I've got a CentOS server somewhere in the building; I can login into it remotely and VNC, etc. Now I've got to physically move it, and for that I need to physically locate the machine among the lookalikes around the office.
What can I do remotely to make the machine visibly or audibly identify itself?
We just took delivery of a new Avaya 2500 48-port switch, that has 24 PoE ports. The problem is that all the PoE ports are on the left-hand size of the switch, and our PoE device cables can only reach the right-hand side of the switch (we're upgrading from an old switch to a new one, and the old one had them on the right-hand side. This is the problem with doing neat cabling).
Can I just mount the switch upside down? This would move the left-hand ports to the right-hand side and problem solved.
My largest concern is that airflow or cooling might not work, but I can't see any visible breathing holes in the bottom or top of the switch which leads me to believe it will be OK, but better safe than sorry.
We're moving into a new office in an old building in London (that's England :) and are walling off a 2m x 1.3m area where the router & telephone equipment currently terminates to use as a server closet. The closet will contain:
There is no central A/C in the office and there never will be. We can install ducting to the outside quite easily - it's only a couple of metres to the windows, which face a courtyard.
My question is whether installing an extractor fan with ducting to the window should be sufficient for cooling? Would an intake fan and intake duct (from the window, too) be required? We don't want to leave a gap in the closet door as that'll let noise out into the office. If we don't have to put a portable A/C unit into the closet, that'd be perfect.
The office has about 12 people; London is temperate, average maximum in August is 31 Celsius, 25 Celsius is more typical. The same equipment runs fine in our current office (same building as new office, also no A/C) but it isn't in an enclosed space.
I can see us putting say one Dell 2950 tower server into the closet, but no more than that. So, sustained power consumption in the closet would currently be about 800w (I'm guessing); possibly in the future 2kw.
The closet will have a ceiling and no windows and be well-insulated. We don't care if the equipment runs hot, so long as it runs and we don't hear it.
It seems like there's a lot of disagreement in mindsets when it comes to installing rackmount servers. There have been threads discussing cable arms and other rackmount accessories, but I'm curious:
Do you leave an empty rack unit between your servers when you install them? Why or why not? Do you have any empirical evidence to support your ideas? Is anyone aware of a study which proves conclusively whether one is better or not?
When I was working in our server room, I noticed that it was very cold.
I know that the server room has to be cold to offset the heat of the servers, but perhaps it is TOO cold.
What is an appropriate temperature to keep our server room at?