[THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
- From: Jeremy Saunders <jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 18:18:52 +0800
Steve,
Happy New Year.
It all comes under the customer service banner. It doesn't matter who is
responsible. I would have been escalating after two business days. From all
angles I believe that is a disgrace that your customer was put through
that.
Microsoft released the following KB article which explains the reason why
"Not All Physical Memory May Be Reported By The Operating System"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555458. The
hardware guys have confirmed that this is the exact reason that effects the
blades.
The Intel E7520 chipset is documented here
http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/embedded/e7520.htm, and from what I
understand is a standard chipset used for embedded PCI devices on all EM64T
motherboards.
Cheers.
Kind regards,
Jeremy Saunders
Senior Technical Specialist
Integrated Technology Services &
Cerulean
IBM Australia
Level 2, 1060 Hay Street
West Perth WA 6005
Visit us at
http://www.ibm.com/services/au/its
P: +61 8 9261 8412 F: +61 8 9261 8486
M: TBA E-mail:
jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx
"Steve Greenberg"
<steveg@thinclien
t.net> To
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Subject
[THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix
23/12/2005 11:44 vs. HP DL360?
PM
Please respond to
thin
Unfortunately the problems that were described took several months to
resolve. The issue was not with customer service, which appeared fairly
responsive, the issue is that there were many repeated issues across
multiple chassis and multiple parts. Part of the issue was firmware
versions
that did not function properly and new revisions had to be waited for.
So this may have been a case of a bad crop of lemons but it clearly left
one
feeling like the product line, or at least that particular rev, was not
ready for prime time.
I think the issue with system board memory is simply a poor design. RAM is
precious in multi-user environments and when the customer purchases and
installs 4GB and only gets 3.17 this is a real limiting factor in the
overall system performance and pretty clearly is poor design.
Steve Greenberg
Thin Client Computing
34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
Scottsdale, AZ 85262
(602) 432-8649
www.thinclient.net
steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of Jeremy Saunders
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2005 3:45 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
What can I say??? I guess that even after the burn-in and QA process you
are always going to get a failure or two. Many are due to freight. And
unfortunately, your customer was the one. Was IBM, or the service agent,
reactive enough to get this all fixed over a period of a couple of days?
Nearly 20 years ago I bought a brand new Subrau 4WD and had heaps of
problems with it over the first few months (gear box crunching and tyre
wear were the main ones). Eventually, I personally got Subaru involved and
threatened media involvement, as I wasn't happy with the answers I was
getting from the service agent. Then the car got fixed. It didn't leave me
with a bad taste for Subaru's, or the model of car I bought, in fact from
then on it was perfect. But I was not impressed with the attitude from the
staff at the service agent/dealer I bought it from, and would continue to
bad mouth them to this day.
What I'm trying to say that poor service is unacceptable. And you need to
make sure you let the right people know, as you may not be the only one
receiving it. It's also important that you sit down with one of the xSeries
specialists and whiteboard all your concerns. Then you will understand why
things are the way they are. I'm not that person, as I am in a similar boat
to you. However, what I can do is forward something internally so that the
sepcialist in your region will pay your customer a visit with you and go
through these issues properly and professionally. I don't think it's
acceptable that anyone should have an experience like this without the
Vendor getting involved to at least apologise...if nothing else.
Yeh...that memory one had me wondering why they had to do it that way? And
it is an annoyance, but I have no idea if it's limitting or improving my
functionality or performance at all. I'm not an expert on the hardware, so
I have no idea if it's more efficient to do it this way. It's reserved for
the PCI devices. But to design it this way means that they must know more
about the memory requirements of the PCI devices than you or I.
"The blades sometimes shutdown during a power cycle... The only way to
bring it back is to pull in and reseat it in the chassis."
- I assume this is now fixed and was part of the initial fault.
"The passive backplane isn't really passive, thus forcing us to disable the
switch when we want to reimage a server."
- We've not found this at all. Was it a version of firmware that fixed it?
"I'm not fond of the Web GUI it has for remote controlling the console, I
think it's clumsy, the java applets bomb from time to time."
- Fair enough. Most things Java have their problems. But I think alot of
that is caused by the continual change in versions released by Sun. I'm
finding that versions 1.4.2.06 and 1.4.2.10 have been 100% reliable. But
your experiences with the IBM stuff sounds like my experiences with the HP
stuff.
I hope that goes someway towards an apology on IBMs behalf. :)
Cheers.
Kind regards,
Jeremy Saunders
Senior Technical Specialist
Integrated Technology Services &
Cerulean
IBM Australia
Level 2, 1060 Hay Street
West Perth WA 6005
Visit us at
http://www.ibm.com/services/au/its
P: +61 8 9261 8412 F: +61 8 9261 8486
M: TBA E-mail:
jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx
"Steve Greenberg"
<steveg@thinclien
t.net> To
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Subject
[THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix
23/12/2005 01:40 vs. HP DL360?
AM
Please respond to
thin
Hi Jeremy,
I work with Joe on the customer he is referring to and all the major parts
have been swapped out and in the end most of the issues were eventuall
resolved. However, it leaves one wondering why you had to go through it in
the first place.
Another annoyance to me is the fact that significant chunks of RAM are used
up by on-board shared memory components so that a 4GB RAM system shows 3.17
available. Yes you can /PAE, etc. but why have to....
