I'd like to get advice, anecdotes, stories of success or failure,
etc. from folks running NetBSD-5.x on the latest available top-end i386
or amd64 servers. Preferably some big-iron name brand with world-wide
sales and warranty support.
I'm looking to build a small cluster of 2-4 servers with 2-4 sockets
each (4-16 cores each), 64-bit addressing for lots of RAM (8GB-16GB or
more), decently fast but rugged storage (hardware RAID with in-firmware
RAID management), possibly external SAN-like storage as well. 2 x GigE,
of course, some kind of remote console (ideally serial or working IPMI
SOL), USB, etc.
All of the on-board hardware, including especially management and
maintenance hardware (health and environment monitoring), remote access,
etc., must be supported well enough to be used reliably in production.
I'm thinking of using Xen, though that's not yet firm (I'd use it in a
heartbeat if there was domU SMP support, and/or if I could use Remus).
I.e. they don't have to be huge massive systems -- but reasonably
powerful, brand-new under-warranty, and easily available world-wide, as
they won't be purchased or be running anywhere near North America or
Europe (or Japan, etc. either).
Initially HP was suggested as a vendor, but I'm extremely suspicious of
how well their small to mid-range servers can by supported by NetBSD-5.
I would be equally worried about current IBM offerings.
Dell servers seemed, to me, to have had a better record of being fully
supported, especially brand new ones at release date. R510? R710?
--
Greg A. Woods
Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.com@localhost> +1 250 762-7675 http://www.planix.com/
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