[GLLUG] Power control over IP

[John Hearns]

I am a principal engineer with Dell. As James says, Dell servers have iDRAC
controllers which permit full remote operations on servers.
We can read out power consumption, fans speeds (etc. etc.), do firmware
upgrades to fleets of servers using Openmanage enterprise and proactively
monitor for failures (*)
If anyone needs help with iDRACs I am happy to provide some advice. If it
is a deeper technical issue I can contact engineering with your question.

There are remote KVM solutions - these were popular in the past in HPC but
I haven't seen one in use for years. Raritan brand rings a bell.

Regarding IP controllable power sockets APC/Schneider as said are a popular
brand. Note of course that you have to have an ethernet cable going to that
APC Power Distribution Unit!
Note also you want the BIOS set to Resume when Power is applied. no use in
switching a server off if..  Errr... you cant turn it on.

Regarding the network connection, iDRAC (and other BMC such as Supermicro)
can use a dedicated physicsl socket or can share the motherbord ethernet
socket.
Most HPC setups have a dedicated iDRAC/BMC setup with PDU connections on
separate 1Gbps switches. I would say that it is good practice to have a
dedicated and separate network for what I as a physicist would call 'slow
control'.


(*) there are different license levels for idRAC. You need the Enterprise
license for some of those features.












On Sat, 29 May 2021 at 16:19, stuart taylor via GLLUG <
gllug at mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> During the past 15 months I have managed to change various things
> involving our systems, for the better I think. We have also gained various
> part time volunteer admins, who are very good, mostly better than I am. One
> of them showed me how he could power down his servers remotely over IP, and
> restart them again. This looks very useful as we are spending less time at
> the building and mostly working from home. I have previously managed to
> obtain a cabinet, for our servers, change the lock for a padlock based
> system and restrict the key holders to a few people. This means switching
> servers on, or off, is better controlled, but also makes it more difficult
> for the admins to reboot when they are at home. Can anyone point me towards
> a suitable 'power supply over IP' solution? Are there any drawbacks to
> using these?
>
> Stuart
>
> --
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