During the usual database backup today Dave and I broke new ground on how we handle these outages. For historic reasons we shut down all scheduler/upload/download servers as we want the databases completely quiescent and fear that an errant connection may update some table somewhere. While safe, this is a bit rude as users get hard errors trying to connect to servers that aren't there as opposed to servers that respond, "sorry we're down for the moment - check back in an hour." Anyway, there's no reason at this point to be so cautious, so we may put in a non-zero amount of effort in the coming weeks to making any outage situation more user-friendly.

A Dutch television crew was here today getting footage for a SETI documentary of some sort. It's been a while since we had a crew here. Time was during the dot.com era we'd have cameras/interviewers here almost every day. Anyway, they made me do all this b-roll footage of carrying a box of data drives from the loading dock into the lab, opening it up, and inserting the drives into their enclosure in the server closet. More often than not I'm selected for such duties as I have the most acting experience. Anyway, look for me on YouTube any day now.

Where's the multibeam data? We're pretty much just waiting on Eric getting his numbers in order to ensure the new client isn't giving away too much (or too little) credit per CPU cycle compared to other project. You do have to play nice with the other BOINC projects, you know. But there's a Bioastronomy conference next week, and preparations for that have been occupying many of our own cycles. The code changes, etc. are more aesthetic than scientific at this point so at today's science meeting we made a pact to release whatever we have before the end of the month no matter what. Don't quote me on that.

We have the absurd problem where we have all these new servers which we want to put into the server closet. In fact, several projects are blocked waiting for this to happen. We have space and power available for these servers, and even have all kinds of random shelves and rack rail systems. However, we can't seem to find any permutation of rail, rack, and server that actually fits. The only rack standard is 19 inches, apparently. There's no front-to-back depth standard, nor any screw-hole spatial separation standard. It is utterly impossible to match things up! When we got server "bambi" it actually came with rails (a rare occurrence) but I only noticed today, while trying to mount the thing, that the rails are too shallow to fit our rack. This is getting ridiculous.

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Ah rack-mount nightmares. I foolishly thought at one time that a 19" rack was a 19" rack. Then discovered "round holes" vs "square holes" vs "custom". $300 for a set of rails is ridiculous (but that is the only option in some cases).

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Boinc Button Abuser In Training >My Shrubbers<

You would think that after more than 30+ years these things would have been standardized - but unfortunately there are in fact too many "standards" hence the mess. I used to run into these issues back in the 70's, 80's and 90's - nice to see its still with us in the 00's. Oh well...

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19" racks were standard at one time, when they were for Electronics. You could get rack mounted kit from UK, USA, Germany, France, Italy and others knowing they would fit with no problems. The only problem that did turn up was when the EU, but not UK decided to go to a metric standard, but that only required different mounting screws.
But some stupid person decided they would be nice for computers, and its gone down hill ever since, as most rack mount computer manufacturers want you to fit their computers in their racks only. So that they can make mega bucks on a few scraps of metal.

Andy

19" racks were standard at one time, ...

But some stupid person decided they would be nice for computers, and its gone down hill ever since, as most rack mount computer manufacturers want you to fit their computers in their racks only. So that they can make mega bucks on a few scraps of metal.

Is that where Bill Gates learnt his Marketing and Lock-In tricks?

Ouch! :-(
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

19" racks were standard at one time, ...

But some stupid person decided they would be nice for computers, and its gone down hill ever since, as most rack mount computer manufacturers want you to fit their computers in their racks only. So that they can make mega bucks on a few scraps of metal.

Is that where Bill Gates learnt his Marketing and Lock-In tricks?

Ouch! :-(
Martin

I guess that just goes to show that he's not the only one who knows how to play dirty. ;-)

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One way that I solved this rack/rail problem was to purchase some shelves designed for the 19" rack, and simply lay the device on a shelf. Not very elegant, but it works.

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I should have added, some rack manufacturers call these shelves 'trays'.

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One way that I solved this rack/rail problem was to purchase some shelves designed for the 19" rack, and simply lay the device on a shelf. Not very elegant, but it works.

Private industry in the bay area, if not the whole left coast, would be slapped hard if their hardware were not tied down, due to earthquake jeopardy. I suppose universities have the reputation that they don't really care if their practices endanger human workers, unless/until they are slammed by a state fine. Nevertheless, laying something down unrestrained in a rack is not the best idea.

If you are using trays to simply lie equipment on them take the following simple cautionary advice.

Head over to a sewing center and purchase some lengths of Velcro tapes with adhesive.

Mount the Velcro on the base of the equipment and on the shelves. This will work to hold things down fairly well in a mild seismic event.

Some of these "Dollar" type stores carry this item at an affordable price..

Works for me...

Chow!

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Never engage stupid people at their level, they then have the home court advantage.....