Steve Greenberg
Thin Client Computing
34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
Scottsdale, AZ 85262
(602) 432-8649
www.thinclient.net
steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of Jeremy Saunders
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 9:16 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
I've never heard of, or experienced your issues Joe. You must have, what we
refer to in Australia as a "lemon" or a dud. Have you spoken to anyone
about these issues? I'm not a hardware tech, but it sounds like you've got
a faulty backplane, or chassis. I wouldn't accept an answer if someone
tells you that there is nothing wrong with it. Because clearly there is. A
faulty product does not mean it's a bad product.
I've also not had any problems with the Web GUI...and have found the Java
stuff to be very stable. Could be the Java version you are running on the
client.
Your right James. I should be at that point, and I want to be at that
point, but there are always too many other things to do and learn. I do a
lot of IP Telephony, AD and Exchange as well.
Kind regards,
Jeremy Saunders
Senior Technical Specialist
Integrated Technology Services &
Cerulean
IBM Australia
Level 2, 1060 Hay Street
West Perth WA 6005
Visit us at
http://www.ibm.com/services/au/its
P: +61 8 9261 8412 F: +61 8 9261 8486
M: TBA E-mail:
jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx
"Joe Shonk"
<joe.shonk@gmail.
com> To
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Subject
[THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix
22/12/2005 10:45 vs. HP DL360?
PM
Please respond to
thin
It's weird that people have completely different experiences with the same
hardware... Jeremy like the IBM HS20... I personally think they are crap.
Power on 7 servers are you are already at 2100 watts. 100 watts over the
ability to make that domain redundant. The blades sometimes shutdown
during
a power cycle... The only way to bring it back is to pull in and reseat it
in the chassis.
I'm not fond of the Web GUI it has for remote controlling the console, I
think it's clumsy, the java applets bomb from time to time.
The passive backplane isn't really passive, thus forcing us to disable the
switch when we want to reimage a server... The build in cisco switch wasn't
all that better.
I think the problems with excessive vibrations has been solved.
The list goes on and on...
Joe
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of James Lilly
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 7:29 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
I guess I'm just used to running servers with no floppy, no CD, and no KVM
switch. (We really managed everything through Altiris and the iLO with
virtual floppys and CD's even before we went to blades, so the lack of
those
features never hurt us.
You are absolutely right, it is a matter of personal preference. My list
and yours just apparently goes in a different order. :)
That's what keeps companies in competition*.my main beef with the HPs is
the
Rube Goldberg power distribution system they use for their bus bars in the
back. :)
James
_____________________________________________
From: jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 5:41 PM
To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
Interesting view James.
Even though I work for IBM, we also deploy HP, Dell, etc. We are part of
the service arm. I am infact a HP ASE. My experience has found that the HP
blades are difficult to work with. The Java interface to the Advanced iLO
is poor (mouse sync is a known issue), etc.
The IBMs also have build in Floppy, CD and USB, and a KVM switch. The
method to achieve this through the HPs always leaves me very frustrated.
People tend to buy the HP blades due to the fact that they are a HP house,
and are more interested in sticking with HP. But if I get a chance to
demonstrate the two, customers then choose IBM.
I think it all comes down to preferences and peoples aliances.
Kind regards,
Jeremy Saunders
Senior Technical Specialist
Integrated Technology Services &
Cerulean
IBM Australia
Level 2, 1060 Hay Street
West Perth WA 6005
Visit us at
http://www.ibm.com/services/au/its
P: +61 8 9261 8412 F: +61 8 9261 8486
M: TBA E-mail:
jeremy.saunders@xxxxxxxxxxx
"James Lilly"
<LillyJ@xxxxxxxxx
om> To
Sent by: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
thin-bounce@freel <BClaus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
ists.org cc
Subject
21/12/2005 06:10 [THIN] Re: IBM blades for Citrix
AM vs. HP DL360?
Please respond to
thin
Place where I used to work picked the HP BL-series blades over the DL360's,
IBM and Dell blades, and we were very happy with them. At the time, we had
two fully-populated racks of them, and I'm sure in the two years since I've
left that job, they have added more (and they still rave about them).
We chose them because of:
1. Hot-swappable drives in the blade itself
2. Larger variety of networking options (in-chassis switch, in-chassis
pass-through patch panel, in-chassis switch or patch panel with Fibre
Channel)
3. HP beat the snot out of the other vendors in managablity (Altiris
rocks*..plus, at that time, the built-in iLOs for remote-management allowed
each blade to have a unique IP and connection for remote management, IIRC,
the Dell and IBM had one remote connection per blade chassis.)
The major knock against the IBMs for us was twofold:
1. Had some really, really bad experiences with the IBM 2U servers right
before that in Linux-land. (x330 maybe, I can't remember the IBM model
numbers, but I remember it was a 2U).
2. Their FC connectivity at that time made highway robbery look appealing.
Any reason why you aren't looking at the HP BL-series to replace your
DL360's?
James
_____________________________________________
From: BClaus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 3:56 PM
To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [THIN] IBM blades for Citrix vs. HP DL360?
Anyone want to chime in with their 2 cents on the IBM blade vs the HP
DL360? We're currently using the DL360s but looking at the IBMs...just
wondering if anyone had any stories to tell.
Thanks!
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