'Real Skutter' is here

The server we bought to host the VERA project software has arrived. I have put it into the rack in the ACET server room and installed the OS.

Until now we have been making do with ‘virtual kKutter’ which was a virtual machine running on our Xen hosting platform. This allowed us to get going with the VERA work while we waited for the right boxes to get ticked and the server delivered.

‘Real Skutter’ is a Dell SC1435 1U server and is one of the first Opteron boxes Dell started selling. It has the following vital statistics:

2 x Opteron 2210 1.8Ghz/2M (dual core) CPUs
2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
2 x 160GB SATA (7,200rpm) HDs
SAS5iR RAID controller

I went for Opteron over Intel because we wanted a 4 core system and the Opterons give you a lot of bang for your buck. The reasoning behind 4 cores is that we will be running a lot of heavily threaded Java software and more cores should mean more bang. Dell we surprised we didn't want more memory but 2GB should be more than enough for the website software and portal container (2GB should enough for anyone don't you know). The HDs are configured as RAID1 (mirroring), which is the most sane configuration for this size of box.

Now that he is installed the plan is migrate the VERA content form the Xen host and into its final resting place. This will require some hoop jumping as things like domain names will need changing by the central IT people but hopefully things will go smoothly.

Here are a couple of pictures of Skutter when I was configuring him (sitting on the floor, like you do), a picture of him in his rack and a view down the length of the ACET machine room.