The screw-holes in the front of the rack should still match up, which would secure to front of the hardware, then the shelf and velcro trick should solve the rest :D

Or you could ask some of the undergrads in the university engineering dept to come up with some "universal" rack rails for extra credits ;)

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For a summary of cabinet standards take a look at chapter two of the document: http://web.schroff.de/webcat/subgroup/pdf/standards_summary_e.pdf

The problem is that many equipment vendors don't pay attention to the standards or the mounting hole spacing standard that the cabinet vendor used is not the same as the mounting hole spacing standard that the server vendor used.

The cabinet vendor has a choice of drilling a tapping the mounting holes in the front flange of the cabinet, or punching square holes where cage nuts can be installed. Using cage nuts is more flexible because you can choose metric or inch based fasteners.

The front mounting flange to rear mounting flange dimension is not standardized. The slide rails that are used to mount a server are usually designed for a particular cabinet manufacturer and are not universal.

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Is there anyone who can tell me why I haven't been getting any new work projects for the past two weeks? (I'm having to ask this here because I can't download Skype for my machine; I live in Korea but I don't speak Korean, and the download doesn't give it to me in English. I also can't find anywhere where there's a contact e-mail address.)

If you can't help me, could you pass this on to someone who can?

Thanks,

Sharman

(sharmanh1@yahoo.ca)

If you can't help me, could you pass this on to someone who can?

Try the Number Crunching or even the Help forums.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Is there anyone who can tell me why I haven't been getting any new work projects for the past two weeks? (I'm having to ask this here because I can't download Skype for my machine; I live in Korea but I don't speak Korean, and the download doesn't give it to me in English. I also can't find anywhere where there's a contact e-mail address.)

If you can't help me, could you pass this on to someone who can?

Thanks,

Sharman

(sharmanh1@yahoo.ca)

Try posting this over in NC, I think someone could help you, I don't know smack about Mac.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

This likely wouldn't be the most cost efficient approach, but the way you guys seem to be constantly Tetris'ing your equipment around, would it be feasible in your environment to use Hardigg rackmount cases? It would make everything very modular and easy to tailor versus constantly trying to chase the elusive permanent "fixed" rackmount shelves.

We used Hardiggs extensively in the military. Practically all the equipment that I worked with was encased in a Harddig, especially COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf equipment; multiplexers, converters, GPS clocks, digital test sets, servers, Cisco routers, firewalls, etc).

We often custom tailored racks inside Hardiggs to accommodate for new equipment. Any left over rack space could be used for drawers, which you can never have too many of.

Doubt you need the mobility aspect of them, but the modularity is very nice. Setting up different configurations is as easy as just re-stacking your cases, along with changing all your cabling of course.

Tough cases too. Those cases take a heck of a beating (thrown in and out of trucks, being palletized for airlifts, etc), yet the equipment inside stays perfectly fine.

Edit: Found them on the web. These are the ones that I'm very familiar with.

http://www.hardigg.com/hardigg_cases/rackmount_cases.htm

Cost? LOL, as you see, there is no cost listed. They are one of those "contact us for a price" products. (IOW, if you have to ask...)

I seem to recall they were ~$600 each, but since I never purchased one don't quote that. We had over a hundred of them. I'd love to have a few at home...

Edit: Buy? Heck, try to hit Hardigg up for some freebies. They make a killing off the gub'mint. Maybe giving out free cases would be worth it to them to mention that they "also help look for ET" in their brochures. Or, maybe not. :-)

Create New clearance holes or Tapped holes using Transfer screws, Go to www.mcmaster-carr.com, catalog page 2236. See Transfer screws or self aligning transfer screws. Order a set or three (depending on thread diameter and pitch, and number of holes/side. Then thread in the transfer screws to the same depth, align up the mating rail, rap with a deadblow hammer to mark the exact location of the new holes on the rail. Use a center punch to increase the size of the indentations so that the drill bit won't drift as much, then select a clearance drill a few thousandths over the screw diameter. Drill new clearance holes in the rail. Repeat for each rail/device, then insert the device into the rack.

tada, job done

PS don't forget to use a counter sink or other deburring tool to the newly drilled holes to remove any burrs which could cut the skin of any employees.

have fun
tony

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Another option would be to set your own standard. Ensure your standard screws are equal to or larger in diameter to any available other standard. Then Drill and Tap the threaded holes to the "berkeley" standard, and drill to clearance diameter and debur the clearance holes. It just requires a drilling and tapping to all new equipment that doesn't meet your standard.

Hmmm, remember to remove gear/protect equipment from flying/falling metal chips. Vacuum/remove ANY metal chips. Oh yeah, a "stop collar" on the drill to prevent it from penetrating beyond the necessary depth, is also a good idea.

WIth enough ingenuity, and spare hardware laying around (mounting or even metal scrap), anything smaller than a rack can be rackmounted. I've rackmounted heavy, stand-alone, spectrum analyzers. Once even rackmounted a TV, DVD player, and an Xbox in a Hardigg.