Spiffy new toys in the lab :-)

Most of the purchases this year have been on the server side, but this week we’ve gotten several nice new pieces of client hardware for everyone to use here in the crunch time at the end of the semester.

First, we got six new quad-core AMD Linux boxes a few days ago that are all shiny and fast. Look for the boxes in the developer’s lab with the clear sides. We’ve also got a bunch of 24″ LCD monitors on order; when those come in we’ll be expanding the dual monitor setups in both labs.

And just today our new 24″ iMac arrived. It is also shiny and beautiful, and hard to miss in the developer’s lab. We might get some more of these if there’s interest and they’re getting used.

Let us know how things are working for you.

Any thoughts on the experiments with dual monitors?

Dual monitors by blue_gazelle from Flickr

As folks who spend time in the labs will have noticed, we’ve been exploring having a number of the computers set up with dual monitors. The details of the current setup will almost certainly have to change because we’re temporarily stealing monitors from other parts of the lab, but we can purchase additional kit if people think this is a good setup.

So we’d love feedback on how people feel about the new configurations, and any suggestions for ways to make the labs more effective workspaces. Feel free to leave comments here, or directly contact any of the faculty or student representatives. Thanks!

Lab is back up and spiffy fast :-)

CC photo: http://flickr.com/photos/publicenergy/

After many hours of hard work on Joe Rader’s part, the new server is installed and now serving all the home directories as well as several virtual machines providing general lab services and support for specific courses this semester. Based on early returns (today’s Software Design lab), the new server responds very nicely under load, and the lab is far more responsive than it was last fall. Thanks to Joe for all his work on this!

There are, however, two potential worries, both of which we’re working on.

First, and most pressing, is the very real possibility that the three 1Tb drives that form the RAID in the new server are all from the faulty series of Seagate drives, which means that fatal drive failures could happen at any time. We’re currently working to determine for sure whether our drives are from the problematic group, and then sort out the firmware update if they are. If the firmware does need to be updated, there’s likely to be a day of downtime while that happens since the drives will need to be removed, connected to a Windows box, updated, and then reinstalled. Sorry about that.

Second, there may be a heat issue in the rack with the addition of the new server. The new box is very powerful, which unfortunately also means quite warm, and the temperature in the rack has gone up appreciably since we installed it. The new server itself appears to be handling the temperatures fine, but the server that was installed last spring (and which currently provides our LDAP service) may be overheating. It’s locked up twice since we installed the new server, and heat may (or may not) be the cause. We’re going to look into rearranging the boxes in the rack to try to improve heat flow away from the servers, and we may need to install some additional fans in the ceiling of the rack to help move more of that hot air out of the rack. If you can’t seem to login to a client, that may be the problem, so contact one of us ASAP.

Many thanks for your patience, and enjoy the zippy new setup!