,
> proxy (purely in RAM, not in flash), bind9 server, etc) that don't need
> tremendous amounts of storage... or if they do, they can tie in over NFS
> to my file server.
>
> On Wed, July 22, 2009 11:33 pm, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
>   
>> Kevin Korb wrote:
>>     
>>> I think it is better to centralize storage and then make
>>> desktops diskless whenever possible.  Cuts down on the noise,
>>> heat, and power consumption.
>>>       
>> Diskless or truly thin (remote execution)?
>>
>> Also remember that a typical 2.5" drive only uses 2-2.5W of power,
>> far, far less than even a typical, low-end chipset, let alone the
>> 12-20W of a typical 3.5" drive.  Even 10-15,000rpm 2.5" drives use
>> less power than commodity 3.5" 7200rpm and even "green" 5400-7200
>> variable 3.5" drives.
>>
>> The cost savings is really in the TCO more than power.  I've been
>> through this ROI game with numerous fiscal and retail customers
>> over the last half-decade.  Typical PC TCO is $500 just on the
>> servicing, which makes diskless and, even more so, thin clients
>> a major sell.  The power difference is less than 1/10th that.
>>
>> In all honesty, running with ARM instead x86 (instead of Atom as
>> well) is far, far more of a cost saver.  There are several new
>> NAS appliances hitting the market now that are a low-power ARM
>> with dual-2.5" (not 3.5") bays.  Small in size, and they run on
>> 12V @ 2A, typically sub-20W total.
>>
>> Jason Boxman wrote:
>>     
>>> It's all on the server(s).  The workstation is just RAID 1.
>>> I like to keep virtual machine storage local to my workstation.
>>>       
>> People confuse virtualization and remote desktop.  No one advocates
>> virtualization over a remote mount.  However, virtualization providing
>> a remote desktop is a whole different story.  ;)
>>
>> Red Hat bought the upstream maintainer of KVM for more than just KVM.
>> Although control of a major upstream componen tlike KVM is trademark
>> Red Hat, especially when the vendor is dabbling with proprietary
>> software (and Red Hat wants to bring a quick and complete end to that).
>>
>>
>> --
>> Bryan J Smith          Professional, Technical Annoyance
>> b.j.smith at ieee.org    http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
>> --------------------------------------------------------
>> I don't have a "favorite Linux distro."  I use, develop
>> and support community efforts, often built around Linux.
>> Technology and solutions are my focus, not dragging in
>> assumptions, marketing and other concepts which dominate
>> non-community developed software, which I left long ago.
>>
>> --
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>>     
>
>
>   
Oops, AFTER recommending it, and asking for comments, I  just noticed 
that SLAMPP is DORMANT (since 2006!), and no current/newer kernel distro 
is available!

Really should probably re-master something similar to it for my own needs...



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