[sclug] Linux friendly rack mountable server suppliers

[lug at assursys.co.uk]

On Tue, 5 Aug 2003, Tim Sutton wrote:

> We are on the point of buying a couple of servers. We are looking for the most 
> 'bang for the buck' we can get with a price cap of ?1500 per machine. They 
> must be rack mountable. They must be linux friendly. AMD chips are 
> preferable. Dual processors are preferrable.

Before I saw dnuk.com, I was pretty sure your AMD/Dual Processor/<=1500GBP
requirements were incompatible (pick any two) but I see they do dual Athlon
MP boaxes from 1205+VAT. I had forgotten about the MP, and figured the
Opteron was the first AMD CPU that could be used in a MP configuration with
(relatively) commodity hardware.

Regardless, if you're doing any appreciable disk IO, I'd suggest that you're
probably better off with Intel machines as their chipsets are usually better
documented and the drivers therefore more reliable and/or better-supported,
especially with DMA.

Remember also, that Intel have their own C++ compiler which they claim
produces code upto 30% faster than gcc 3.2's. It looks as though they charge
US$100 for an academic license.
<http://www.intel.com/software/products/compilers/clin/> (compile once with
one license, run optimised code on n machines to amortize the license cost).

> Does anyone know any suppliers that they can recommend? Is anyone on the
> list a hardware vendor?

I'd start with dnuk.com and transtec.co.uk, but I've not had any experiences
with either. Dell are also worth a shot - their kit seems pretty well
screwed together and comes with good hardware support.

> Many thanks

HTH,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>