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These days, IPMI 2.0 with KVM-over-IP functionality is virtually a requirement on server boards unless one is using an external KVM-over-IP unit plus an IP switched power distribution unit. Being able to remotely administer not just the operating system, as one can with tools like SSH/ Telnet, VNC and Remote Desktop clients is a huge advantage when things go awry. With the new onboard management features, one can power cycle a machine, change BIOS settings, change RAID controller firmware settings, flash cards using DOS based utilities, and recover from operating system kernel crashes where the OS fails to boot, all without having to physically be near a server. Last year, I needed to access some critical data on a server that experienced a Linux kernel panic and was able to remotely reboot and fix the machine, located in California, while on a business trip in Amsterdam. Being able to perform these tasks is generally well worth the $30-50 vendors charge for the functionality. This article will focus on Tyan’s onboard WebGUI allowing one to perform similar functions remotely. Read the full story

This preview release has all the functionality of the first preview (0.1.7-preview), but in addition has the following changes:

The Mesa ZFS Web Interface/ ZFSguru benchmark has been recently updated since my last post on the Mesa ZFS Web Interface 0.1.7-Preview. Some of the highlight changes are support for the Supermicro AOC-SAT2-MV8 host bus adapter, a SMART monitoring interface, and an upgraded ZFS implementation. Again, this is not a “stable” release for production systems, but the ZFSguru benchmark is a good tool to burn-in hard drives due to the length of runs and the load put on drives. Here are the changes since the first preview release: Read the full story

To update to my review of the Supermicro X8SIL-F, I took some Kill-A-Watt power consumption numbers with the Supermicro X8SIL-F to answer a few questions regarding power consumption with real server hardware compared to consumer-level hardware. Below I am focusing on idle power consumption as with the Intel Core i3-530, Xeon X3440, and other LGA 1156 CPUs the CPU utilization while running a NAS application will be very low. After a bit of testing I found the i3-530 again leading the pack in idle power consumption and the Xeon X3440 turning in very respectable idle power consumption numbers.

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