DRAC5 is your pal.
Remote server administration can be a real pain, especially if you don’t have a knowledgeable onsite person to help troubleshoot problems. In my current role, I am responsible for 11 remote sites which all have servers that occasionally need maintenance or troubleshooting. Fortunately, I just finished rolling out new servers to all of these locations and remote administration is a whole lot easier now.
All of the sites are now running Dell 19XX series servers, and every new server that went out included a DRAC5 card, which is specially designed to work with the PowerEdge 19XX servers. I figured that these cards would be a good idea for remote sites, but they work so well that I have since purchased a bunch of extra DRAC5 cards and installed them in all the servers at my local site as well, which saves me trips to the office on occasion.
The Dell Remote Access Controller version 5 (DRAC5) cards are basically a tiny system-on-a-chip in the form of an addon board that connects directly to the server motherboard and power supply, and has an external RJ45 network jack. They are completely independent of the main server chassis and even if the server is off (but plugged in), the DRAC5 card is on and will respond to network requests. This makes it possible to do stuff that would normally only be available locally. Someone still needs to plug the server in and connect it to a live network port, but that’s pretty much it.
The DRAC5 card does a lot of cool stuff, but I have found these features most useful:
1. Remote power off/on: As long as the server is plugged into a power source and the DRAC5 card is plugged into a live network jack, the server can be turned ON / OFF remotely. It can even be forced to turn off in the even that the server freezes. It is essentially the same as hitting the power button on the server.
2. IP KVM: Dell calls it a remote console, but it is a full functional IP KVM connection that runs thru the DRAC5 network interface. This means that even if the server LAN ports are not plugged in, you can still get a remote session where you can interface with the Linux console or Windows desktop.
3. Virtual Media: In addition to the CD/DVD drive in the server, a virtual device is created and you can put a CD in your workstation and mount it on the remote server. Even more nifty is the ability to directly mount an ISO image!
Used in combination, these three features can be extremely handy. It is possible to ship a bare server with no operating system to a remote site and perform the entire OS install remotely. First you would connect to the DRAC5 web management interface and launch the IP KVM, then flip over to the virtual media options and mount your Linux or Windows ISO/CD/DVD. Finally, you would power on the machine and watch it post in the IP KVM, then start the installation!
Suffice to say, I doubt I will ever roll out another Dell server without a DRAC card installed.
Pet Peeve: Streaming Video Players With No Volume Control
What kind of idiot web admin serves up streaming video without volume level control? It really pisses me off when my only sound options are ON / OFF, especially when the fixed audio volume is way too loud.
My rating for the consumer reports website is: CRAP!
Zelda Makes You SHOUT!
The Nintendo Wii gets a lot of attention due largely in part to it’s innovative wiimote, and rightfully so – it’s a completely different experience than playing other consoles. It seems everyone from little kids to grannies love to play the Wii. However, I still log far more hours on my DS lite (probably because of the portability factor). Like the wiimote, the DS Stylus allows for some revolutionary yet simple game play.
My latest obsession has been The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. I was a bit concerned at first, as you have to make Link move around with the stylus. At first I was annoyed by this, and some times it still bugs me when my hand gets in the way of the screen, but overall the controls are decent. What has really drawn me into the game is the really unique puzzles the methods you have to employ to solve them. Nintendo has constructed some really innovative ways to use the DS lite for game play. I’m really not all that far into the game and have already come across three pretty tricky puzzles (caution – these are sort of puzzle spoilers):
1. Blowing out the torches at a temple entrance- First I tried swiping the candles with the stylus, then I realized that you LITERALLY HAVE TO BLOW on the DS lite to blow out the candles! The built in microphone senses you blowing on the it and the candles go out.
2. Yelling at the guy in the machine shop to give you a salvage arm for your ship- I had to YELL OUT LOUD to the character, “I WANT THE SALVAGE ARM, PLEEEEAAASE LET ME BUY IT!!”. I was a bit timid at first and I ended up having to yell three times because the dude said I wasn’t enthusiastic enough the first two times. Even after three attempts, I must not have yelled loud enough, cause it still cost me 1000 rupees. As fate would have it, this particular part of the game transpired while I was parked on the toilet.
3. Pressing a spot on a map to the your sea chart- This one had me baffled for the longest time. I left the temple a few times and was steaming mad because I couldn’t figure it out. The game kept hinting that I needed to press the map to the sea chart. I thought I was going to snap the stylus in half as I kept pressing on the map. The game went as far as to tell me that the maps were like a mirror image. I was starting to get pretty pissed off at this point. Finally I realized that since the images on the top and bottom screens were mirror images, if there were some way to drag the top screen onto the bottom, I could press the maps together….it was then that my brain clicked out of 2-D video game mode and I realized that if I actually closed the DS lite lid, it would be like pressing the maps together. Normally when you close the screen of the DS lite, it goes into a suspend mode, but in this case when I closed and re-opened it, the game registered the action and the marker was pressed onto my sea chart! What a cool way to take advantage of the hardware!
This is the sort of stuff that makes Nintendo and their game developers stand out above all the other software / hardware players. I’m constantly amazed at the cool stuff the folks at Nintendo cook up. Things like the examples above are what keep me hooked on my DS lite, wondering what crazy stuff I’m going to have to do in order to solve the next big Zelda puzzle!